Top 210 Quotes & Sayings by Vivienne Westwood - Page 2

I disagree with everything I used to say.

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

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

To me, reading a fashion magazine is the last thing I need to do. I've got books I need to read.

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.

The French have got taste.

More people should read books. It's the most concentrated experience you can have.

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

I love designing at the moment, I'm so happy with my work.

I don't feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you've got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don't buy too much.

Prince Charles is definitely my hero; he uses his position to do only good in this world.

I think feminists are unaware of the tremendous extent of the role of women in history.

In history people dressed much better than we do today.

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

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.

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.

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

It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

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

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.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who's spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

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

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.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

My clothes are very popular in Japan.

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

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle.

I was still interested in the youth rebellion but never-the-less I stopped being a victim. Stopped trying to attack the establishment realizing that it takes too much of your energy.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like - full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make - and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn't quite work.

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

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.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn't care about suffering. I always did.

Every time I have to look up a word in the dictionary, I'm delighted.

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.

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?

The last people with any ideas are young people.

I own my own company, so I've never had businessmen telling me what to do or getting worried if something doesn't sell. 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.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don't notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

I don't watch television and I rarely go to the cinema, but I recently watched 'The King's Speech' on a flight. It was so beautiful and so simple.

The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.

I am in my own head most of the time.

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.

The muscular, athletic type is not representative of the human race, who are varied in their physique.

I think it's important to vote.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.

I think it is a good thing to buy less and choose well - it's good for the environment and to be fair it's also good for me because my clothes are quite expensive.

Even though it was the 70s, we found old stocks of clothes that had never been worn from the 50s and took them apart. I started to teach myself how to make clothes from that kind of formula.

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

I'm a fashion designer and people think, what do I know?

I never look at fashion magazines. I find them incredibly boring.

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

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

Real art has been... what's the word? Kidnapped? No, that's not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

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

In the morning, I practice 15 minutes of yoga.

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.

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