Vivienne Westwood's Quotes

I'll tell you what I was like as a child. I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader.

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

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

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

In history people dressed much better than we do today.

In Italy they take cheap cloth and make it look expensive, but I take expensive cloth and make it look cheap. They just don't understand.

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

My beauty secret is absolutely no sun.

People have never looked so ugly as they do today. We just consume far too much.

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

The French have got taste.

The last people with any ideas are young people.

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

We based the look on rock 'n roll right from the beginning.

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

What I'm always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last.

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've got a real sense of three-dimensional geometry. I can look at a flat piece of fabric and know that if I put a slit in it and make some fabric travel around a square, then when you lift it up it will drape in a certain way, and I can feel how that will happen.

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.

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.

Our economic system, run for profit and waste and based primarily on the extractive industries, is the cause of climate change. We have wasted the earth's treasure and we can no longer exploit it cheaply.

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.

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.

Britishness is just a way of putting things together and a certain don't care attitude about clothes. You don't care, you just do it and it looks great.

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.

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.

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.

I always thought we had an environmental problem, but I hadn't realized how urgent it was. James Lovelock writes that by the end of this century there will be one billion people left.

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.

I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features.

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.

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.

I've always felt heroic about my life... As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn't think that was the case at all. My parents didn't treat me as a girl.

If you see everything from the point of view of women being victims in some way, you don't see the wood for the trees. It is better to be a person than a woman.

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.

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.

There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that's rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy.

There's nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.

I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them - they are individual and stylish.

I can't think without my glasses.

Don't just eat McDonald's, get something a bit better. Eat a salad. That's what fashion is. It's something that is a bit better.

It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity.

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.

Personally I'm not a feminist, as I can't stand puritans.

There is so much that people take for granted.

In the morning, I practice 15 minutes of yoga.

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.

If you're too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

My son has followed fashion since he was a punk. He and I agree that fashion is about sex.

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

The only possible effect one can have on the world is through unpopular ideas.

You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.

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 think it's important to vote.

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

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

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

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

My clothes are very popular in Japan.

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

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