Top 80 Vivienne Westwood Quotes

I am in my own head most of the time.

I design things to help people to hopefully express their personality.

In the morning, I practice 15 minutes of yoga.

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

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

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.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

All that self-expression has just created a generation of morons, hooked on an endless appetite for rubbish.

Journalists are usually quite jealous people, especially of intellectuals who are supposed to be in fashion.

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.

We wanted to step off our island and add the color of the third world. We got gold cigarette paper and stuck it around our teeth. We really did look like pirates and dressed to look the part.

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

I don’t have faith in young people any more. I don’t waste time trying to communicate with them.

I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

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

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.

I have too much product, and I’m trying to rein it in and sell more of my main collection. I wish you didn’t have to design so often; it would be good if you could keep on selling the same things for a few years and not have to do new things all the time.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who’s spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Personally I’m not a feminist, as I can’t stand puritans.

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.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

I have a company, and I’ve got to think about that. I’m trying to do my best there, and that’s a much harder task. We recycle as much as possible, and we conserve. But I’ve always been one to save everything – I even walk up stairs on the very inside or the very outside to not wear out the tread.

I don’t feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don’t have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you’ve got the money to be able to afford it, then it’s really good to buy something from me, but don’t buy too much.

When we started to do punk, we put all of these things together to create the look of an urban guerrilla – a rebel.

I don’t think punk fashion is a specter or overemphasized – it made a big impression, as there had never been anything like it before.

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

We based the look on rock ‘n roll right from the beginning.

I’m not sure what I think about current fashion, though. A few years ago, I would have said it’s really, really bad and you hardly ever see anybody looking good. There must be some very good designers in the world.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

There is so much that people take for granted.

I was born during the war and grew up in a time of rationing. We didn’t have anything. It’s influenced the way I look at the world.

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 talk to fashion designers and say I want some money to save the rainforest, and they say, ‘Oh, I agree with you completely Vivienne. Yes, climate change, it’s definitely happening,’ but they don’t feel that they can do anything about it; they don’t even think ‘Well let’s stop it!’

I’m the proof – you can’t throw away tradition.

I didn’t do anything at the Queen, whom I admire.

Prince Charles is definitely my hero; he uses his position to do only good in this world.

I think feminists are unaware of the tremendous extent of the role of women in history.

But, having a perfume and license, in general, is a financial necessity. A designer must, to reap back the money spent on prototypes and all that sort of thing.

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

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

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

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

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

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

The thing that makes my clothes really different is that, number one, they are really great designs; they’re not tacky; they are very professional; the design is made from lots of decisions.

I was still interested in the youth rebellion but never-the-less I stopped being a victim. Stopped trying to attack the establishment realizing that it takes too much of your energy.

I don’t feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you’ve got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don’t buy too much.

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.

It is extremely difficult to say how long the process actually took to finally achieve my fragrance, Boudoir, because there was a lot of time waiting around for other people.

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

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.

My clothes are very popular in Japan.

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.

There’s nowhere else like London. Nothing at all, anywhere.

I own my own company, so I’ve never had businessmen telling me what to do or getting worried if something doesn’t sell. I’ve always had my own access to the public, because I started off making my clothes for a little shop and so I’ve always had people buying them.

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

I have been asked what would I ban immediately if I could. Advertising.

The French have got taste.

My clothes have always got a very strong dynamic rapport with the body – they are very body conscious, they help you to look glamorous, more hourglass, more woman.

The muscular, athletic type is not representative of the human race, who are varied in their physique.

I think I’ve got wiser.

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

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.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

Fashion has become so whatever. I don’t think there are any stones left to unturn.

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.

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