A Quote by Ali MacGraw

You know, the fashion business is this legendary repository of young girls on their way to getting husbands. I really wanted to work. — © Ali MacGraw
You know, the fashion business is this legendary repository of young girls on their way to getting husbands. I really wanted to work.
I never wanted to design clothes. I never wanted to work for the fashion industry. Shoes sort of belong to the fashion industry, which is why I'm part of the fashion industry. But that's never been my thought. My thought since I was a child was really to design those shoes for girls on stage.
I didn't know I wanted to be a hairdresser. I was always interested in fashion and imagery in a very naive way, but it was always an attraction, like glitter balls. This was in the late '70s, early '80s, so it wasn't like today, where you kind of know all about the industry. Fashion was a very insider industry then - it was very closed. So I didn't really know what I wanted to do.
I think fashion is probably one of the most accessible and immediate forms of visual culture. In 1978, when I realized that I wanted to work on fashion, I had gone to Yale to get my Ph.D. in European cultural history. I suddenly realized fashion's part of culture, and I can do fashion history. All my professors thought this was a really bad idea, that fashion was frivolous and unimportant. And, increasingly over time, people have recognized that it provides such a mirror to the way we think, our values and attitudes.
When I fell into modeling, because I wanted to work in fashion. I wanted to do styling or make-up. I ended getting picked up to be a model instead during my work experience.
Fashion is one industry that can really change things around for young boys and girls and make them feel like they are not left out. It can send a message that one doesn't have to look a certain way to be considered more beautiful or fashionable.
In everything I do, I like to set the idea for girls that they can do anything. I was really moved by Hillary Clinton's speech when she lost the election - she didn't want young girls to feel like it wasn't possible and wanted them to know a female president will eventually happen. That's important.
For someone who comes from my business background, getting fashion people aligned around certain things can be a challenge. In a way, the industry is so forward-looking. And yet, sometimes people in fashion are not open to change.
Women were victims. Their husbands could beat them up when they wanted to. They couldn't work. They could be maimed and killed by their husbands.
But if you are young and want to work in the fashion industry and are not naturally skinny - which most girls are not - then you are forced to be unhealthy.
I think it's really important for all young girls to see themselves represented in fashion so they don't feel alone in the world.
My mother was a sociologist and an intellectual, and my father was an industrialist with a business in copper and aluminum wire. He was very strict and he wanted me to work in the family business - for him, the worst thing was having a daughter who worked in fashion.
'Penthouse' didn't seem to concentrate as much on the girls' faces, and I really wanted to see the girls' faces. It seems like through the 1980's, they almost went out of their way to obscure the girls' faces.
Penthouse' didn't seem to concentrate as much on the girls' faces, and I really wanted to see the girls' faces. It seems like through the 1980's, they almost went out of their way to obscure the girls' faces.
I keep getting asked out by really young, good looking boys and really ugly lesbians. So, even if I wanted to jump onto the tuna boat, I wouldn't because I'm not getting high-class babes that I should get at this level of my career. And I always know the ugly ones are serious and that the good-looking ones are goofing on me.
When I was young, I really identified with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, particularly the character of Jo. The book was written at a time when there weren't as many options for women and girls as there are now. Jo really struggled with that. She wanted to write, to work, to help her family.
There is also a schedule to fashion - the deadline is always set. So maybe the fashion business is a good business for me in that way because I'm basically lazy, man.
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