Top 44 Sonia Rykiel Quotes

I am a perfectionist. It has always been this way.

It is interesting to see what other designers do, and not work in a vacuum.

A woman who walks well parts crowds – it’s something we should all be taught to do.

I have the impression that the women around me are like me – smaller, taller, fatter, thinner – but in fact, we are all the same.

Fashion should be a kind of bouillon de culture.

French women famously take care over their appearance, but this wasn’t instilled in me as I grew up. I was taught that beauty comes from different places, from the inside and from the outside.

Wherever I go, I buy shoes.

Knowing yourself, and learning to love yourself as you are, is the beginning of beauty. I think the most important thing is to show off what’s most beautiful about you and to hide what’s less beautiful.

When I started in fashion, for the first 10 years, I said to myself every day, ‘I’m going to quit tomorrow.’

The key to my collections is sensuality.

My only ambition was to have 10 children. Fashion was an accident.

What pushes me forward is everything I have learned: political, social, cultural. I put all that into the clothes.

As soon as I am up, I brush my hair. I eat breakfast first: tea and brown bread, and sometimes a fresh fruit juice like orange or grapefruit. I write notes on the previous day in my notebook, then I shower.

Everyone knows that life is very expensive and you can change, you can turn, you can play with clothes with a lot of accessories.

You can have a conversation with your eyes.

I have never followed fashion. What is fashion to me? I just think of things that inspire me, that inspire women, and I design that way.

My favourite feature is my hair. It has always made me look different. It was so red when I was born that my mother thought I had blood on my head. When I was a teenager, I looked like a tomboy, but then I understood that I could be a woman who was an intelligent mix between a lady and my mannish side.

The lead of a film that wove around me, I played all the roles. I traveled the world; I loved life, pleasure. I adored to write, create.

At hotels, you are an actress. Absolutely. You can do what you want. Go where you want. I love my home too. But I love to arrive in a hotel. They have books, chocolate, food. I put things in the little refrigerator.

My color is black. And black, if it’s worn right, is a scandal.

I don’t read e-mails because I hate them.

I’m not brave, I’m not fantastic. I’m like any other woman. I’m unhappy. I’m difficult. I’m sad. Am I strong, too? Maybe, but not always. There are days when I don’t want to see anyone. The most important thing you learn? You can live with it.

I hate wasting time getting dressed. I like to put something on and just think, ‘Yes. That’s it.’

As soon as the show is over, I always think, ‘How will the woman I design for go forward?’ It’s so important to start quickly because I can’t let her get away.

I don’t think that clothes have anything to do with the personality. That comes from the woman herself.

I don’t think I would ever have plastic surgery; there isn’t anything I’d want to change.

I wanted a maternity dress, but I couldn’t find anything I liked. Everything was abominable. So I made one. Then I made a pullover. ‘Elle’ put it on the cover. Then WWD elected me the Queen of Knitwear.

I was a tomboy, always fairly eccentric, and convinced I’d grow up to be an actress.

With only one bag, you can change your outfit completely.

My shows are about the complete woman who swallows it all. It’s a question of survival.

You have to be luxurious nude. It’s difficult to move in the nude in front of a mirror. It’s much easier to move when you’re dressed. But if you can walk around in the nude easily in front of your man, if you can be luxurious in the nude, then you’ve really got it.

I don’t know how to knit.

A man is attractive when he is slightly disturbing like a woman, a woman when she’s a little disturbing like a man.

I was supposed to be a mother like my mother, who didn’t work.

Since I didn’t know anything, I did everything I wanted.

I have no regrets in life, and you know what? If I could, I’d go back and do it all again.

I never played a part in the feminist movement – it touches me, but I am not a militant.

It’s important to keep on keeping on, to feel good about yourself and be happy with who you are.

I don’t want to show my pain. I resisted; I hesitated. I tried to be invisible, to pretend that nothing was wrong. It’s impossible; it’s not like me.

My breakfast is very important.

My first conversation of the day is with my daughter, Nathalie. I call her every morning; it is a ritual.

I think in the darkest moments, we need a break.

I came from an intellectual Parisian family. My father was a watchmaker; my mother was a housewife. We discussed politics, art, sculpture – never fashion.

To me, the biggest revolution of the 20th century was the pill.