Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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
We act the way we dress. Neglected and untidy clothes reflect a neglected and untidy mind.
—Unknown
The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal. No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Fashion must be forever new, or she becomes insipid.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Only great minds can afford a simple style.
—Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (1783–1842) French Writer
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
The beggar wears all colors fearing none.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to being in love with somebody else is an admission of unfaithfulness to one’s beloved
—Russell Baker (1925–2019) American Journalist, Humorist, Television Host
It is new fancy rather than taste which produces so many new fashions.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
An old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it.
—Robert Bresson (1907–99) French Film Director
He was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say “when!”
—P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) British Novelist, Short-story Writer, Playwright
Women’s sexy underwear is a minor but significant growth industry of late-twentieth-century Britain in the twilight of capitalism.
—Angela Carter (1940–92) English Novelist
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
Society is founded upon cloth.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) English Courtier, Navigator, Poet
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
The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus.
—Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British Head of State
A little of everything and nothing thoroughly, after the French fashion.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Fashion is the great governor of the world.—It presides not only in matters of dress and amusement, but in law, physic, politics, religion, and all other things of the gravest kind.—Indeed, the wisest men would be puzzled to give any better reason why particular forms in all these have been at certain times universally received, and at other times universally rejected, than that they were in, or out of fashion.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Fashions, after all, are only induced epidemics.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Fashion is a tyrant from which there is no deliverance; all must conform to its whimsical.
—French Proverb
Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment the universal.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue
—Moliere (1622–73) French Playwright
If men can run the world, why can’t they stop wearing neckties? How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around your neck?
—Linda Ellerbee (b.1944) American Journalist
Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
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