Alexander McQueen Quotes

I always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of 12.

I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I've always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it's late.

You've got to know the rules to break them.

I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions.

I think there is beauty in everything.

I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.

I'm not big on women looking naive.

I don't want to be too proud, but I have a good personal style.

I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design.

I don’t want to do a cocktail party. I’d rather people left my shows and vomited.

I am a melancholy type of person.

I'm interested in designing for posterity.

I think I should be a president. President of the United States.

There are only a handful of designers that influence other designers, and I have to keep one step ahead of the game.

Really, what I'm aiming for is world domination!

You can get insular with fashion.

When a woman gets dressed up to go out at night, she wants to give 50% away, and hold the rest back. If you're an open book, there's no allure.

It's not my vision when I cover a woman's face with a chador. I got the idea from a 'National Geographic' photo. I'm just showing their plight in the world.

I think the idea of mixing luxury and mass-market fashion is very modern, very now - no one wears head-to-toe designer anymore.

I work with people I admire and respect. It's never because of who they are.

I'm mad in the front of my mind, but business-minded in the back.

London's where I was brought up. It's where my heart is and where I get my inspiration.

The police need to come down to street level.

Sting's my ideal man, because he's a real man.

Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way.

I'm about what goes through people's minds. The stuff that people don't want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what's buried in people's psyches.

I'm the pink sheep in the family.

What I do is look at ancient African tribes, and the way they dress. The rituals of how they dress. . . . There's a lot of tribalism in the collections.

I believe in that one-on-one sell. I don't really believe in flooding the market with loads of goods that don't mean much, and you lose your identity.

I like the idea of infiltrating an area that is not really exposed to me or my work.

You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.

Youth culture now really looks back and embraces the past, but keeps it contemporary but not sticking to one particular style.

You can only go forward by making mistakes. I'm twenty-seven, not fifty-seven. I'm not Givenchy, I'm Alexander McQueen.

I can't get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it's just crass.

I am married to work.

I want to empower women.

I was never a big networker, but I was a spin doctor, all those shock shows, that's how I got my first backers. But fashion's a scary industry to be in, especially if you've not grown up with it.

Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive.

I've had good times; I've had bad times.

Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't.

I just want to be a wallflower. Nondescript. Just not anything. I don't want to see me.

I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.

There is no better designer then nature

You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.

Fame should be left to the film stars.

There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company.

I have been skiing since I was in school, but I'm not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not... black.

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.

I was three years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life.

My relationships with producers or photographers - these are relationships that took years.