Vivienne Westwood Quotes

I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make - and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn't quite work.

I'm always attracted to people who interest me. They've got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They're interested in people.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don't notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They're not men.

Economists treat economics as if it is a pure science divorced from the facts of life. The result of this false accountancy is a willful confusion under cover of which industry wreaks its havoc scot-free and ignores the environmental cost.

The young Japanese, especially, love to wear the latest thing and when they come to London they head for my shops as part of what they want to find in Britain.

I can't think without my glasses.

I very rarely watch my own fashion shows, but the makeup for my Fall 2011 show was just brilliant.

The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

We are the most amazing creatures that this world has ever produced, but we seem to also have this herd mentality; we seem to be the most stupid, also.

My children came out as individuals in their own right. They were not my products. They had their own characters and were very strong-minded. I gave them a lot of freedom when they were still very young. The one thing they got from me is morals. They would never betray anyone. They are really good people.

If you see everything from the point of view of women being victims in some way, you don't see the wood for the trees. It is better to be a person than a woman.

I've got a terrible memory; it's probably because I'm always concentrating on what I'm doing now.

If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing.

I'm different from any other designer, businesswise, in that I've built this company up and I own it. I never had business hype behind me to promote my image... My image is real... I have never had marketing people telling me what to do.

If we didn't have the Chinese buying things, we'd be on the floor.

I think it's important to vote.

I wish you didn't have to design so often. Try to do quality and cut down on quantity. I think fashion is very, very important.

However, because Britain is young and exciting, I did show my second line here once or twice.

I've got a real sense of three-dimensional geometry. I can look at a flat piece of fabric and know that if I put a slit in it and make some fabric travel around a square, then when you lift it up it will drape in a certain way, and I can feel how that will happen.

Don't just eat McDonald's, get something a bit better. Eat a salad. That's what fashion is. It's something that is a bit better.

When I was a little girl you used to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore.

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.

The reason why I am proud of my part in the punk movement is that I think it really did implant a message that was already there. The hippies told it to me, but punk made it something cool for people to stand up for, which is that we do not believe government, that we are against government.

I do not approve of museums trying just to get people to come in. Whistler was very, very clear on this.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle.

If you wear clothes that don't suit you, you're a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better.

You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.

I think that feminists have definitely underestimated the role that women have had historically. I think I would be insecure if I were to be a man; there's so much pressure on you.

Being part of a community with a church at its centre and singin' hymns is a great thing to do.

The French have got taste.

We are so conformist; nobody is thinking. We are all sucking up stuff; we have been trained to be consumers, and we are all consuming far too much.

I really don't like women who try to be men. All these politicians, I think they're horrendous. We could have a brilliant future, but we have this terrible male vision of destroying everything. They'd better sort themselves out and become more womanly.

I'll tell you what I was like as a child. I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader.

I always thought we had an environmental problem, but I hadn't realized how urgent it was. James Lovelock writes that by the end of this century there will be one billion people left.

The age in which we live, this non-stop distraction, is making it more impossible for the young generation to ever have the curiosity or discipline... because you need to be alone to find out anything.

I have certain signatures, certain cutting principles. It could be a raw-edged seam; it could be leaving the lining of sheepskin exposed so it's not perfectly finished. I invent new ways to do it, but the end goal is always the same.

Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture.

I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features.

I just use fashion as an excuse to talk about politics. Because I'm a fashion designer, it gives me a voice, which is really good.

What changed our lives forever was when Malcolm had the idea to sell rock 'n roll records to trendy customers.

Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody's buying far too many clothes.

I don't have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I'm left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

I love designing at the moment, I'm so happy with my work.

Our economic system, run for profit and waste and based primarily on the extractive industries, is the cause of climate change. We have wasted the earth's treasure and we can no longer exploit it cheaply.

The best night of my life was watching the Japanese Noh theater. I've only seen it once, but even saying it now, I think, 'How can I ever have this experience again?' It was so mesmerizing, so complicated and so primordial; I could not believe it.