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I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. Linda Evangelista, model
Bravery never goes out of fashion. William Makepeace Thackeray
Fashions become steadily more lavish. Dr Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England II: The Rich, BBC 2013
A beautifully tied cravat was the most important part of the dandy’s uniform. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 1/3, BBC 2012
There was an explosion of design: British style was lavish, theatrical, outrageous and brilliant. And at the heart of it all was George. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 2/3
The same jeans. The same T-shirts. In other words, the West’s way ... All around the world fashions are converging to a Western template. Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? V Consumerism, Channel 4 2011
The new United States would weave its own cloth, make its own clothes, design its own fashions. ibid.
For a time cotton was king of the US economy. ibid.
That mass consumerism and standardisation could somehow be reconciled with rampant individualism was one of the smartest tricks pulled ever pulled by Western civilisation. ibid.
The Denim Curtain ... Why was it that Russians couldn’t make jeans? ibid.
The West’s ugly sister. Ugly and dumb. Because somehow the communist block failed to grasp the appeal of an item of clothing that could easily have come to symbolise the virtues of the hard-working proletariat. ibid.
Dressed in their jeans the baby boomers challenged the authority of their parents and their rulers. ibid.
The Czechs called jeans Texas-skis – Texan trousers. ibid.
The demands for Levi’s soared. ibid.
Their resistance to the West’s consumer society was weaker. ibid.
The collapse of communism: maybe it really was blue jeans and rock-n-roll. ibid.
The West’s way of dress had done for Soviet communism. ibid.
A billion pairs of matching pyjamas ... China had become the world’s drabbest society. Gone were the last vestiges of imperial silk. Gone too was the western dress favoured by the nationalists ... What a difference three decade of reform were to make to the way a society looks. ibid.
China began with a massive investment in textile manufacture. ibid.
Judging by what I’ve seen in Chinese cities, they are getting there. ibid.
Is that what Western civilisation boils down to? ... Is all we’ve got left today a spot of shopping? ibid.
A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. George Bernard Shaw
We live not according to reason but according to fashion. Seneca
It isn’t my job to be a fashion leader. But it is my job not to be obviously out of fashion. Or obviously wrongly dressed. And I must never be mutton dressed as lamb. Never. Margaret Thatcher
Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit. George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Son: It’s called fashion, dad. Something you wouldn’t know nuffin’ about.
Mother: ... He looks like a bloody post-box. The Firm 2009 starring Daniel Mays & Paul Anderson & Calum McNab & Doug Allen & Joe Jackson & Richie Campbell & James Kelly & Jaf Ibrahim & Tommy Nash & Eddie Weber & Billy Seymour et al, director Nick Love
Fashion is more usually a gentle progression of revisited ideas. Bruce Oldfield, Independent 9th September 1989
He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. William Shakespeare, II Henry IV II iii 21
Why is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these ‘pardon-me’s’, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet II ii 28-33, Friar Laurence to self
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion. William Shakespeare, As You Like It II iii 60-61, Orlando to Adam
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Oscar Wilde
You can never be overdressed or overeducated. Oscar Wilde
It is totally impossible to be well dressed in cheap shoes. Hardy Amies, English couturier
Fashions fade, style is eternal. Yves Saint Laurent
Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it. Yves Saint-Laurent
The difference between style and fashion is quality. Giorgio Armani
Fashion is made to become unfashionable. Coco Chanel
Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. Coco Chanel
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. Coco Chanel
Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds. Coco Chanel
Fashion fades, only style remains the same. Coco Chanel
I wanted to give a woman comfortable clothes that would flow with her body. A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed. Coco Chanel
A beautiful dress may look beautiful on a hanger, but that means nothing. It must be seen on the shoulders, with the movement of the arms, the legs, and the waist. Coco Chanel
The fashion of the world passeth away. I Corinthians 7:31
It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire … Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter. Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
A girl’s got to use what she’s given and I’m not going to make a guy drool the way a Britney video does. So I take it to extremes. I don’t say I dress sexily on stage – what I do is so extreme. It’s meant to make guys think: I don’t know if this is sexy or just weird. Lady Gaga
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well. Vivienne Westwood
Fashion is about dressing according to what’s fashionable. Style is more about being yourself. Oscar de la Renta
Costume designers don’t care about trends. They appreciate, above so many other qualities, that tailoring is everything, which is a mantra for the way I dress. Ladies: The most important thing in clothing is to find a good, inexpensive tailor, because clothes at the stores are made for bodies that are anomalies. Ginnifer Goodwin