Alber Elbaz quotes
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“I don't want to see a dress with a woman. I just want to see a woman, with a beautiful dress.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Yves Saint Laurent gave women power, Chanel liberated them and when I joined Lanvin, I thought 'what do I bring to women? One day, I received an SMS from a friend in New York - she was in a taxi on the way to court to face her arsehole ex-husband, and she said to me 'Alber, I am wearing a Lanvin dress, and I feel so protected.' That to me was the biggest compliment I ever received. To have a 500 gram piece of silk make her feel protected - that made me very happy indeed.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“If you change a woman’s look, you change her persona”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“Fashion is not about before, it’s not about after, it’s about now”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“It was not the story of design or clothes, it was the fantasy of women that made me want to work in fashion,”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“When a woman's clothes are in harmony with her emotions, she shines from within.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Making them feel gorgeous and comfortable is my way of making women's lives easier,”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“Run away from laziness; work hard. Touch intuition and listen to the heart, not marketing directors. Dream.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I like first class, but I don't like first class people - I prefer the people in coach. I like fine restaurants, but prefer the taste of McDonalds. I like to be perfect, but I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection. I know, I am a walking contradiction.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Fashion is like a fruit, you couldn't eat it a day before and you can't eat it a day after; it's just about today”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Elegant is not what you wear, and it's not about how you wear it, but it's more about who you are.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I like the dream, like fantasy dresses. Women can dream at 9 in the morning and at 10 o’clock at night, it doesn’t matter. I think it is also important for me to make it pragmatic and practical and wearable. I always say, 'If you can’t eat it, it’s not food, and if you can’t wear it, it’s not fashion, it is something else.'”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Sometimes you don't really need armor to feel protected. Sometimes maybe you need just a chiffon dress to hug you.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I was thinking recently, If the body really is the new dress, as some are saying - with women buying boobs, butts, faces - then who needs a dressmaker? So I started designing spring like a plastic surgeon - everything stretchy and nude. But after three weeks, I was so bored with myself and the world, I began adding diamond butterflies and chiffon and colors. I realized that fashion is not about second skin. It's not the perfect white shirt or camel jacket. What women need is a dream.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Fashion is not about buying a second skin. Fashion is about having a fantasy.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“Pure, intense emotions. It's not about design. It's about feelings.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I am not interested in perfection, and neither are the women who wear my clothes.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“If you take something out of the freezer, it's cold, but what happens when it melts? It's a cool party, a cool person, a cool collection. What does that mean? I'm more interested in things that are uncool, things that have a certain individuality, a certain soul, a certain longevity, emotion, fragility.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“We are comfortable with formulas, but the best happens when the formula doesn't work.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.”
-- Alber ElbazSource : Laura Esquivel (1994). “Like water for chocolate: a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies”, Anchor
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“When I was either 7 or 8 years old, I did a sketch every day of my teacher and what she wore. At the end of the year, I gave her the sketchbook. For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“If I wasnt a designer, I would love to be a doctor. That is my fantasy, my dream. A doctor will give you a tablet if you have a headache, and I will give you a dress, and we both make you feel good.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“If I were a buyer today in one of the American department stores, I would go with extremes-the most beautiful, the more expensive, the more eccentric. I would take risks. The worst thing would be to buy only the little black dress. You know why? Because everyone has it already. I would go with a purple dress, something different”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I love and respect women. I work mostly with women.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I have a problem to do a collection that is a secondary line. I mean, you don’t want to be the stepsister. You want to be Cinderella. Show me one girl who wants to be the stepsister.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“In fashion we're lucky, we make dreams come true.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I like having the freedom to dress as I desire.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“There is nothing scarier than being ‘the designer of the moment,’ because the moment ends.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Women can dream at 9 in the morning and at 10 o'clock at night - it doesn't matter.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“A singer can quit once he or she has made ten great songs; a director can finish once he or she has made five amazing films; a writer just needs to write three great books.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I always say that women are very strong and men are powerful. But beauty gives you both strength and power. I never think of it. It's just one of those natural things. It's the only thing I know how to do.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Many, many times I find that whatever is looking good on the screen doesn't always look or feel good on the body. So who do we design for - do we design for the screen, or do we design for women?”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I was a fat child; I was asthmatic. No wonder I'm a hypochondriac.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I don't go out to parties because I'd look terrible in pictures. My escape is television - it's like meditation to me.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Why not touch things that we hate and turn them upside down and inside out?”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I don't think that you can write music if you don't know how to play an instrument. You have to know the basics, then you can go forward.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I don't think you can be a designer if you don't care.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“When I'm traveling the world, I don't ever look anymore at the geography - just enough to catch galleries and paintings.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“The problem with couture is not designers; it's what happens when the couturier will no longer be there.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I love to see old women. I love wrinkles. I love gray hair.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“To be a fashion critic is easy because you just say, 'I love it, I hate it,' but life is more than love and hate.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I love women. I get along with women more than men, and I have more women friends.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I think that if you want to pass emotion, you have to write a letter. Emotions do not pass in SMS or in e-mail.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I spend my time backstage at the Lanvin shows, and when I come out at the end, all I see are people's eyes.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Almost every collection I do has 200 different references. I don't have two of the same coat, two of the same dress. I have it in one color, in one fabric. I've tried to adapt the culture of couture, and the know-how and the heritage, but I try to update it.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“All I want is beautiful. I mean, I like grey hair, I love wrinkles. But this is me.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“How do you stand out as a fashion ad campaign? By using people off the street; it does generate buzz.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“At Yves Saint Laurent, I felt like the son-in-law - like I was part of the family, but not quite. When I was fired, I felt like the widow.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Fashion doesn't look good only on models; it can look good on different people of different ages and different body shapes.”
-- Alber ElbazSource : "When fashion and reality collide". Interview with Emanuella Grinberg, www.cnn.com. July 30, 2012.
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“Fashion is not always about what's new, it's also about what's good. And I think if you need to see what's good, you have to be there.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“For me, Lancome was more than just a brand. There was something very nostalgic about the name, about the whole story.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Fashion is like life. It needs fear and uncertainty if you are to move forward.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I am always trying to put myself inside: Every dress I do, I think, 'If I were a woman, would I wear it?'”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I wanted to see people from different age groups, body shapes and personalities wearing Lanvin That is what Lanvin is all about and represents - we dont only do clothes for 20-year-old girls. I love to see mature women wearing Lanvin as well. I love wrinkles, I love grey hair.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I feel more and more that the most beautiful people are the ones who are comfortable with themselves.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I adore women, and the one thing I want to do more than anything is to see a transformation of personality when someone puts on one of my dresses.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I always wear a dinner jacket. I never have this definition of what goes for the morning or the evening or what works for the weekend.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I think 'modesty' is a beautiful word today - and a beautiful attitude.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“My dream is to be a doctor. I'm almost working in a laboratory, because I'm trying new techniques, new directions and fabrics, new weaving.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Style is the only thing you can't buy. It's not in a shopping bag, a label, or a price tag. It's something reflected from our soul to the outside world. An emotion.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I'm not a plastic surgeon, and I cannot change the DNA of a person, but when I see a woman try on my clothes and she feels beautiful, I know I am doing my job.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I think that the lack of intuition in fashion today is one of the most dangerous things. My fear is that our business is turning into a bag business, and it's all about the bag. But it's not only about the bag. It's about the women. And it's not about a bag or a shoe or the jewelry. It's only about women. . . . Being almost politically correct and doing only what you expect without the ability to make mistakes is very dangerous to fashion. We have to go with our heart. We have to go with our intuition.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I work on fittings, mostly. You know, I sketch less and less in my work. I sketch for the show sometimes, but then it becomes more conceptual. But when I don't sketch, it becomes more pragmatic.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“What we want is clothing we think we can fly in. That's why I opened the show with flying dresses.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I want to know where is that committee in Switzerland that sits to decide what is in and what is out. I don't listen to the formula makers. I think maybe I have a selective hearing disorder.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I think that because I'm overweight, [my] fantasy was lightness. So I project my fantasy to the clothes, and now all I do is light, light clothes because it's the one thing I don't have. That is why I'm too afraid to lose weight because then I might make heavy clothes.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“What is beautiful for you may not be beautiful to someone else. Or whatever is beautiful here may not be beautiful there and what is sometimes beautiful today is not necessarily beautiful tomorrow. Perhaps this is the story of fashion and what makes it move forward, the fact that there is no decision whatsoever with what’s wrong.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public. This has been an exceptional exercise, where two companies at opposite poles can work together because we share the same philosophy of bringing joy and beauty to men and women around the world.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I don’t take drugs because if I did I’d love them–I’d be a junkie. And because I’m Jewish, I’d probably be a dealer, too.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I'm not going into the cool club. It's not my address.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“The designers, photographers and models I work with, they are really hard-working people who are devoting their lives to fashion. They're kind of like nuns of fashion.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I barely finish one pre-collection before I must start on another. Sales start, but I am already elsewhere creatively. The men's show is being prepared, but we also need to think about accessories, perfumes and other items. In sum, I never stop.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Fashion is instinctive and sensual. Learn to love what you wear. It should feel like eating chocolates...wi thout the calories”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“Wear flats. You're short. It's much cooler not to pretend.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“After every show, I say to Hania [Destelle, a friend], ‘They hated it.’”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Everybody's talking about the new democratic world and whether high fashion is relevant. But without high there is no low. I don't like to intellectualize. I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.”
-- Alber ElbazSource : "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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“I do sport at the gym a few times a week, but I hate it. Work is my only remedy. I feel so twisted and horrible in the morning, but then I go to the office and I start feeling better. Work is my Tylenol. Extra-strength.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“I always think, if I were an editor, and I was invited to a show, and I would have to wait for 45 minutes in the dark or in the cold or in the heat, maybe I would like to have a fresh drink or a piece of chocolate.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“I created the peplum so you can eat in it. You can have a dessert, you can have another sandwich.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“Everyone wants to be young and skinny. This is awful. Curves are marvelous. Wrinkles are hypnotizing. Why not just be happy with who you are?”
-- Alber Elbaz -
“If it’s not edible, it’s not food. If it’s not wearable, it’s not fashion.”
-- Alber Elbaz -
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“Some days I feel like a piano: kind of short, always in black & white, always expected to produce music.”
-- Alber Elbaz
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