111 Fashion Quotes To Inspire

Fashion is more than just clothing; it's a form of self-expression, an art form, and a reflection of culture and individuality. Whether you're a fashionista, a budding designer, or simply someone who appreciates style, the wisdom and wit of renowned fashion icons can provide endless inspiration. In this post, we've curated a collection of the top 111 fashion quotes that are sure to ignite your creativity and remind you why fashion holds such a significant place in our lives. Dive in to find words from legendary designers, models, and style icons that capture the essence of glamour, elegance, and personal flair.

1. “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” - Oscar Wilde

2. “Any actress who appears in public without being well-groomed is digging her own grave.” - Joan Crawford

3. “Never in all her life had she imagined that this idolized millinery could look, to those who paid for it, like the decorations of an insane monkey.” - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4. “The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.” - Yves Saint Laurent

5. “There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

6. “A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future.” - Coco Chanel

7. “Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?” - David Sedaris

8. “Ladies should also remember that gentlemen look more to the effect of a dress in setting off the figure and countenance of a lady than to its cost. Very few gentlemen have any idea the value of ladies' dresses. This is a subject for female criticism. Beauty of person and elegance of manners in women will always command more admiration from the opposite sex than beauty, elegance or costliness of clothing."The Scholars' Companion and Ball Room Vade MecumThomas Hillgrove, 1857” - Thomas Hillgrove

9. “Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts” - Jim Morrison

10. “What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?” - Bill Watterson

11. “The Devil's out of fashion.” - Dodie Smith

12. “Why nowadays there's a new fashion every day.” - Leo Tolstoy

13. “Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.” - Yves Saint Laurent

14. “As she always did on any really important day, Penelope Hayes wore red.” - Anna Godbersen

15. “Whoever said that money can't buy happiness, simply didn't know where to go shopping” - Bo Derek

16. “The human body is the best work of art.” - Jess C. Scott

17. “Hiking is sort of like strip poker: by the end, all the participants are hot, sweaty, and nearly naked, and the winner is the person who wore the most layers.” - Winona Dimeo-Ediger

18. “Die Mode jener Jahre war umständlich und töricht. Die Männer knöpften sich steifleinerne Krägen um die Hälse, enge, überflüssige, unschöne Kleidungsstücke, und umwanden sie mühsam zu schlingenden, zwecklosen Binden, sogenannten Krawatten.” - Lion Feuchtwanger

19. “Are not couturiers the poets who, from year to year, from strophe to strophe, write the anthem of the feminine body?” - Roland Barthes

20. “I love the confidence that makeup gives me.” - Tyra Banks

21. “Make up is generally there to make you look better, not make you look like you're wearing make up.” - Hadley Freeman

22. “Logos are the bleating of the insecure, desperate for acceptance by the chronically shallow. ” - Hadley Freeman

23. “The Countess was considerably younger than her husband. All of her clothes came from Paris (this was after Paris) and she had superb taste. (This was after taste too, but only just. And since it was such a new thing, and since the Countess was the only lady in all Florin to posses it, is it any wonder she was the leading hostess in the land?)” - William Goldman

24. “I'd wear any of my private attire for the world to see. But I would rather have an open flesh wound than ever wear a band aid in public.” - Lady Gaga

25. “I would certainly rather the industry not go broke, but if that's what it takes for everyone to acquire some values and lose that sense of entitlement, maybe a little belt-tightening wouldn't be so tragic.” - Tim Gunn

26. “One must commit acts of the highest treason only when dressed in the most resplendent finery.” - Grant Morrison

27. “When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

28. “Fashion is as profound and critical a part of the social life of man as sex, and is made up of the same ambivalent mixture of irresistible urges and inevitable taboos.” - Rene Konig

29. “Our clothes are too much a part of us for most of us ever to be entirely indifferent to their condition: it is as though the fabric were indeed a natural extension of the body, or even of the soul.” - Quentin Bell

30. “I am a fashion person, and fashion is not only about clothes -- it's about all kinds of change” - Karl Lagerfeld

31. “I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.” - Karl Lagerfeld

32. “Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs” - Karl Lagerfeld

33. “Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore – and then you get something out of her” - Karl Lagerfeld

34. “The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine” - Karl Lagerfeld

35. “Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests” - Karl Lagerfeld

36. “When a woman smiles,then her dress should smile to” - Madeleine Vionnet

37. “Let's face it -- if I could scrap in a full-length bodysuit, I would.” - Lain Ehmann

38. “And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anyway. I just hope I get one who doesn't think nudity is the last word in fashion.” - Suzanne Collins

39. “We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world.” - Karl Lagerfeld

40. “We need houses as we need clothes, architecture stimulates fashion. It’s like hunger and thirst — you need them both.” - Karl Lagerfeld

41. “Fashion and music are the same, because music express its period too.” - Karl Lagerfeld

42. “I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon.” - Karl Lagerfeld

43. “You make all the fashion statements just by dressing up your mind.” - Jason Mraz

44. “In all, his outfit required nearly two thousand man-years of research and development, eight barrels of oil, and sixteen patent and trademark infringement lawsuits. All so he could possess casual style. A style that, in logistical requirements, was comparable to fielding a nineteenth-century military brigade.But he looked good. Casual.” - Daniel Suarez

45. “I want everyone to wear what they want and mix it in their own way. That, to me, is what is modern.” - Karl Lagerfeld

46. “Fashion Fact: Most people make the assumption that I wear trendy shades the majority of the time (often indoors) to protect my eyes from the elements. But in fact it's the reverse. I'm protecting the elements from the brilliance of my eyes.” - Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino

47. “Fashion is about going ahead, not about memory.” - Karl Lagerfeld

48. “I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.” - Karl Lagerfeld

49. “I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.” - Karl Lagerfeld

50. “Do what makes you happy;Be with who makes you smile;Laugh as much as you breathe;& love as long as you live.” - Abercrombie & Fitch

51. “Oliver liked to play the part of disaffected youth, but he liked shopping in SoHo even more.” - Melissa de la Cruz

52. “I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.” - Tim Gunn

53. “The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.” - G.K. Chesterton

54. “No need for everyone to look the same. The secret is to wear what suits you best!” - Chica Umino

55. “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” - Henry David Thoreau

56. “I don't do fashion, I AM fashion.” - Coco Chanel

57. “I don't suppose I can wear the flamingo tie," he said as he pulled on black socks. "It's a bit festive, given the occasion," I responded. "Can't wear it to the opera," said the Colonel, almost smiling. "Can't wear it to a funeral. Can't use it to hang myself. It's a bit useless, as ties go." I gave him a tie.” - John Green

58. “Women want to wear what they do because of what goes on in their heads. Their size and shape have practically nothing to do with it.” - Elizabeth Hawes

59. “Ideas about a person's place in society, his role, lifestyle, and ego qualities will lose their hold as the cohesive forces in society disintegrate. Subculture values will proliferate to such a bewildering extent that a whole new class of professionals will arise to control them. Such a Transmutation Technology will deal in fashions, in ways of being. Lifestyle consultants will become the new priests of our civilizations. They will be the new magicians.” - Peter J. Carroll

60. “Being classy is my teenage rebellion.” - Rebecca McKinsey

61. “I've no idea when I'm going to wear it, the girl replied calmly. I only knew that I had to have it. Once I tried it on, well... She shrugged. The dress claimed me.” - Isabel Wolff

62. “Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony.” - Coco Chanel

63. “A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” - Sophia Loren

64. “Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds.” - Coco Chanel

65. “Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!” - Coco Chanel

66. “I have to admit that I'm up to my neck in frivolity, buried in dresses to the point of ruin! Fifteen different garments! My wardrobe jam-packed! My girl, this is not the way for an old woman to behave - particularly since you never wear anything but black and white, or a little grey, so that you always look as though you were in the same dress. Why fritter away your money so absurdly? (22 August 1919)” - Liane de Pougy

67. “Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.” - E.M. Forster

68. “The problem of what to wear while lolling about the house on a Sunday afternoon is becoming more and more acute as the fashions in lolling garments change. The American home is in danger of taking on the appearance of an Oriental bordello.” - Robert Benchley

69. “Sometimes she wore Levi's with white-suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress, sometimes old fifties' taffeta dresses covered with poetry written in glitter, or dresses made of kids' sheets printed with pink piglets or Disney characters.” - Francesca Lia Block

70. “Never use the word “cheap”. Today everybody can look chic in inexpensive clothes (the rich buy them too). There is good clothing design on every level today. You can be the chicest thing in the world in a T-shirt and jeans — it’s up to you.” - Karl Lagerfeld

71. “Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress.” - Karl Lagerfeld

72. “Isn't elegance forgetting what one is wearing?” - Yves Saint Laurent

73. “My idea is always to avoid nostalgia.” - Miuccia Prada

74. “I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.” - Oscar Wilde

75. “I'm a risk taker and i've always been like that that, especially when it comes to fashion” - Christina Aguilera

76. “Buy less, choose well & do it yourself!” - Vivienne Westwood

77. “Okay, let's see if I got this straight. The butt is the new breast, and the lower back is the new ankle. Now if only we could figure out where the brain has moved.” - Celia Rivenbark

78. “I believe my life has a value, and i don't want to waste it thinking about clothing.I don't want to think about what i will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion?” - Michael Crichton

79. “The loner who looks fabulous is one of the most vulnerable loners of all.” - Anneli Rufus

80. “I cleaned the shit off my pink high-tops and drove home, stopping for an espresso at the coffeehouse across from the college. Men and women were hunched over copies of Jean Paul Sartre and writing in their journals. Most wore the thin-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses favored by intellectuals. Their clothes were faded to a precisely fashionable degree; you can buy them that way from catalogs now, new clothes processed to look old. The intellectuals looked at me in my overalls the way such people inevitably look at farmers. I dumped a lot of sugar in my espresso and sipped it delicately at a corner table near the door. I looked at them the way farmers look at intellectuals.” - Mary Rose O'Reilley

81. “She took a moment to lament her lack of parasol. Every time she left the house, she felt keenly the absence of her heretofore ubiquitous accessory.” - Gail Carriger

82. “Nonetheless, when it finally ended and the hairdressers left and Tess insisted upon pulling her to the mirror, Fire saw, and understood, that everyone had done the job well. The dress, deep shimmering purple and utterly simple in design, was so beautifully-cut and so clingy and well-fitting that Fire felt slightly naked. And her hair. She couldn’t follow what they’d done with her hair, braids thin as threads in some places, looped and wound through the thick sections that fell over her shoulders and down her back, but she saw that the end result was a controlled wildness that was magnificent against her face, her body, and the dress. She turned to measure the effect on her guard - all twenty of them, for all had roles to play in tonight’s proceedings, and all were awaiting her orders. Twenty jaws hung slack with astonishment - even Musa’s, Mila’s, and Neel’s. Fire touched their minds, and was pleased, and then angry, to find them open as the glass roofs in July.‘Take hold of yourselves,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a disguise, remember? This isn’t going to work if the people meant to help me can’t keep their heads.’‘It will work, Lady Granddaughter.’ Tess handed Fire two knives in ankle holsters. ‘You’ll get what you want from whomever you want. Tonight King Nash would give you the Winged River as a present, if you asked for it. Dells, child - Prince Brigan would give you his best warhorse.” - Kristin Cashore

83. “Clothes as text, clothes as narration, clothes as a story. Clothes as the story of our lives. And if you were to gather all the clothes you have ever owned in all your life, each baby shoe and winter coat and wedding dress, you would have your autobiography. You could wear, once more, your own life in all its stages, from whatever they wrapped you in when you emerged from the dark red naked warmth of the womb to your deathbed.” - Linda Grant

84. “I think in black.” - Gareth Pugh

85. “We have work to do if you are not to be a total failure like high-waisted, acid-wash jeans.” - Libba Bray

86. “I had a vague memory of being that ridiculous at one time. Let he who hath never worn parachute pants cast the first stone.” - Jim Butcher

87. “Part of being a conscious human being, is having an intention. And if you put an intention into whatever you do, it’s definitely going to be more satisfying in the end” - Daphne Guinness

88. “[how can anyone] be silly enough to think himself better than other people, because his clothes are made of finer woolen thread than theirs. After all, those fine clothes were once worn by a sheep, and they never turned it into anything better than a sheep.” - Thomas More

89. “Nothing, again, could be more prosaic and impenetrable than the domestic energies of Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent had somehow blundered on the discovery that her thrifty dressmaking went with a considerable feminine care for dress--the one feminine thing that had never failed her solitary self-respect. In consequence Smith pestered her with a theory (which he really seemed to take seriously) that ladies might combine economy with magnificence if they would draw light chalk patterns on a plain dress and then dust them off again. He set up "Smith's Lightning Dressmaking Company," with two screens, a cardboard placard, and box of bright soft crayons; and Miss Diana actually threw him an abandoned black overall or working dress on which to exercise the talents of a modiste. He promptly produced for her a garment aflame with red and gold sunflowers; she held it up an instant to her shoulders, and looked like an empress. And Arthur Inglewood, some hours afterwards cleaning his bicycle (with his usual air of being inextricably hidden in it), glanced up; and his hot face grew hotter, for Diana stood laughing for one flash in the doorway, and her dark robe was rich with the green and purple of great decorative peacocks, like a secret garden in the "Arabian Nights." A pang too swift to be named pain or pleasure went through his heart like an old-world rapier. He remembered how pretty he thought her years ago, when he was ready to fall in love with anybody; but it was like remembering a worship of some Babylonian princess in some previous existence. At his next glimpse of her (and he caught himself awaiting it) the purple and green chalk was dusted off, and she went by quickly in her working clothes.” - G.K. Chesterton

90. “There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul.” - William Gibson

91. “Just the way it never rains when you have an umbrella, you'll never run into people if you look fantastic. But go outside in pajamas, and you'll run into every ex you have.” - Tim Gunn

92. “Right now, all white people are either wearing or coveting a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. These sunglasses are so popular now that you cannot swing a canvas bag at a farmer's market without hitting a pair. In fact, at outdoor gatherings you should count the number of Wayfarers so you can determine exactly how white the event is. If you see no Wayfarers you are either at a country music concert or you are indoors.” - Christian Lander

93. “These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly. Fashion is about dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women.” - Karl Lagerfeld

94. “Costume jewelry is not made to give women an aura of wealth,but to make them beautifu” - Coco Chanel

95. “The most pleasant and alluring curve on a woman is the smile” - Treasure Stitches

96. “My motto for fashion: If you can’t afford to make an elegant statement, make a ridiculous one.” - Stacey Jay

97. “To have an independant mind, to think for oneself, not to follow fashion, not to seek honour or decoration, not to become part of the establishment” - Marcel Schlumberge

98. “fabrics doesn't make exquisite dresses, it is the stitches.” - Treasure Stitches

99. “I'm always right, always wrong. Dressing bad's like loving you there is nothing i haven't worn. Nothing, I haven’t said before. You are nothing I haven’t felt before.” - Tegan Quin

100. “To tell you the truth, I dislike anything that is in fashion.” - Maraso

101. “Evening fashions have to be fabulous.Don't be just better...be the BEST.” - Tony Bowls

102. “Aside from infrequent comments ("Cheer up, love," or "It's not Hallo'ween"), no one wondered why a teenager was dressed up as a chic governess. Sylvie approved of Miri, even at the same time as she was confused by her. "It's a style at least," she said, and took off her rope of pearls and looped them around Miri's neck.” - Helen Oyeyemi

103. “While clothes may not make the woman, they certainly have a strong effect on her self-confidence, which, I believe, does make the woman.” - Mary Kay Ash

104. “And my dream for you..........., is that you'll catch a glimpse of what I love so much about fashion: It's boldness and creativity, the confidence that it takes to stand before a camera and let your image be captured, even though you aren't perfect, the peace to be truly okay with how others see you.” - Lauren Scruggs

105. “You could have fucked me ’til your uncut, overexposed on the blogs, ‘too ginormous for my snatch’ pecker fell off. And I’d still no way never ever in a thousand years sell, loan, sample you my Easton. And to answer your question, I run my company with my pussy, and twenty-four other pussy-sporting employees. Easton girls do not allow dickheads or cocks in our fashion world. Period.” - Avery Aster

106. “Walk like you have three men walking behind you.” - Oscar de la Renta

107. “Paris and Fashion. Books and Art. What would one be ... without the other?” - Peggy Kopman-Owens

108. “Let those who love me follow me'Cora Pearl, on being the very first person to dye her hair red in 1864” - Cora Pearl courtesan of the demi-monde

109. “Vincent laughed. "No, you still need to look like a Helian.""So I should burn everything to a crisp?""Well, that would definitely get your mother's attention, but I think that she's looking for something more sophisticated and less... scary.” - Heather James

110. “Stressed, depressed, but well dressed.” - weheartit

111. “When you say ugly you mean your beauty is not now in style.” - Héctor Abad Faciolince