Alexander McQueen

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

Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers.
Alexander McQueen

British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.
Alexander McQueen

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

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.
Alexander McQueen

Sting’s my ideal man, because he’s a real man.
Alexander McQueen

I am married to work.
Alexander McQueen

For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It’s usually only the intellectual ones who understand what’s going on in what I do.
Alexander McQueen

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.
Alexander McQueen

Of course I make mistakes. I’m human. If I didn’t make mistakes, I’d never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.
Alexander McQueen

Top 10
Alexander McQueen
QUOTES
I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design.
Alexander McQueen

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

There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do – but that part is for me. It’s my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There’s a sadness to it, but there’s romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.
Alexander McQueen

Menswear is about subtlety. It’s about good style and good taste.
Alexander McQueen

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

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

Fame should be left to the film stars.
Alexander McQueen

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.
Alexander McQueen

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.
Alexander McQueen

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

Give me time and I’ll give you a revolution.
Alexander McQueen

I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
Alexander McQueen

Nicey nicey just doesn’t do it for me.
Alexander McQueen

I feel more Scottish than Norman.
Alexander McQueen

The police need to come down to street level.
Alexander McQueen

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

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

I’ve had good times; I’ve had bad times.
Alexander McQueen

My relationships with producers or photographers – these are relationships that took years.
Alexander McQueen

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

It’s a new era in fashion – there are no rules. It’s all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.
Alexander McQueen

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

You can get insular with fashion.
Alexander McQueen

It’s good to know where you come from. It makes you what you are today. It’s DNA, it’s in your blood.
Alexander McQueen

It’s usually only the intellectual ones who understand what’s going on in what I do.
Alexander McQueen

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.
Alexander McQueen

You can only go forward by making mistakes.
Alexander McQueen

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

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.
Alexander McQueen

I want to empower women.
Alexander McQueen

I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
Alexander McQueen

I’m not interested in being liked.
Alexander McQueen

The turnover of fashion is just so quick and so throwaway, and I think that is a big part of the problem. There is no longevity.
Alexander McQueen

When I’m dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.
Alexander McQueen

I hate it when people romanticize Scotland.
Alexander McQueen

I’m not big on women looking naive.
Alexander McQueen

There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance.
Alexander McQueen

For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I’m getting there: I’ve found my customer, my silhouette, my cut.
Alexander McQueen

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

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.
Alexander McQueen

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

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

Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
Alexander McQueen

I am a melancholy type of person.
Alexander McQueen

Really, what I’m aiming for is world domination!
Alexander McQueen

I like the concept of dressing people. I used to not care whether people bought the clothes or not, but I kind of like it now. I wouldn’t label that commercialism; it’s more like I do this work because I want people to wear it.
Alexander McQueen

As a designer, you’ve always got to push yourself forward; you’ve always got to keep up with the trends or make your own trends. That’s what I do.
Alexander McQueen

I’m interested in designing for posterity.
Alexander McQueen

I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.
Alexander McQueen

I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don’t want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.
Alexander McQueen

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

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

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

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