Alexander McQueen
Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual.Collection: Clothes
People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don't see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.Collection: Inspirational
If you ask any lady they want to be taller, they want to be slimmer, you know, and they want a waist. I'm not here to make people look like a sack of potatoes.Collection: People
I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.Collection: Clothes
The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.Collection: Patriotic
The explosion of museum exhibitions is only a mirror image of what has happened to fashion itself this millennium. With the force of technology, instant images and global participation, fashion has developed from being a passion for a few to a fascination - and an entertainment - for everybody.Collection: Fashion
I was literally 3 years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life, through primary school, secondary school, all my life. I always, always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of twelve. I followed designer's careers. I knew Giorgio Armani was a window-dresser, Emanuel Ungaro was a tailor.Collection: Fashion
When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolutionCollection: Mistake
There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company. (But) I always remember that it's the fantasy, the artistic side, that makes customers want to buy the straightforward black pants.Collection: Fashion
I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.Collection: Fashion
I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.Collection: Creativity
My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them. . . . The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O’Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.Collection: Beautiful
Let me not forget the use of my own hands, that of a craftsman with eyes... that reflect the technology around me.Collection: Eye
I'm 40 now, but I want this to be a company that lives way beyond me, and I believe that customers are more important to making that happen than press. When I'm dead, hopefully this house will still be going. On a spaceship. Hopping up and down above earth.Collection: Fashion
When we put the antlers on the model and then draped over it the lace embroidery that we had made, we had to poke them through a £2,000 piece of work. But then it worked because it looks like she's rammed the piece of lace with her antlers. There's always spontaneity. You've got to allow for that in my shows.Collection: Looks
Animals fascinate me because you can find a force, an energy, a fear that also exists in sex.Collection: Sex
What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. . . . There's a lot of tribalism in the collections.Collection: African Tribes
I believe in that one-on-one sell. I don't really believe in flooding the market with loads of goods that don't mean much, and you lose your identity.Collection: Believe
These beautiful models were walking around in the room, and then suddenly this woman who wouldn’t be considered beautiful was revealed. It was about trying to trap something that wasn’t conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within.Collection: Beautiful
Having money hasn't changed me. If anything it's made my life worse. People come up to you who knew you before you were famous and who didn't come up to you before. I'm a clever designer. I can do what the client wants. But I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.Collection: Clever
You can only go forward by making mistakes. I'm twenty-seven, not fifty-seven. I'm not Givenchy, I'm Alexander McQueen.Collection: Mistake
London's where I was brought up. It's where my heart is and where I get my inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
Fashions fade, style is eternal. - Yves Saint-LaurentThe most important thing to remember is that you can wear all the greatest clothes and all the greatest shoes, but you've got to have a good spirit on the inside. That's what's really going to make you look like you're ready to rock the world. - Alicia KeysIt's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.Collection: Fashion
Some designers are so airy-fairy people can't connect with them. I hope people can relate to me, to a normal person who just happens to be a fashion designer, that people can take me as they find me. It's not the designer's job to care about what people think. Whatever else I've done, I've never tried to be something that I'm not.Collection: Fashion
There is no better designer then natureCollection: Designer
I think sometimes I might scare the editors, because they might feel they're getting old and they're not understanding it. The problem lies on their side of the fence, not mine. I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era.Collection: Lying
Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive.Collection: Kitchen
There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do – but that part is for me. It’s my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There’s a sadness to it, but there’s romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.Collection: Romance