Vivienne Westwood Quotes

Britishness is just a way of putting things together and a certain don't care attitude about clothes. You don't care, you just do it and it looks great.

I didn't consider myself a fashion designer at all at the time of punk. I was just using fashion as a way to express my resistance and to be rebellious. I came from the country, and by the time I got to London, I considered myself to be very stupid. It was my ambition to understand the world I live in.

Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture.

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline ... because you need to be alone to find out anything.

The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.

I've always had my own access to the public, because I started off making my clothes for a little shop, and so I've always had people buying them. I could always sell a few, even if I couldn't sell a lot, and somehow my business grew because people happened to like it. I'm in a fortunate position.

The last people with any ideas are young people.

I'm a fashion designer and people think, what do I know?

I don't feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don't have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you've got the money to be able to afford it, then it's really good to buy something from me, but don't buy too much.

But, the thing is, since I always had my own little shop and direct access to the public, I've been able to build up a technique without marketing people ever telling me what the public wants.

I have always loved the Mao cap, though I hate violent revolution.

The best night of my life was watching the Japanese Noh theater. I've only seen it once, but even saying it now, I think, 'How can I ever have this experience again?' It was so mesmerizing, so complicated and so primordial; I could not believe it.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

Instead of buying six things, buy one thing that you really like. Don't keep buying just for the sake of it.

I just think people should invest in the world. Don't invest in fashion, but invest in the world.

Everyone has a masculine and feminine side; masculine qualities and feminine qualities. We've all got these sides to ourselves. And clothes can tell that story. People would think this is very unsympathetic, but I would always say to people, you don't actually need to go through with an operation, can't you just be? You are who you are! But then people say to me, "Oh, you're really dreadful, how would you know?".

I like to literally put women on a pedestal

I can't think without my glasses.

I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features.

Nothing is costed properly and it's destroying the earth. We need to re-educate people that what is good for the planet is good for the financial system.

But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing.

If you ask me what I think people should be getting next season, I'll tell you what I'd like them to buy - nothing. I'd like people to stop buying and buying and buying.

It's true the punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles. These motifs were so iconic in themselves - motifs of rebellion.

I'm not sure what I think about current fashion, though. A few years ago, I would have said it's really, really bad and you hardly ever see anybody looking good. There must be some very good designers in the world.

I have been asked what would I ban immediately if I could. Advertising.

I love designing at the moment, I'm so happy with my work.

My son has followed fashion since he was a punk. He and I agree that fashion is about sex.

When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla - a rebel.

I don't care how many beauty treatments you have, I don't care which bag you're carrying - you have to have a dress.

You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.

Why do people think that if you don't dress up, others will appreciate your beauty more - that style will somehow emanate from you? It's rubbish. If you dress up it helps your personality to emerge - if you choose well

If we didn't have the Chinese buying things, we'd be on the floor.

I didn't want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn't like it. I always wanted to do other things.

The French have got taste.

I don't think punk fashion is a specter or overemphasized - it made a big impression, as there had never been anything like it before.

Every time I have to look up a word in the dictionary, I'm delighted.

I was so upset with what was going on in the world. I just couldn't stand the idea of being people tortured and that we even had such a thing as war. I hated the older generation, who had not done anything about it. Punk was a call-to-arms for me.

The whole basis of my work is analysing what I do and building some sort of intellectual framework. The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas. They are the only subversion.

Buy less, choose well & do it yourself!

The fight is no longer between the classes or between rich and poor but between the idiots and the eco-conscious.

I just use fashion as an excuse to talk about politics. Because I'm a fashion designer, it gives me a voice, which is really good.

Buy less, choose well: that's the maxim. Quality not quantity. That's the most environmentally friendly thing you can do.

The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.

I urge everyone to be trendsetters for Azza Suleiman. Let's make it one fashion which everyone will want to follow.

We based the look on rock 'n roll right from the beginning.

I'm different from any other designer, businesswise, in that I've built this company up and I own it. I never had business hype behind me to promote my image ... My image is real ... I have never had marketing people telling me what to do.

It's better to look important than sexy.

Sometimes you need to transport your idea to an empty landscape and then populate it with fantastic looking people.

I own my own company, so I've never had businessmen telling me what to do or getting worried if something doesn't sell. I've always had my own access to the public, because I started off making my clothes for a little shop and so I've always had people buying them.

In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don't understand.

How impossible it is for us to imagine ourselves victims of disaster. We suffer for the poor people who were thrown into the sea from their cruise ship off the coast of Tuscany, some losing their lives. Imagine a world of accelerating natural disasters, one after the other so that nobody can help anyone else.

It is extremely difficult to say how long the process actually took to finally achieve my fragrance, Boudoir, because there was a lot of time waiting around for other people.

The orb came about because I wanted to do this kitsch sweater for Prince Charles when he went hunting and fishing with his kilt on.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who's spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

My clothes have always got a very strong dynamic rapport with the body - they are very body conscious, they help you to look glamorous, more hourglass, more woman.

Every time I hear that word, I cringe. Fun! I think it's disgusting; it's just running around. It's not my idea of pleasure.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn't try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them - they are individual and stylish.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn't care about suffering. I always did.

I've got a real sense of three-dimensional geometry. I can look at a flat piece of fabric and know that if I put a slit in it and make some fabric travel around a square, then when you lift it up it will drape in a certain way, and I can feel how that will happen.

I'm not terribly interested in beauty. What touches me is someone who understands herself.

And it's absolutely great, when everything comes together with the hair, the dresses and the makeup and the models and the music and the presentation. I can't get over these girls. They look wonderful. But by the time we finish with them, they look like they came from another planet. And I just think it's great.

I really don't like women who try to be men. All these politicians, I think they're horrendous. We could have a brilliant future, but we have this terrible male vision of destroying everything. They'd better sort themselves out and become more womanly.

Print some money and give it to us for the rain forests.

Real art has been ... what's the word? Kidnapped? No, that's not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

I do think if you aim for quality, it's not so much about consumerism. The idea is 'Buy less, choose well, make it last,'

I disagree with everything I used to say.

I'm very lucky. The public happens to like me. Maybe they like me because I use every opportunity to talk about injustice.

We are the most amazing creatures that this world has ever produced, but we seem to also have this herd mentality; we seem to be the most stupid, also.

There is a real connection between culture and climate change. We all have a part to play and if you engage with life, you will get a new set of values, get off the consumer treadmill, and start to think, and it is these great thinkers who will rescue the planet.

A status symbol is a book. A very easy book to read is The Catcher in the Rye. Walk around with that under your arm, kids. That is status.

I try to concentrate on quality clothing and accessories that are worth having, and to get my people to take fewer trips by air and stay longer each time they travel. It's more human, especially if they take time to visit an art gallery while there.

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

I have certain signatures, certain cutting principles. It could be a raw-edged seam; it could be leaving the lining of sheepskin exposed so it's not perfectly finished. I invent new ways to do it, but the end goal is always the same.

I'm always attracted to people who interest me. They've got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They're interested in people.

In general: the true artist is always true to his art; the impostor is self-conscious, demonstrating his idea, projecting his theory, his ego, and e.g. the figures of the painter are not borrowed ideas who demonstrate themselves talking, dying, dreaming - they dot it. They are not of themselves and they LIVE! -And the flowers are not showing us how pretty they are, or how weird. They are what they are - Etc.! No invention for the sake of invention! Invention must serve the purpose of art.

I do have reasons for what I do. I am a very political person, and I really think if you put these clothes on, you will look like a force to be reckoned with.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like - full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

I was a punk before it got its name. I had that hairstyle and purple lipstick.

In the 18th century, if women wanted to travel and they dressed as a man, people would not look twice. Your clothes said everything. Also there were masters and servants swapping clothes. You could be anything, your clothes told everything!

The thing that makes my clothes really different is that, number one, they are really great designs; they're not tacky; they are very professional; the design is made from lots of decisions.

I wish you didn't have to design so often. Try to do quality and cut down on quantity. I think fashion is very, very important.

I think it is a good thing to buy less and choose well - it's good for the environment and to be fair it's also good for me because my clothes are quite expensive.

Being part of a community with a church at its centre and singin' hymns is a great thing to do.

All that self-expression has just created a generation of morons, hooked on an endless appetite for rubbish.

If you wear clothes that don't suit you, you're a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

The most erotic zone is the imagination.

I'm the proof - you can't throw away tradition.

Fasion is about eventually becoming naked.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

I've got a terrible memory; it's probably because I'm always concentrating on what I'm doing now.

Home, more than anything, means warmth and bed.

The young Japanese, especially, love to wear the latest thing and when they come to London they head for my shops as part of what they want to find in Britain.

I very rarely watch my own fashion shows, but the makeup for my Fall 2011 show was just brilliant.

I talk to fashion designers and say I want some money to save the rainforest, and they say, 'Oh, I agree with you completely Vivienne. Yes, climate change, it's definitely happening,' but they don't feel that they can do anything about it; they don't even think 'Well let's stop it!'

I don't follow politics much.

The young need discipline and a full bookcase.

I'd like to be the last person alive in the world! Yes, I'd like to know what happens.