Vivienne Westwood Quotes

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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!' ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Wear a towel instead of a coat, it's very chic. Or your husband's boxer shorts with a belt, or something from your grandmother. It's all about do-it-yourself at the moment. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn't have anything. It's influenced the way I look at the world. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality. ~ Vivienne Westwood

When I was a little girl you used to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I am in my own head most of the time. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They're not men. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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

Fashion is life-enhancing and I think it's a lovely, generous thing to do for other people ~ Vivienne Westwood

Home, more than anything, means warmth and bed. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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

Buy less, choose well & do it yourself! ~ Vivienne Westwood

If you're too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion. ~ Vivienne Westwood

In history people dressed much better than we do today. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood makes such beautifully structured clothes that are especially flattering if you are curvy. ~ Antonia Thomas

I like my squishy, red, high-heeled Vivienne Westwood jelly shoes. They make you seem like you're much more of a go-er. ~ Nina Conti

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

The French have got taste. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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,' ~ Vivienne Westwood

There's this idea that somehow you've got to keep changing things, and as often as possible. Maybe if people just decided not to buy anything for a while, they'd get a chance to think about what they wanted; what they really liked. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I have too much product, and I'm trying to rein it in and sell more of my main collection. I wish you didn't have to design so often; it would be good if you could keep on selling the same things for a few years and not have to do new things all the time. ~ Vivienne Westwood

The last people with any ideas are young people. ~ Vivienne Westwood

There is so much that people take for granted. ~ Vivienne Westwood

At one time, I was very angry. I even treated fashion like a kind of crusade: you were either with us or against us, that kind of feeling. Now I know we need ideas, not kicking down a door. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Don't just eat McDonald's, get something a bit better. Eat a salad. That's what fashion is. It's something that is a bit better. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I like to literally put women on a pedestal ~ Vivienne Westwood

It's better to look important than sexy. ~ Vivienne Westwood

If Mrs Merkel wants to wear Westwood, I can promise that I will design clothes for her that will make her look chic, refined and influential. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

The best fashion accessory is a book. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

There's always a polemic in my clothes. ~ Vivienne Westwood

There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

I don't follow politics much. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

The main message we want to get out there is that climate change is caused by the rotten economic system. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I love lots of designers. I will always love Vivienne Westwood; she is a legendary designer. ~ Eliza Doolittle

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it? ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock 'n roll records to trendy customers. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

I have a company, and I've got to think about that. I'm trying to do my best there, and that's a much harder task. We recycle as much as possible, and we conserve. But I've always been one to save everything - I even walk up stairs on the very inside or the very outside to not wear out the tread. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Buy less, choose well & do it yourself! ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I'm a London girl, so I grew up on Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood ... Dior, Chanel, the usual suspects. ~ Natalie Dormer

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

I don't have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I'm left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

If you hear Anarchy in the UK today your hair stands on end. It gives you the shivers. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I didn't know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing. ~ Vivienne Westwood

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody's buying far too many clothes. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I don't have faith in young people any more. I don't waste time trying to communicate with them. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Save the rainforest for your loved ones ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Vivienne Westwood really inspires me. I love her punk ethos. ~ Charli XCX

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood

I eat only vegetables and fruit, and to me it's the most aspirational diet because it's so easy. It's quite simple, the cooking I do. ~ Vivienne Westwood

Journalists are usually quite jealous people, especially of intellectuals who are supposed to be in fashion. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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

I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life. ~ Vivienne Westwood

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. ~ Vivienne Westwood