Top 147 Quotes & Sayings by Sonia Rykiel - Page 2

A woman who walks well parts crowds - it's something we should all be taught to do.

I don't think I would ever have plastic surgery; there isn't anything I'd want to change.

I care a lot about my looks, although I'm not too adventurous. Every day I dress the same way in a kind of 'uniform' of black, although in varying fabrics - it's always black.

It's not true that clothes look better on skinny girls; what counts is the attitude.

When I started in fashion, for the first 10 years, I said to myself every day, 'I'm going to quit tomorrow.'

People are going to figure out that I don't know anything. I always thought I'd be discredited in the end.

My favourite feature is my hair. It has always made me look different. It was so red when I was born that my mother thought I had blood on my head. When I was a teenager, I looked like a tomboy, but then I understood that I could be a woman who was an intelligent mix between a lady and my mannish side.

I am a perfectionist. It has always been this way.

I don't read e-mails because I hate them.

I was fascinated by stripes from the start. On clothing, they follow a woman's movements.

My mother knitted a lot, but I never did; it was no fun.

I came from an intellectual Parisian family. My father was a watchmaker; my mother was a housewife. We discussed politics, art, sculpture - never fashion.

I don't know why some women don't wear make-up. Every woman should gild the lily.

I just can't live without chocolate - I have between two and six pieces every day.

My view is that you have to deal with who you are. It's hard work, in a way, but somebody has to do it.

I was a tomboy, always fairly eccentric, and convinced I'd grow up to be an actress.

As soon as I am up, I brush my hair. I eat breakfast first: tea and brown bread, and sometimes a fresh fruit juice like orange or grapefruit. I write notes on the previous day in my notebook, then I shower.

Like Picasso, I go through blue periods, green periods, or grey periods.

The lead of a film that wove around me, I played all the roles. I traveled the world; I loved life, pleasure. I adored to write, create.

I'm not brave, I'm not fantastic. I'm like any other woman. I'm unhappy. I'm difficult. I'm sad. Am I strong, too? Maybe, but not always. There are days when I don't want to see anyone. The most important thing you learn? You can live with it.

I have never followed fashion. What is fashion to me? I just think of things that inspire me, that inspire women, and I design that way.

I invented a sweater so small, so close to the body, that Women's Wear Daily nicknamed it 'The Poor Boy Sweater' and consecrated me queen of knitwear.

My first conversation of the day is with my daughter, Nathalie. I call her every morning; it is a ritual.

I wasn't interested in fashion originally. Fashion was for other people.

I wanted women wearing my sweaters to give the impression they were naked. The aim wasn't to impose outfits but to stay as close as possible to women's bodies and their freedom of movement.

It is a very important matter, as a woman, to juggle everything... Your professional life, family, children etc.

I hate the word feminine! I mean, there is a woman and a man and when I say "woman" it suggests all that is radiant, tender, fascinating, gentle, demoniac, exaggerated! Feminine makes me think of somebody who is spindly and over-sweet: I don't like that!

I think that there are so many women who understand nothing about clothes and they should try and understand themselves before they start putting on disguises: they should stand in front of the mirror for a day, two days or three, and find out what they have which is beautiful, interesting: what they should show: hair, neck, arms, or hands.

The fashion industry is a free world, with creative codes that can be hardly considered sometimes, but it's also up to women to create their own style, and own trend.

From the very beginning I've said to women not to follow the fashion rules blindly, and to adapt clothes to suit who they are, and not the contrary.

Perfume is like a parenthesis, a moment of freedom, peace, love and sensuality in between the disturbances of modern living.

It's important to know yourself well, in order to create your own style of fashion to suit your own body shape.

The natures of men and women are very mixed and for me the most fascinating type of woman is the one who is a little masculine, has a little of the man in her, and the sort of man who is fabulous is the one who is a little woman too. It's impossible not to mix them!

I am like the lover of Roland Barthes "who's always running in his head". I'm always searching, and "eating" everything from my life, in order to put it in my dresses!

I don't like women who are multiform, who wear many different shapes. Women who retain a unique shape are usually unique people.

I think that clothes should be a shelter like a house or a rug. I think that there is that element of protection and a uniform can be just that.

A scarf has to be the most beautiful thing ever invented to wear! It's a winding, a continuity, an infinity! I love things that are endless, I hate them to stop. It's like order and disorder: I rather love disorder and things that move, it's a state where one gets more things done!

For me, luxury isn't just the real thing. It's also fake. Swarovski crystals or real diamonds? It's a game. You have to be luxurious nude.

The essence of seduction for me in a man, although it stems from his rough, almost rough-neck looks, still contains something of the woman: he must be seductive and intelligent.

Perfume follows you; it chases you and lingers behind you. It's a reference mark. Perfume makes silence talk.

Sometimes in the fashion industry we come across some unfair rules, but no one is obliged to follow them.

You can create fashion everywhere in the world, but the place where you are crowned is Paris.

I have to say that the identity of a fashion designer is international today.

In my family, Fashion was something we never talked about, it was thought of as kind of superficial.

I feel like a slave, and in a way like an artist, because I need to get inspiration everyday, from everything and everyone.

Design job fell on me. I didn't want to do it. It was an accident. For the first 10 years I said, "Tomorrow I'm stopping."

For the collection, I am like a painter or a writer. I may or may not be a character in my own story.

I married a man who was in fashion. I began to work when my daughter Nathalie was about eight or 10 years old. Then one day I began to make a sweater, and eventually the sweater was on the front page of Elle magazine. And the day after I was the queen of knit in America.

Men and women are so alike that a woman must make an intellectual effort to differentiate herself. As soon as one understands who one is, one can disguise oneself any way one wants. As soon as one has found one's look, one's shape, one does not need to alter it too much, in fact I would say that one should not change it.

As a young girl I was a real tomboy, only listening to myself. I carried on with this attitude even as a woman and when I first launched the Sonia Rykiel line, and said to women to remove their bras or when I designed sweaters with stitches inside out, everybody said to me that it was crazy and risky, but I ignored what they said and I did what I felt was right at the time.

Your body can be very female, which is something you can do nothing about, but then you can have the soul, the mind and the spirit of both male and female. The women friends I am closest to somehow have this masculine side to them, they shove their hands in their pockets when they walk: I love that side.

I was rather free, and I always did what I wanted to do, sometimes without listening to the people who warned me not to do this or that.

It doesn't matter one damn bit whether fashion is art or not. You don't question whether an incredible chef is an artist or not-his cakes are delicious and that's all that matters.

I will be working on the collection until the day before the show! It's an endless process, that's all that I can say at that stage.

I have the feeling I've always done what I wanted throughout my life.

I couldn't have opened a store without putting books with the clothes. I am still writing as I have always done, and have published my ninth book "L'envers à l'endroit" last year. I am currently working on a dictionary of my favourite words.

I can be happy with something I did, like a drawing or a dress I designed, and yet be very disappointed with the same drawing, or the same dress the day after.

How can you live the high life if you do not wear the high heels?

My clothes are put together out of different basic elements so that a woman can express the way she wants to look, transform, metamorphosize herself not as the woman I decided but as she herself wants to be.

People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.