Joseph Altuzarra Quotes

The best and the worst thing about fashion is that anyone can do it. But because fashion can be the most unintellectual thing, you have to turn it into an intellectual exercise just for your own sanity. You have to start with a conceit.

I honestly think that with our generation - Alex Wang, Prabal Gurung, Jason Wu, Christian Cota, Robert Geller - there's a different expectation of what our behavior should be. People expect designers to be good businesspeople and PR people, and I don't think partying is a part of that persona the way it used to be.

I'm always fetishizing the French woman and French taste and style. My assistant will make fun of me because every time we're picking the direction of a collection, I say the same thing: 'I want it to be really French.'

When you live in Paris, and fashion is such a point of pride for the French, it's always around and you're very much exposed to it from an early age. It was always something I knew about and really liked.

When I'm not working, I'm walking.

There's a side to me that likes to make clothes for everyday. But I also think of fashion as an escape. It's like a dream. Even in an economy that isn't strong and where it's important to sell clothes, you have to make things that let people dream a little.

Starting your own business and thinking about how you can grow something and fulfill both expectations and needs of your retailers and still stay exciting for the runway, you sort of become this left brain-right brain person pretty quickly.

I think designers are starting to realize that we're all in the same industry. We're making clothes - we aren't saving the world. I'm not saying that designers aren't artists, but at the end of the day, we make clothes.

I was also very lucky to be able to work with talented people while I was learning. I didn't actually go to fashion school. I worked with Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy which was a really pivotal experience for me. He taught me a lot about being faithful to your own voice and to really believe in your own voice and that's made a big difference.

I was not a very popular kid in high school, and I had this idea that the way that I dressed would change how liked I was. It was that kind of Pygmalion story. I think, ultimately that's probably why I became interested in fashion, its transformative power, and how it can change your identity.

In architecture and interiors, as well as fashion, there is an interaction that is both functional and aesthetic.

My mother has a very chic sense of style, but she also has high expectations for her clothes to be functional and practical.

If you take away print and embroidery, you have to challenge yourself a bit more on the cut.

I always listen to music while I draw.

One of my biggest pet peeves is well-dressed designers. If you spend that much time thinking about your own clothes, you're not spending enough time thinking about what you're designing.

It's important not to take all this fashion stuff too seriously, and I kind of love the idea of cheesiness.

I wanted to create clothes for women in their 40s and 50s and 60s who have careers and are sexy and don't want to look like grandmothers.

I think women want to feel beautiful. They want to feel seductive. I also try to think about items that can be worn in different ways so they can be worn more than once. If you're going to buy a $2,000 jacket, you are going to want to wear it over and over.

One of the guiding principles of Altuzarra is that fashion can be transformative, changing not just the way you look, but also the way you feel. By partnering with Target, we hope to bring that same experience to a much broader range of women.