Sonia Rykiel Quotes

How can you live the high life if you do not wear the high heels?

Perfume follows you; it chases you and lingers behind you. It's a reference mark. Perfume makes silence talk.

You can create fashion everywhere in the world, but the place where you are crowned is Paris.

Perfume is like a parenthesis, a moment of freedom, peace, love and sensuality in between the disturbances of modern living.

It doesn't matter one damn bit whether fashion is art or not. You don't question whether an incredible chef is an artist or not-his cakes are delicious and that's all that matters.

I don't like women who are multiform, who wear many different shapes. Women who retain a unique shape are usually unique people.

Being one step ahead of a fashion trend is not so important to me. What matters is to always forge ahead.

The essence of seduction for me in a man, although it stems from his rough, almost rough-neck looks, still contains something of the woman: he must be seductive and intelligent.

I think in the darkest moments, we need a break.

I was rather free, and I always did what I wanted to do, sometimes without listening to the people who warned me not to do this or that.

I love chocolate. Black chocolate with marshmallow inside, caramel inside. If I could only have two foods, I'd take some fantastic chocolate. And some terrible chocolate. I love the Clark Bar.

Sometimes in the fashion industry we come across some unfair rules, but no one is obliged to follow them.

For the collection, I am like a painter or a writer. I may or may not be a character in my own story.

Design job fell on me. I didn't want to do it. It was an accident. For the first 10 years I said, "Tomorrow I'm stopping."

I feel like a slave, and in a way like an artist, because I need to get inspiration everyday, from everything and everyone.

In my family, Fashion was something we never talked about, it was thought of as kind of superficial.

First I made a dress because I was pregnant and I wanted to be the most beautiful pregnant woman. Then I made a sweater because I wanted to have one that wasn't like anyone else's.

I think that clothes should be a shelter like a house or a rug. I think that there is that element of protection and a uniform can be just that.

From the very beginning I've said to women not to follow the fashion rules blindly, and to adapt clothes to suit who they are, and not the contrary.

People said making clothes inside out was not proper. I disagreed because clothes that are inside out are as beautiful as a cathedral.

I have the feeling I've always done what I wanted throughout my life.

The key to my collections is sensuality.

I am what I am. Before I was not so proud to make fashion. My family thought fashion wasn't very interesting. So I hid that.

My shows are about the complete woman who swallows it all. It's a question of survival.

As a slave [to fashion], I can be very dramatic and very demanding of myself and of the people I work with.

It's useless to send models out on the runway to cry.

I think that the boy-woman is a very strong image and a lot of fascinating women are like that: Gala [Dalí].

My breakfast is very important.

I can be happy with something I did, like a drawing or a dress I designed, and yet be very disappointed with the same drawing, or the same dress the day after.

I have to say that the identity of a fashion designer is international today.

It is a very important matter, as a woman, to juggle everything... Your professional life, family, children etc.

With the exception of lingerie and theater I'm interested in everything to do with clothes and perfumes: everything which is an extension of woman.

I am like the lover of Roland Barthes "who's always running in his head". I'm always searching, and "eating" everything from my life, in order to put it in my dresses!

I started by designing a sweater very close to the body, because I couldn't find any for myself.

I was influenced by the hippie movement in San Francisco and by the feminist movement, which had arrived in Paris.

You know, the more grown-up you are, the more you like Proust.

The fashion industry can in a certain way be very hard and closed.

[Nathalie Rykiel] knows by heart the genetic codes of the brand, and she also has a very contemporary and creative opinions about it.

I love flinging everything I buy behind me onto the back-seat of the car: it's always full of packages when I travel, when I leap in my car!

Even if I'm in Japan and I don't speak Japanese and the woman facing me doesn't speak French but she's dressed in Rykiel, and she recognizes me, then we have a common language right away.

When I was a kid, all I liked were books and chocolate.

After all these years of creating my collections, I still doubt my decision even until the last minute before the fashion show, I keep questioning myself and wondering if I did the right thing.

I did not plan to have such a career in the fashion world. All that I wanted, was to have ten kids and raise them!

I can't go any place without going to museums. It's very important for me.

The fashion industry is a free world, with creative codes that can be hardly considered sometimes, but it's also up to women to create their own style, and own trend.

I will be working on the collection until the day before the show! It's an endless process, that's all that I can say at that stage.

It's important to know yourself well, in order to create your own style of fashion to suit your own body shape.