Top 70 Couture Quotes

When I was 18, my mum gave me all the clothes she’d had made at the famous haute couture fashion label, House of Worth, in Paris. Of course, I eventually trashed them all.

It really is the very top of the fashion world; nothing comes above haute couture. But not any old designer can create something magical and call it haute couture; the term is strictly protected for a very special few.

I don’t believe in naming clients to get press. I hated it when I was a couture client. If the dresses don’t sell themselves, there is something wrong.

There are people who, if they see something in couture that they perceive as ready-to-wear, they’re in shock.

With couture, you feel obligated to design something modern each season, but with Theyskens Theory, I don’t question anything. I’m thinking of what I’d like to wear.

I really love Juicy Couture – it’s young and fresh.

My mum was very glamorous, an incredible seamstress. She made up those Vogue, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent patterns they used to sell. It was church couture, darling! Because my dad was a pastor, she could get away with more than other women. Her skirts were that bit tighter.

With couture, it means I get to show fall in July with delivery in September. My clients will be getting their pieces in season.

I love fashion. I love couture. I’m going to erect a shelf in my bedroom with an art light to be the spot for the shoes of the month. I want them to serve another purpose.

It’s nice to have someone write a couture character for you.

I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators ‘the haute couture of language.’

My idea is to have two bases. I keep my family in Rio, and when I have a fight scheduled, I will come to Vegas to train here at Xtreme Couture, which I consider the best place for a MMA fighter to be.

I think the golden age of couture had some of the most incredible customers: women like Nan Kempner and all the icons.

I only take risks in couture, but I don’t take risks in athleticism.

When I thought about the absolute favourite of favourites or what stood for the best of haute couture, it was Givenchy.

When I first got Yves Saint Laurent Couture, I didn’t know how to take off a cape. I would ask Katoucha and Dalma – the real divas of the runway – ‘Can you show me?’ I’ve never been afraid to ask for help.

It’s an honor to fight someone like Randy Couture.

I was taken to my first fashion show – Nina Ricci haute couture – in Paris by the White Russian princess, down on her luck, whom I was boarding with in Paris in 1963. I was captivated by the glamour of the gilded salon, the elegant clothes, and the audience of grand ladies.

I have pictures of my grandmother from the 1920s and ’30s in avant-garde dresses that looked like they could have come from the House of Worth or Lucien Lelong. She would never say if they were couture, but I do recall her telling me, ‘All my clothes and shoes came from Paris.’

When my first novel, ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ was published in 2013, many readers were astonished to learn that in Asia, there were women who dressed in couture from morning till night.

Don’t be afraid to mix things up by pairing a military-style jacket with a velvet skirt, vintage with modern, off-the-rack with couture, formal with casual.

Nobody criticizes The Rock. Nobody criticizes Randy Couture when he goes over and did ‘Expendables 3’ or anybody who’s a crossover.

It’s couture. Everything has to be done by hand. That is most important. That is the crucial element. Without it, that is not couture anymore.

Like in great painting and architecture, in couture, to make clothes you must eliminate, eliminate, eliminate to obtain the true sense of a line. You see, the more you add, the more you load on, the more it’s mad. You must try to have just the silhouette, which is an intelligence in clothes.

I look up to fighters like Vitor Belfort, Anderson Silva, Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture. A lot of the fighters that fought into their older age and for me, as a warrior, I just love it.

I will never forget my first Valentino Haute Couture show.

‘Mad Fashion’ follows the everyday workings of me and my workshop, where we make fashion, costumes, props, and couture!

The sneaker comes from sports, but it’s couture now. It’s not made in Asia: it’s made in my little village in Italy. I can customize everything. I use silk and diamonds and crystals. I think my sneakers have a lot of good vibrations.

I love cashmere. For casual, I like Juicy Couture. I love the beading in Badgley Mischka. I like Dolce & Gabbana. There’s such a lot to choose from.

I’m sorry, but Juicy Couture tracksuits and Ugg boots don’t move me in any way, shape or form. I refuse to wear them. Modern fashion doesn’t appeal to me; the 1950s were better in every way, don’t you think?

You work around a body and adapt the clothes to your own customer, and this is the interesting part. This is why the haute couture exists: because in ready-to-wear, you have not too much fitting.

It was Yves Saint Laurent who realised the high-end design houses could make a lot more money if they sold more accessible clothing than the usual couture, when he opened his pret-a-porter store, Rive Gauche, in 1966.

The pret-a-porter collection will be the same as couture in essence: I love luxury, beautiful products, handmade with care, but at more accessible prices.

I was on the couch watching Tim Sylvia beat Ricco Rodriguez, Randy Couture beat Tim Sylvia, and Josh Barnett fight in PRIDE.

I don’t think couture will die. But it should have no pretension that it will conquer the world. It’s not something that will disappear because all you need is a thread and a needle to start making something couture.

I love couture, but the other side of me loves the street, and I think the mix of these two can create something new.

Only the fat-cat corporations can really afford to put on two mega-ready-to-wear shows a year, or four if you add two haute couture shows, or six if you count men’s wear. Resort and prefall push the number up to eight. A couple of promotional shows in Asia, Brazil, Dubai or Moscow can bring the count to 10.

I love the 2000s because everyone started to love haute couture.

I don’t really buy designer stuff. I have a few nice things, but I don’t really have the occasion to wear couture too often.

I am very happy to design haute couture. It’s a love story between couture and me.

Well, my dresses are very tight and mostly all made for me – couture, baby.

I saw a lot of haute couture all my childhood, and without knowing it I’ve learned from when I was a child to recognise beautiful fabrics.

After all, it’s very important for any big-name designer to have a couture range. I leave the ready-to-wear to my partner and team.

I am still in love with couture because it is just two months from drawing pad to runway so everything on the catwalk is hot from the oven.

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.

For me, couture is like 35 mm. film. It’s so important we school ourselves to see real quality. In a couture garment, as in a 35 mm. film, you really feel the life of the people who made it. In high-street fashion, it’s different. There’s no risk.

I’ve worn dresses from all different price ranges, and the thing that couture dresses have in common is that the fit is amazing.

I want to give haute couture a kind of wink, a sense of humour – to introduce the whole sense of freedom one sees in the street into high fashion; to give couture the same provocative and arrogant look as punk – but, of course, with luxury and dignity and style.

I have a very haute couture way of working.

After I started training with some of the best in the world and fighting in the UFC, I started really wanting fights with guys I used to idolize and watch on TV. Guys like Tito Ortiz and Randy Couture.

I have a couture body.

I started collecting couture when I was about 10 or 11 years old, and the very first piece I bought was a Balenciaga suit from 1962.

I know quite a few eco designers who build dresses out of old couture gowns. They disassemble, ‘upcycle,’ and reuse them in extraordinary ways. To me, that’s a sustainable way of doing things.

For so long Versace couture was identified with celebrities and music, which I love. But at the same time it could overwhelm the clothes.

The Gucci woman can be the equestrian woman, the woman in the suit, the woman in the flowy bohemian dress, or the couture woman.

One of the toughest guys in the world is Randy Couture – he is the true epitome of what a tough guy is.

Couture is also a term used for top-of-the-range, to-order clothing – but not to the level of intricacy and expense as haute couture. And without the ‘haute’, the word ‘couture’ itself isn’t protected.

I’ve sold everything from fashion, make-up, couture magazines, radio, reality television, movies. There isn’t a thing I haven’t sold, including Tampax. You name it.