Top 50 John Rocha Quotes

As you get older, your skin tone will change, and that means the colours that suit you best change, too. Take a trip to a department store and ask for advice, or simply hold colours close to your face in the mirror, as this should give you a good idea of what works.

I like to create a simple space and surround myself with things that I like to look at.

Fashion remains closest to my heart. I get genuinely excited by my collections – I never wanted to be a businessman.

I want to challenge myself in new mediums; I want to leave myself open to different things.

I think, as a designer, what you have to do is challenge yourself to do what you do, but better.

I love fashion, but fashion is not my whole life.

My life is about family and friends as well as work.

I’m a British designer, and it’s great to show on your own ground.

I have no idea why, but I find that men make more of an impact on me in films than women – even very beautiful ones.

My homes are similar in style because the same design principles run through all areas of my work.

As I get older and older, people like my work more and more.

I will never see myself as a businessman. I’m a designer. I have to be true to what I believe.

I used to play football, and then my wife bought me a fishing rod.

I always promised myself that I wouldn’t do catwalk shows until the day I died.

My most precious possession is a 13.5-feet-long fishing rod, made by an American firm called Loomis.

Fashion is like a four-legged table: you need a good designer, a very good business manager, a good manufacturer, and a very good distributor. Without all the legs, table collapses.

When I was young, we always went to our posh cousins at Christmas. My dad made sure we had new shoes and clean clothes – he was really proud – and that’s why I felt different from everyone living around me. We had the first television on the estate, the first fridge.

It was a very, very happy childhood, but I always knew I wanted to see the world.

We cater for fashion-conscious people.

I am trained as a fashion designer and do not claim to be an expert architect or anything like that. I won’t do something unless I know I can do it.

It is hard to have a fashion business in any country, but even more difficult in Ireland.

Fashion is instant – after six months, it disappears, and you have to start again. That’s the nature of it.

I don’t want to be an elitist designer. It’s no fun just catering for a small group of people. It’s against my principles.

When I left college, nobody expected much of me – and nor did I.

I love my black shirts; I have usually 14 of them at any one time.

I dress pop stars, and I dress my doctor. It’s about attitude. I do what I love, and I’m lucky to do it. It’s a long way from Hong Kong.

Men like clothes they can wear to work and afterwards. They don’t want things to be complicated.

My dream home would be a fishing lodge in New Zealand.

Design has always been at the heart of our business.

There was the Cultural Revolution just over the border, and Hong Kong felt quite dodgy. My younger brother’s wife actually swam from China to Hong Kong to escape. I realised in the ’60s that I had to get out.

Talent always shouts at you.

To create a beautiful thing with unlimited money is easy!

I never set out to do interior design; I just do what I do, and some people come along and want me to work with them.

I want to explore my design philosophy in different mediums, and I’m very interested in architecture.

I can speak Cantonese, but I can’t speak about fashion – I learnt all my fashion in Europe, so often, during interviews in Chinese I just don’t know the right word – it can be very hard to explain things.

The day I feel my clothes are no longer relevant, I will be happy to step down.

I want romance; I want people to be happy in their relationships.

Your 30s is the time to embrace bold, zingy colour patterns and to follow trends while taking time to get used to what really suits you.

A woman can look incredibly sexy in a black suit.

As a heterosexual designer, it is really, really important to have a woman’s point of view.

I love white walls because white reflects the light and is a great backdrop for art.

I always challenge myself to do something better, and people in the industry appreciate that.

I can tell you every element of every single look from each collection – one to 30 – without looking at a picture: my label is all done by me.

My family was quite poor, and the NHS was recruiting people from abroad to do psychiatric nursing. It was the only hope I had to leave Hong Kong.

Chinese people have that superstitious fix – people always do feng shui when they are opening a shop; even the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank pays people to do feng shui for them.

Beautiful fabrics last; synthetics don’t. Certain fabrics, such as linen or cotton, develop their own character over time.

Guys want to be cool without appearing to be bothered about trends.

If you ask me where do I belong, it would be somewhere in the Irish Sea almost – born in Hong Kong, Chinese mother, Portuguese father from Macao, lived in Europe most of my life.

I believe that IT is the way forward. Every other industry utilises IT, and I feel that fashion needs to use it more extensively to move forward.

Fabric is the foundation of a collection.