Top 121 Quotes & Sayings by Kenneth Cole - Page 2

This is what I wanted the business to be when I started it: a lot of black, a lot of luxurious materials, and modern styling.

I'm also on the Board at Sundance, so I've seen witnessed first hand the power of independent storytelling.

When I first fell in love with Maria, it was because she really cares about things.

When you sit around at dinner talking about the death penalty, it's hard to find relevance in what color shoes will be next season.

In the past, you needed extraordinary access in certain markets to communicate your message. Today you can get through to audiences on your own terms. Everybody curates their own program today, and they do it on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. They decide who they want to be their audience and who they want to have access to their platform.

For years, I put out thoughts, I didn't really express opinions.

Today, I believe everybody's their own brand, and everybody has their own brand and they curate their own brand on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

A brand today is much more than status. Consumers have to be able to trust it.

I wanted to make the brand cool again. I needed to make it a little smaller to make it bigger and I needed to change the consumer experience.

I admire other people's clothes but I only wear my own.

I believe what has kept us relevant over the years is not just the fashion which has sometimes been more timely than other times but has also been our messages, which have consistently reflected the context of the world we're living in and what was happening and that which was affecting what we were thinking and what was inspiring us.

It is astounding how evolved and progressed India has become. It is holding on to its extraordinary rich culture and becoming global and Western at the same time.

To the degree you could provoke people and engage them in a unique way, your message is more likely to resonate longer. I figured out the less-than-140-character concept long before Twitter came along.

I am probably not the best creative person in the industry. I am probably not the best business person in the industry. But by nature being both, I think, is a strategic advantage.

Being the son of a women's shoe factory owner, 'Kinky Boots' resonated with me on so many different levels.

Nobody cleans out their closet at the end of the season anymore.

When I started this business, my job was to sell people on my brand and convince them to embrace it in a way that made sense to them.

The more I circumvent the rules, the more successful I become.

In business, you can write your own book. The more unique it is from anything written before, the more likely it is to succeed.

Children are cute no matter whose they are.

When I married Maria, her father was governor at the time, and I was in awe of his progressive message.

When I started this business, I never anticipated this would become a platform for me to talk about things that I personally believe in.

Our business is fashion, and it's about timing and in our case, it's about being relevant and there's nothing more relevant than current affairs.

There are many in the AIDS community who have said we won't find a cure in the foreseeable future. Well, you certainly won't find it if you're not looking.

Very early on in this journey, I uniquely found not just an aesthetic, but also a voice. I found the ability to communicate with people, which has turned out for me to be a far more meaningful platform. To talk to them about not just what's on their body, but also on their minds.

I believe much of our lives is about guilt management.

Every morning, I look in my closet and say, 'What do I wish was here?' It's looking for what's not there and making it available.

I don't care as much about politics as about social service.

The best solution is very much the least expensive and most creative.

You can't build a fashion business with a short-term perspective, unless you're prepared to make investments that you know are not going to pay dividends immediately.

I always believe that if you're looking at a magazine and I'm one of 40 ads, I - in effect - get one-fortieth of your attention. But if, when you close that magazine, you're still thinking about my ad, I've got a lot more than one-fortieth of your attention.

I've started calling fashion my day job.

We as a country are very good at responding to acute, short-term crises. When the crisis becomes chronic, we tend to withdraw.

The stigma, the fact that nobody was talking about AIDS was arguably killing more people than the virus itself. So I did an ad about the fact that nobody was speaking about HIV/AIDS.

I often say in jest, 'We haven't changed the world but hopefully we've become an accessory.'

Ads create dialogue, they create conversation, they create attention - that's our objective.

I don't know what Galliano was thinking. Apparently he dressed people as homeless and sent them down the runway. That's not very tasteful and somewhat exploitive.

It's not about me, it's about you, the customer. And if I am effective in making what I do about you, and I can enhance you and elevate you, you will support me forever.

For years, the company was known as a women's shoe company. Then we added men's clothing, shirts and shoes, and people thought of us as a men's brand.

I've realized that people come to the brand not just for the products we make, but because of what we stand for.

You can change an outfit, you can outfit change, or both.

Gay people getting married? Next, they'll be allowed to vote and pay taxes.

I don't know if I even consider myself a very political person. I have always had strong beliefs on important social issues. Politics have politicized social issues, but I don't know if social issues are in fact political. If anything, they are more human issues than they are political issues.

Underneath it allYou're naked.

In war is it who's right, or who's left?

What's so great about my business is that every day is different than the day prior. Today, the industry bears little resemblance to the one I joined 30 years ago, which is what's so exciting about it. But the one thing that hasn't changed is the notion that a successful business model is one that has the ability to respond positively to the unexpected shifts in the winds as they continue to present themselves.

Important moments like this are time to reflect. To remind us, sometimes, that it's not only important what you wear, but it's also important to be aware.

We all walk in different shoes.

The average woman falls in love seven times a year. Only six are with shoes.

How you see the world depends on how you look.

I've come to realize that, with social media today, people consume fashion very differently than they ever have before - they post it, tweet it, "like" it, retweet it. Today, people define themselves by a collection of various elements in their lives that they connect to.

People have a whole lot more choices than they've had in the past, and I have only earned the right to be considered - every day I have to earn the right to be chosen.

Those against same-sex marriage aren't thinking straight (or are they)?

For 30 years I have used my platform in provocative ways to encourage a healthy dialogue about important issues, including HIV/AIDS, war, and homelessness. I'm well aware of the risks that come with this approach, and if this encourages further awareness and discussion about critical issues then all-the-better.

Success has less to do with what we can get ourselves to do and more to do with keeping ourselves from doing what we shouldn’t.

Every day when a man or woman gets dressed, they are in effect defining who they are. That daily clean slate is a time in our lives when we can determine who we want to be.

What you stand for is more important than what you stand in.

Social media has totally transformed the way we communicate with each other and the way we provide for needs as we see them. I've always believed that if somebody looks good, they invariably are going to feel good. And it's self-fulfilling, because you'll just relax, you'll smile, you'll think you own the world. But if you also do good, you'll feel even better. So my goal is to make what we do meaningful in as many people's lives as we can.

Every season, I take the opportunity to convey a much larger message than just hemlines and trends.

I've come to learn that the best time to debate family members is when they have good in their mouths.