Alexander McQueen Quotations

I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.

I always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of 12.

I've had good times; I've had bad times.

British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.

It's good to know where you come from. It makes you what you are today. It's DNA, it's in your blood.

As a designer, you've always got to push yourself forward; you've always got to keep up with the trends or make your own trends. That's what I do.

The turnover of fashion is just so quick and so throwaway, and I think that is a big part of the problem. There is no longevity.

Of course I make mistakes. I'm human. If I didn't make mistakes, I'd never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.

Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.

Really, what I'm aiming for is world domination!

I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.

When I'm dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.

Sting's my ideal man, because he's a real man.

You can only go forward by making mistakes.

For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I'm getting there: I've found my customer, my silhouette, my cut.

I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions.

Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.

I think the idea of mixing luxury and mass-market fashion is very modern, very now - no one wears head-to-toe designer anymore.

There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do - but that part is for me. It's my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There's a sadness to it, but there's romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.

It's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.

I don't want to be too proud, but I have a good personal style.

I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.

I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.

Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't.

There are only a handful of designers that influence other designers, and I have to keep one step ahead of the game.

For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.

I have been skiing since I was in school, but I'm not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not... black.

I work with people I admire and respect. It's never because of who they are.

Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers.

Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.

There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance.

There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company. (But) I always remember that it's the fantasy, the artistic side, that makes customers want to buy the straightforward black pants.

Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way.

Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive. I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.

I was never a big networker, but I was a spin doctor, all those shock shows, that's how I got my first backers. But fashion's a scary industry to be in, especially if you've not grown up with it.

I'm mad in the front of my mind, but business-minded in the back.

I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design.

Youth culture now really looks back and embraces the past, but keeps it contemporary but not sticking to one particular style.

When a woman gets dressed up to go out at night, she wants to give 50% away, and hold the rest back. If you're an open book, there's no allure.

Fame should be left to the film stars.

I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.

The police need to come down to street level.

It's not my vision when I cover a woman's face with a chador. I got the idea from a 'National Geographic' photo. I'm just showing their plight in the world.

I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I've always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it's late.

I just want to be a wallflower. Nondescript. Just not anything. I don't want to see me.

It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.

My relationships with producers or photographers - these are relationships that took years.

Nicey nicey just doesn't do it for me.

You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.

You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.

I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.

I like the concept of dressing people. I used to not care whether people bought the clothes or not, but I kind of like it now. I wouldn't label that commercialism; it's more like I do this work because I want people to wear it.

I was three years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life.

I think I should be a president. President of the United States.

I like the idea of infiltrating an area that is not really exposed to me or my work.

What we do have in London is a fantastic pool of talent coming through the colleges. We are the fashion world's incubator.

I have so much respect for him, and I don't even think he will mind.

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.

I want to empower women.

I'm about what goes through people's minds. The stuff that people don't want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what's buried in people's psyches.

I'm the pink sheep in the family.

There is no better designer then nature

I feel more Scottish than Norman.

I believe in that one-on-one sell. I don't really believe in flooding the market with loads of goods that don't mean much, and you lose your identity.

I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.

Having money hasn't changed me. If anything it's made my life worse. People come up to you who knew you before you were famous and who didn't come up to you before. I'm a clever designer. I can do what the client wants. But I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.

I don’t want to do a cocktail party. I’d rather people left my shows and vomited.

What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. . . . There’s a lot of tribalism in the collections,

These beautiful models were walking around in the room, and then suddenly this woman who wouldn’t be considered beautiful was revealed. It was about trying to trap something that wasn’t conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within.

If you're an open book, there's no allure.

I'm 40 now, but I want this to be a company that lives way beyond me, and I believe that customers are more important to making that happen than press. When I'm dead, hopefully this house will still be going. On a spaceship. Hopping up and down above earth.

I find beauty in melancholy.

I am a melancholy type of person.

I am married to work.

I was this young boy and I saw this man with his hands round my sister's neck, I was just standing there with her two children beside me... Everything I've done since then was for the purpose of making women look stronger, not naïve. And so, when everyone started saying I was a misogynist, that really freaked me out. They didn't know me. They didn't know what I had seen in my life. That was the first part of fashion that I hated - people labeling me without knowing me.

I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.

I'm interested in designing for posterity.

Animals fascinate me because you can find a force, an energy, a fear that also exists in sex.

I like things to be modern and still have a bit of tradition

I was literally 3 years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life, through primary school, secondary school, all my life. I always, always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of twelve. I followed designer's careers. I knew Giorgio Armani was a window-dresser, Emanuel Ungaro was a tailor.

Fashions fade, style is eternal. - Yves Saint-LaurentThe most important thing to remember is that you can wear all the greatest clothes and all the greatest shoes, but you've got to have a good spirit on the inside. That's what's really going to make you look like you're ready to rock the world. - Alicia KeysIt's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.

You can get insular with fashion.

Some designers are so airy-fairy people can't connect with them. I hope people can relate to me, to a normal person who just happens to be a fashion designer, that people can take me as they find me. It's not the designer's job to care about what people think. Whatever else I've done, I've never tried to be something that I'm not.

My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them. . . . The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O’Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.

I think there is beauty in everything.

I think sometimes I might scare the editors, because they might feel they're getting old and they're not understanding it. The problem lies on their side of the fence, not mine. I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era.

You can only go forward by making mistakes. I'm twenty-seven, not fifty-seven. I'm not Givenchy, I'm Alexander McQueen.

I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.

I'm not interested in being liked.

There’s blood beneath every layer of skin.

When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolution

London’s where I was brought up. It’s where my heart is and where I get my inspiration,

You've got to know the rules to break them.

I am constantly trying to reflect the way women are treated. It's hard to interpret that in clothes or in a show but there's always an underlying, sinister side to women's sexuality in my work because of the way I have seen women treated in my life. Where I come from, a woman met a man, had babies, moved to Dagenham, two up two down, made the dinner, went to bed. That was my image of women and I didn't want that. I wanted to get that out of my head.

I'm not big on women looking naive.

When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there’s a certain hardness to the clothes that makes her look powerful. It kind of fends people off.

Life to me is a bit of a (Brothers) Grimm fairy tale.

It needs to connect with the earth. Things that are processed and reprocessed lose their substance.

I think there has to be an underlying sexuality. There has to be a perverseness to the clothes. There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance. It's like a Story of O. I am not big on women looking naive. There has to be a sinister aspect, whether it's melancholy of sadomasochist. I think everyone has a deep sexuality, and sometimes it's good to use a little of it-and sometimes a lot of it-like a masquerade.

It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle - everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.