You must be in fashion is the utterance of weak headed mortals.
—Charles Spurgeon (1834–92) English Baptist Preacher
Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.
—Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French Fashion Designer
Where’s the man could ease a heart, like a satin gown?
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
To be happy is of far less consequence to the worshippers of fashion than to appear so; even pleasure itself they sacrifice to parade, and enjoyment to ostentation.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) English Courtier, Navigator, Poet
Fashion is more powerful than any tyrant.
—Latin Proverb
I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Plain dealing is a jewel, but they that wear it are out of fashion.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Woman’s first duty in life is to her dressmaker. What the second duty is no one has yet discovered.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
There’s so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic.
—Lily Tomlin (b.1939) American Comedy Actress
It’s not that I don’t want to be a beauty, that I don’t yearn to be dripping with glamour. It’s just that I can’t see how any woman can find time to do to herself all the things that must apparently be done to make herself beautiful and, having once done them, how anyone without the strength of mind of a foreign missionary can keep up such a regime.
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1899–1979) American Actress, Playwright
Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
The mere leader of fashion has no genuine claim to supremacy; at least, no abiding assurance of it. He has embroidered his title upon his waistcoat, and carries his worth in his watch chain; and if he is allowed any real precedence for this, it is almost a moral swindle—a way of obtaining goods under false pretences.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Style is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma. Fashion is something that comes after style.
—John Fairchild (1927–2015) American Publisher, Editor
Fashion seldom interferes with nature without diminishing her grace and efficiency.
—Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1813–71) American Author, Critic
I who have been involved with all styles of painting can assure you that the only things that fluctuate are the waves of fashion which carry the snobs and speculators; the number of true connoisseurs remains more or less the same.
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish Painter, Sculptor, Artist
Those who seem to lead the public taste, are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction it is spontaneously pursuing.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
We act the way we dress. Neglected and untidy clothes reflect a neglected and untidy mind.
—Unknown
Model. Two mobile eyes in a mobile head, itself on a mobile body.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director
Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash, for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Every time a woman leaves off something she looks better, but every time a man leaves off something he looks worse.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
Fashion is a tyrant from which nothing frees us.—We must suit ourselves to its fantastic tastes.—But being compelled to live under its foolish laws, the wise man is never the first to follow, nor the last to keep them.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Fashion wears out more clothes than the man.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
If the cut of the costume indicates intellect and talent, then the color indicates temper and heart.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The birth of the new constitutes a crisis, and its mastery calls for a crude and simple cast of mind—the mind of a fighter—in which the virtues of tribal cohesion and fierceness and infantile credulity and malleability are paramount. Thus every new beginning recapitulates in some degree man’s first beginning.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
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