Alexander McQueen Quotes & Sayings

You can get insular with fashion. — Alexander McQueen

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

Fame should be left to the film stars. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

It's a new era in fashion- there are no rules — Alexander McQueen

There is no way back for me now, I'm going to take you on journeys you've never dreamed possible — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

Fashion is self confident and fearless. — Alexander McQueen

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

It's almost like putting armor on a woman. It's a very psychological way of dressing. — Alexander McQueen

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

There is no better designer than nature. — Alexander McQueen

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as ... haggis ... bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it. — Alexander McQueen

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland. — Alexander McQueen

You've got to know the rules to break them. That's what I'm here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition. — Alexander McQueen

The police need to come down to street level. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

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

When we put the antlers on the model and then draped over it the lace embroidery that we had made, we had to poke them through a £2,000 piece of work. But then it worked because it looks like she's rammed the piece of lace with her antlers. There's always spontaneity. You've got to allow for that in my shows. — Alexander McQueen

There is no better designer then nature — Alexander McQueen

Style is not about the clothes, it's about the individual — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

I use things that people want to hide in their heads. War, religion, sex; things we all think about, but don't bring to the forefront. But I do and I force them to watch it — Alexander McQueen

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

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

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

Let me not forget the use of my own hands, that of a craftsman with eyes ... that reflect the technology around me. — Alexander McQueen

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

There's beauty in anger, and anger for me is a passion. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

I used flowers because they die. My mood was darkly romantic at the time. — Alexander McQueen

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

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

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

I'm interested in designing for posterity. — Alexander McQueen

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

I want to be the purveyor of a certain silhouette or a way of cutting, so that when I am dead and gone people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

For me, what I do is an artistic expression which is channeled through me. Fashion is just the medium. — Alexander McQueen

I don't want to do a cocktail party. I'd rather people left my shows and vomited. — Alexander McQueen

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I'm inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It's so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

The world needs fantasy, not reality. We have enough reality today — Alexander McQueen

There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company. — Alexander McQueen

I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists. I have to force people to look at things. — Alexander McQueen

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

I'm not interested in being liked. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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 — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

It's the ugly things I notice more, because other people tend to ignore the ugly things. — Alexander McQueen

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

I've had good times; I've had bad times. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

Women should look like women. A piece of cardboard has no sexuality. — Alexander McQueen

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, — Alexander McQueen

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

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

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. — Alexander McQueen

I am married to work. — Alexander McQueen

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

Nicey nicey just doesn't do it for me. — Alexander McQueen

I'm the pink sheep in the family. — Alexander McQueen

I feel more Scottish than Norman. — Alexander McQueen

There's blood beneath every layer of skin. — Alexander McQueen

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

If you ask any lady they want to be taller, they want to be slimmer, you know, and they want a waist. I'm not here to make people look like a sack of potatoes. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

London's where I was brought up. It's where my heart is and where I get my inspiration, — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

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

I'm not big on women looking naive. — Alexander McQueen

If you're lucky enough to use something you see in a dream, it is purely original. It's not in the world - it's in your head. I think that is amazing. — Alexander McQueen

I am a melancholy type of person. — Alexander McQueen

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. — Alexander McQueen

People don't want to see clothes, they want to see something that fuels the imagination — Alexander McQueen