Alexander McQueen
I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.
I have been skiing since I was in school, but I'm not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not... black.
I like the idea of infiltrating an area that is not really exposed to me or my work.
I like the concept of dressing people. I used to not care whether people bought the clothes or not, but I kind of like it now. I wouldn't label that commercialism; it's more like I do this work because I want people to wear it.
I've had good times; I've had bad times.
The police need to come down to street level.
There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company.
I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.
The turnover of fashion is just so quick and so throwaway, and I think that is a big part of the problem. There is no longevity.
Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.
You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.
There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance.
I'm not big on women looking naive.
I think there is beauty in everything. What 'normal' people would perceive as ugly, I can usually see something of beauty in it.Collection: Fashion
The world needs fantasy, not reality. We have enough reality todayCollection: Reality
People don't want to see clothes, they want to see something that fuels the imagination.Collection: Clothes
Style is not about the clothes, it's about the individualCollection: Clothes
You've got to know the rules to break them. That's what I'm here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.Collection: Tradition
There is no better designer than natureCollection: Fashion
There comes a time in your life when you focus solely on what you believe is right, regardless of what everybody else is doing.Collection: Believe
Fashion is self confident and fearless.Collection: Fashion
I use things that people want to hide in their heads. War, religion, sex; things we all think about, but don’t bring to the forefront. But I do and I force them to watch itCollection: Sex
I oscillate between life and death, happiness and sadness, good and evil.Collection: Sadness
For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channeled through me. Fashion is just the medium.Collection: Fashion
It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle - everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.Collection: Cycle Of Life
Beauty can come from the strangest of places, even the most disgusting of places.Collection: Disgusting
If you're lucky enough to use something you see in a dream, it is purely original. It's not in the world - it's in your head. I think that is amazing.Collection: Dream
I am constantly trying to reflect the way women are treated. It's hard to interpret that in clothes or in a show but there's always an underlying, sinister side to women's sexuality in my work because of the way I have seen women treated in my life. Where I come from, a woman met a man, had babies, moved to Dagenham, two up two down, made the dinner, went to bed. That was my image of women and I didn't want that. I wanted to get that out of my head.Collection: Baby
I find beauty in melancholy.Collection: Inspirational
There's beauty in anger, and anger for me is a passion.Collection: Passion
Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.Collection: Eagles
You've got to know the rules to break them.Collection: Break
I am an avid follower of the news, and sometimes you just can't take any more war, any more disasters, and you want to remind yourself there's beauty in the world. I wanted to show a more poetic side to my work. It was all about... a feeling of sadness, but in a cinematic kind of way. I find beauty in melancholy.Collection: War
I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time.Collection: Flower
There is no way back for me now, I'm going to take you on journeys you've never dreamed possibleCollection: Journey
It's the ugly things I notice more, because other people tend to ignore the ugly things.Collection: Ugly Things
It's almost like putting armor on a woman. It's a very psychological way of dressing.Collection: Armor
If you're an open book, there's no allure.Collection: Book
I like things to be modern and still have a bit of traditionCollection: Tradition
I think there has to be an underlying sexuality. There has to be a perverseness to the clothes. There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance. It's like a Story of O. I am not big on women looking naive. There has to be a sinister aspect, whether it's melancholy of sadomasochist. I think everyone has a deep sexuality, and sometimes it's good to use a little of it-and sometimes a lot of it-like a masquerade.Collection: Thinking
It needs to connect with the earth. Things that are processed and reprocessed lose their substance.Collection: Needs
I was this young boy and I saw this man with his hands round my sister's neck, I was just standing there with her two children beside me... Everything I've done since then was for the purpose of making women look stronger, not naïve. And so, when everyone started saying I was a misogynist, that really freaked me out. They didn't know me. They didn't know what I had seen in my life. That was the first part of fashion that I hated - people labeling me without knowing me.Collection: Fashion
There’s blood beneath every layer of skin.Collection: Blood
When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there’s a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful. It kind of fends people off.Collection: Powerful
Women should look like women. A piece of cardboard has no sexuality.Collection: Fashion
I'm the pink sheep in the family.Collection: Being Yourself
Life to me is a bit of a (Brothers) Grimm fairy tale.Collection: Brother
I'm about what goes through people's minds. The stuff that people don't want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what's buried in people's psyches.Collection: Psych
I think there is beauty in everything.Collection: Thinking