95 Fashion Quotes To Inspire

Fashion transcends mere clothing; it’s a form of self-expression, an art, and sometimes even a bold statement. Whether you're a designer, a fashion enthusiast, or simply someone who loves to stay trendy, inspiration can be found in the words of those who have shaped the world of fashion. This collection of the top 95 fashion quotes is designed to ignite creativity, invoke passion, and perhaps even redefine your personal style. Dive into these pearls of wisdom from fashion icons, designers, and cultural influencers, and let their insights inspire your own unique sartorial journey.

1. “It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen.” - Dolly Parton

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. “Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.” - Dave Barry

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. “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

7. “I have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up” - Frank O'Hara

8. “I put on some make-up, turn on the 8-track, and I'm pulling the wig down from the shelf - suddenly I'm Miss Punk Rock Star of Stage and Screen and I ain't ever turning back!” - John Cameron Mitchell

9. “Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.” - Quentin Crisp

10. “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” - Coco Chanel

11. “So how was Christmas for you guys? Did you all get lots of nice black t-shirts?” - Gerard Way

12. “It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. "A bow tie announces to the world you can no longer get an erection.” - David Sedaris

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

14. “These jeans looked so good on me when I looked in the mirror I wanted to fuck myself.” - Pete Wentz

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

16. “So soon as a fashion is universal, it is out of date.” - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

17. “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

18. “Sometimes comfort doesn't matter. When a shoe is freakin' fabulous, it may be worth a subsequent day of misery. Soak in Epsom salts and take comfort in the fact that you're better than everyone else.” - Clinton Kelly

19. “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

20. “Clothes can suggest, persuade, connote, insinuate, or indeed lie, and apply subtle pressure while their wearer is speaking frankly and straightforwardly of other matters.” - Anne Hollander

21. “It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.” - Henry David Thoreau

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

23. “Success nullifies. You then have to do it again, preferably differently” - Karl Lagerfeld

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

25. “For me, Chanel is like music. There are certain notes and you have to make another tune with them” - Karl Lagerfeld

26. “A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul” - Karl Lagerfeld

27. “It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.” - Charles Baudelaire

28. “The imprint of Miss Hepburn is absolutely, totally present. Like it or not, she will be the most important look of the twentieth century.” - Manolo Blahnik

29. “I know the fashion is that everything is fair game [for comedy material] but I don't believe that.” - Craig Ferguson

30. “I love new clothes. If everyone could just wear new clothes everyday, I reckon depression wouldn’t exist anymore.” - Sophie Kinsella

31. “ I want to find a designer that can represent me. I want to find a celebrity that reflects me. So far I’ve been dressing in cotton-polyester blends. It’s what Jerffrey Dahmer wore.” - Christy Leigh Stewart

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

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

34. “In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and even clothes, the discussion of fur is childish.” - Karl Lagerfeld

35. “He'd changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He look like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.” - Rick Riordan

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

37. “I had an interview once with some German journalist—some horrible, ugly woman. It was in the early days after the communists—maybe a week after—and she wore a yellow sweater that was kind of see-through. She had huge tits and a huge black bra, and she said to me, ‘It’s impolite; remove your glasses.’ I said, ‘Do I ask you to remove your bra?” - Karl Lagerfeld

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

39. “When people want to be liked for what they did, they should stop.” - Karl Lagerfeld

40. “Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.” - Karl Lagerfeld

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

42. “The woman is the most perfect doll that i have dressed with delight and admiration.” - Karl Lagerfeld

43. “Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life.” - Mary Quant

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

45. “The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don't wear her.” - Mary Quant

46. “It is impossible to be completely abstract about clothes because they have no life unless they are worn. They must fit onto a body or they do not exist.” - Elizabeth Hawes

47. “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

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

49. “What I really love about them... is the fact that they contain someone's personal history...I find myself wondering about their lives. I can never look at a garment... without thinking about the woman who owned it. How old was she? Did she work? Was she married? Was she happy?... I look at these exquisite shoes, and I imagine the woman who owned them rising out of them or kissing someone...I look at a little hat like this, I lift up the veil, and I try to imagine the face beneath it... When you buy a piece of vintage clothing you're not just buying the fabric and thread - you're buying a piece of someone's past.” - Isabel Wolff

50. “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

51. “One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” - Oscar Wilde

52. “Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better.” - Margaret Oliphant

53. “You could dress it up with a sequined headband,” Magnus suggested, offering his boyfriend something blue and sparkly. “Just a thought.” “Resist the urge, Alec.” Simon was sitting on the edge of a low wall with Maia beside him, though she appeared to be deep in conversation with Aline. “You’ll look like Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu.” “There are worse things,” Magnus observed.” - Cassandra Clare

54. “The articles were extremely eye-opening. Not just in Teen Vogue but in Seventeen and CosmoGirl as well. They were all about being yourself, staying natural, loving your body as is, and going green! The messages were the exact opposite of Vik and Viv's.Hmmmmm. Frankie turned to face the full-length mirror that was up against the yellow wardrobe. She opened her robe and examined her body. Fit, muscular, and exquisitely proportioned, she agreed with the magazines. So what if her skin was mint? Or her limbs were attached with seams? According to the magazines, which were - no offense! - way more in touch with the times than her parents were, she was suppose to love her body just the way it was. And she did! Therefor if the normies read magazines (which obviously they did, because they were in them), then they would love her, too. Natural was in.Besides she was Daddy's perfect little girl. And who didn't love perfect?” - Lisi Harrison

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

56. “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

57. “I have often said that I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.” - Yves Saint Laurent

58. “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” - Coco Chanel

59. “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

60. “Fashion is only different skins for different flavours of you.” - Lauren Beukes

61. “Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.” - Karl Lagerfeld

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

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

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

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

66. “Killing animals to make a fashion statement = a sickening + cold-blooded vanity.” - Jess C. Scott

67. “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

68. “It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.” - Anna Wintour

69. “No one looks or feels attractive when angry.” - Allan Lokos

70. “Create your own style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” - Anna Wintour

71. “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

72. “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

73. “A budding fashionista even at four, I would capture the little lizards and latch them, still living, onto my earlobes as earrings. Most girls wouldn't touch them, I thought they completed the outfit.” - Mireya Mayor

74. “1. Find your own style and have the courage to stick to it.2. Choose your clothes for your way of life.3. Make your wardrobe as versatile as an actress. It should be able to play many roles.4. Find your happiest colours - the ones that make you feel good.5. Care for your clothes, like the good friends they are!” - Joan Crawford

75. “It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. People who couldn't afford wigs tried to make their hair look like a wig.” - Bill Bryson

76. “To me, clothing is a form of self-expression - there are hints about who you are in what you wear.” - Mark Jacobs

77. “I know it's practical for career women, but sneakers with suits? Jesus couldn't possibly weep harder than I did.” - MaryJanice Davidson

78. “I’ve seen daggers pierce the chest,Children dying in the road,Crawling things hooked and baited,Rapists bound and then castrated,Villains singed in public square.Yet none these sights did make me cringeLike when my Love cut all her hair.” - Roman Payne

79. “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

80. “A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion” - Coco Chanel

81. “From time to time, you may see a girl wearing her black opaque tights as pants. They are, in fact, not.” - Nina Garcia

82. “Elegance is elimination.” - Cristóbal Balenciaga

83. “You must remember, Madame Harris, elegance is in the details.” - Lynn Sheene

84. “you are what you wear” - Treasure Stitches

85. “Dare we care at all about current fashions if that means reducing our ability to help hungry neighbors? How many more luxuries should we buy for ourselves and our children when others are dying for lack of bread?” - Ron Sider

86. “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

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

88. “On first impressions, John seemed more cynical and brash than the others, Ringo the most endearing, Paul was cute, and George, with velvet brown eyes and dark chestnut hair, was the best-looking man I'd ever seen. At the break for lunch I found myself sitting next to him, whether by accident or design I have never been sure. We were both shy and spoke hardly a word to each other, but being close to him was electrifying.” - Pattie Boyd

89. “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

90. “Good grief," said Merlin. "You look like the bastard child of Dumbledore and David Bowie. No, sorry, Dumbledore and Ziggy Stardust.” - FayJay

91. “All I can tell you about fashion and style is this: buy and wear what makes you happy.” - John Jannuzzi

92. “Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.And falsehoods the truths of other people.Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” - Oscar Wilde

93. “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

94. “The believer is not a slave to fashion.” - Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips

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