Yves Saint Laurent Quotations

It pains me physically to see a woman victimized, rendered pathetic by fashion.

I'd really like to be in closer contact with life. I'm a little too distant, I guess. I like to place myself outside.

I want to thank all the women who have worn my clothes, the famous and the unknown, who have been so faithful to me and given me so much joy.

Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.

I wish I had invented blue jeans. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity - all I hope for in my clothes.

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.

I couldn't love a woman who inspired me to be totally disinterested. If I fell in love with a woman for an artistic reason, or from the point of view of my work, I think it would rob her of something.

I adore America. It's an extraordinary country. A new country.

A good model can advance fashion by ten years.

I am no longer concerned with sensation and innovation, but with the perfection of my style.

Blue Jeans? They should be worn by farm girls milking cows!

Fashion is defined by what later becomes out of fashion.

[Fashion is] a kind of vitamin for style.

I don't like [to] make a woman ... an abstract concept of the fashion. I don't like [to] say, "You must wear that." ... I am not a dictator.

I like to watch the way a model moves in my clothes, the way she gives them life, or if they are wrong, stillborn, the way her life rejects them.

I cannot pretend to do sculpture and make a woman the ridiculous pedestal of my pretensions. To render clothing poetic, yes--but one must preserve its dignity as clothing.

I love bows, … And I feel some couture pots coming on.

I don't at all search for an ideal woman, but several ideal women.

Elegance is no longer significant; clothes have to be fun.

Each model I have represents a type of ideal women to me.

For me, perfume, must be adapted to fashion, not the other way around.

I was born with a nervous breakdown.

Elegance and beauty have been banished.

I tried to show that fashion is an art. For that, I followed the counsel of my master Christian Dior and the imperishable lesson of Mademoiselle Chanel. I created for my era and I tried to foresee what tomorrow would be.

I don't really like knees.

A designer who is not also a couturier, who hasn't learned the most refined mysteries of physically creating his models, is like a sculptor who gives his drawings to another man, an artisan, to accomplish.

I'm so secluded. Very alone.

Haute couture consists of secrets whispered from generation to generation, If, in ready-to-wear, a garment is manufactured according to standard sizes, the haute couture garment adapts to any imperfection in order to eliminate it.

Seeing Cubism paintings at the Beaubourg makes me very happy and also old films.

There are women who have completely transformed my view of fashion and if I hadn't shown them I would never have arrived at this point in fashion, you see.

What is wonderful about my art is that dream and reality can become one. There is just one step between the two.

I love women. I love all the bright and attractive people and things of this world, the flame and also the moth, the dancer and the dance.

There are women who have completely transformed my view of fashion.

Fashions fade, style is eternal.

My name will be written in fiery letters on the Champs Elysees.

I always believed that style was more important than fashion. They are rare, those who imposed their style while fashion makers are so numerous.

Dressing is a way of life. It brings you joy. It can give you freedom and liberation, help you to find yourself and to move without restraint. Isn't elegance forgetting what one is wearing?

No more rules, the freedom of dressing. The beauty of mixing vintage clothes with a pair of jeans that I love.

Decadence attracts me. It suggests a new world, and, for me, society's struggle between life and death is absolutely beautiful.

I participated in the transformation of my era. I did it with clothes, which is surely less important than music, architecture, painting but whatever it's worth I did it.

Anyone who reaches for great expression has to be careful of the ridiculous.

I find men's clothing fascinating because sometime between, say, 1930 and 1936 a handful of basic shapes were created and still prevail as a sort of scale of expression, with which every man can project his own personality and his own dignity.

I pass for a hypersensitive, reclusive neurotic, which I may well be, but I hope the year won't come when my anxieties and fatigue will destroy my love of this life, of all the things that inspire me--a line of music, a face in a Vermeer portrait, a character in an opera, or a model born in Harlem.

A woman's wardrobe shouldn't change every six months. You should be able to use the pieces you already own and add to them. Because they are like timeless classics.

The street and me is a love story. 1971 is a great date because, finally, fashion took to the street.

We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.

Isn't elegance forgetting what one is wearing?

For a woman, le smoking is an indispensable garment with which she finds herself continually in fashion, because it is about style, not fashion. Fashions come and go, but style is forever.

I prefer to shock rather than to bore through repetition,

Fashions pass quickly, and nothing is more pathetic than those puppets of fashion outrageously made up one day, pale the next, pleated or ironed stiff, libertine or ascetic. Playing with fashion is an art. The first rule is don't burn your wings.

Moda je prolazna, dok stil traje, on je večan.

Chanel freed women, and I empowered them.

When you feel good in a clothing anything can happen. A good clothing is a passport for happiness.

Le plus beau vêtement qui puisse habiller une femme, ce sont les bras de l'homme qu'elle aime. Mais, pour celles qui n'ont pas eu la chance de trouver ce bonheur, je suis là.

Fashion comes and goes, but style is eternal.

Fashion is like a party. Getting dressed is preparing to play a role.

I have always believed that fashion was not only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence.

The most beautiful clothes that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves. But for those who haven't had the fortune of finding this happiness, I am there.

Finding your own style is not easy, but once found it brings complete happiness. It gives you self-confidence, always.

Dressing is a way of life.

I love black because it affirms, designs and styles. A woman in a black dress is a pencil stroke.

Without elegance of the heart, there is no elegance.

To be beautiful, woman enough to have a black sweater, black skirt and walk arm in arm with the man she loves.

The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.