Diana Vreeland

Vogue always did stand for people's lives. I mean, a new dress doesn't get you anywhere; it's the life you're living in the dress, and the sort of life you had lived before, and what you will do in it later.

Don't look back. Just go ahead. Give ideas away. Under every idea there's a new idea waiting to be born.

I wasn't a fashion editor. I was the one and only fashion editor.

Allure is a word very few people use nowadays, but it's something that exists. Allure holds you, doesn't it? Whether it's a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd or someone sitting opposite you at lunch... you are held

There’s only one thing in life, and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.

You gotta have style to get up in the morning

You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It's a way of life. Without it, you're nobody.

In a Balenciaga you were the only woman in the room - no other woman existed.

You don't have to be born beautiful to be wildly attractive.

Where would fashion be without literature?

The only real elegance is in the mind; if you've got that, the rest really comes from it.

You're not supposed to give people what they want, you're supposed to give them what they don't know that they want yet.

Within every girl is the possibility of arousing emotion. Without emotion there is no beauty.

I always say I hope to God I die in a town with a good tailor, a good shoemaker, and perhaps someone who's interested in a little quelque chose d'autre.

Fashion must be the most intoxicating release from the banality of the world.

All my life I’ve pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It’s exactly as if I’d said, ‘I want rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple’—they have no idea what I’m talking about. About the best red is to copy the color of a child’s cap in any Renaissance portrait.

Where Chanel came from in France is anyone’s guess. She said one thing one day and another thing the next. She was a peasant—and a genius. Peasants and geniuses are the only people who count and she was both.

Too much good taste can be very boring. Independent style, on the other hand, can be very inspiring.