A Quote by Nicolas Ghesquiere
I think the golden age of couture had some of the most incredible customers: women like Nan Kempner and all the icons.
Related Quotes
Even during the golden age of fashion, you had haute couture houses where the designers didn't have money.
The Mark Birley fan club, of which epic American socialite Nan Kempner says she's the oldest living member, follows him doggedly.
To be a couture designer is not only to create dresses but to adapt your line to your private customers. It is why couture is expensive. You are like a doctor.
If you ask who are the customers of education, the customers of education are the society at large, the employers who hire people, things like that. But ultimately I think the customers are the parents. Not even the students but the parents. The problem that we have in this country is that the customers went away. The customers stopped paying attention to their schools, for the most part.
The Seventies was a golden era. Back then we had some incredible talent with bands like the Undertones, the Rolling Stones and artists like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
Nan Kempner wore one of the first Saint Laurent trouser suits to one of those fancy Madison Avenue restaurants and was denied access. She famously took off her pants and walked in wearing only the jacket. And it was that kind of revolution that was echoed in fashion and in life.
Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.
We had a moment in the '40s and '50s, where female characters were very strong in film, where these incredible roles were written for women like Joan Crawford, like Bette Davis. But then there was a space of time where - I don't know why - it wasn't like that. It became difficult for women to find certain roles after a certain age.
Convincing isn't really possible in an age of customer control. Customers hold most of the cards today. They have good visibility into their choices, and they can easily share information with each other. Not only that, they don't like to be sold. But they do like to buy. Your job shouldn't be to convince customers to buy, but to help them buy what they want.
I'm not saying the 1970s was a golden age - I don't believe such a thing exists in art . . . It would be like talking about a golden age of science. But it's true that those were slightly more ideological times, and the relevance of artists wasn't established by their CVs but by their work.
We've been taught that the renaissance was one of the great golden ages of civilisation. The renaissance was not a golden age, it was the end of a golden age.
It's couture. Everything has to be done by hand. That is most important. That is the crucial element. Without it, that is not couture anymore.
Customers will always be nervous about lock-in, and I think the experience they had particularly with a company like Oracle, where it's a really hard thing to get out of, and they're so hostile to their customers, that I think it's a concern for every enterprise.
When I was young, especially when I was at school, I thought couture was about big gowns, big hats (that is couture as well, of course) - but my couture is about going near the clothes and having a look at the details. I like people to have a shock in a chic way.
I...understand that age is kind of awesome. I am fortunate enough to know women like Gloria Steinem - who I think is one of the most stunning women on the planet - [who] doesn't touch her face. Diane Keaton, Annette Bening - all of these fabulous, fearless women who are flawless - they embrace it!
Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.
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