Alexander McQueen Quotes

I like the gritty parts of fashion, the design, the studio, the pictures.

Truthfully, the hardest part about fashion is not the vision or one great idea, but the execution of each aspect.

Fashion is a great love of mine. I'm used to looking really hard for clothes that I like and I am really fortunate to have an amazing team of talented artists who work day and night with me to create our visions and make them come alive.

I wrote 'Criminal' in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.

Watching my dad, Ralph Lauren, design clothes when I was young, I was always inspired.

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.

People get this very romantic vision of a fashion designer who in one night makes 25 sketches and in the morning throws them on the table and there are a lot of women in white aprons with the pins on the lapel and they start to grab the sketches and... It's not like that.

I really see myself continuing to design clothes, fragrances.

For one thing, I am still working as an adviser on fashion, design and colour and stuff.

When I'm doing a session for another artist, it's a very scheduled thing, and it's kind of imperative that I write a song in that time. But if I'm trying to write a song for myself and I don't have an idea that day, I just can't force it.

I remember Grace (Coddington) looking at me and said, 'Can you do something?' and I was like, 'OK, how long do you give me?' and she said 'Half an hour?', I said 'Forty-five minutes?'

With my designs and my ideas, I want to please myself first. I'm always very stressed about making a new proposition every season. But in a way, it's a kind of addiction. In another way, it's a crazy pressure. I try to stay quiet about the whole situation, because fashion itself can be crazy, and everyone wants a part of you.

So far, designing is the most exciting thing. Ive done I have a vision of what I want the clothes to look like in my mind and its fun to see it come alive on paper.

Some days I have a knot in my stomach because I've got to sit down and come up with something in womenswear that no one else came up with.

I wish you didn't have to design so often. Try to do quality and cut down on quantity. I think fashion is very, very important.

As soon as the show is over, I always think, 'How will the woman I design for go forward?' It's so important to start quickly because I can't let her get away.

In the TV business, you've got to write fast, and someone will tell you, 'Can you rewrite this episode before... 6 P.M.?' So that's when you rewrite it. You can't wait for the muse to show up.

I've found it really hard to finish writing songs when you're writing on not just your schedule but somebody else's.

Kanye West is a brilliant poet and artist. He and I work in a very similar way. We feel the vibration, the power of something, and it inspires us to create, whether it is music or design. It is the same process. Working with Kanye is a joy and great privilege. In 2012, we did collaboration together.

A dress is an emotional thing to make. You've got to fall in love with it and not just with the dress - the whole process of designing it has to be a good experience.

I have made things for Calvin Klein and other designers, and it's interesting to see the way each person approaches it.

I turned my hand to costume design a few years ago when I created the outfits for 'This Is the Sea,' with Richard Harris and Samantha Morton. It's a very different discipline to being a fashion designer, though - you have to rein in your own vision and work to a tight brief.

I love modeling because I get to see everything that inspires me. Then I go home and sketch.

The best thing for my creative process is a deadline.

When you're working in cinema, you often have a very, very compressed schedule - very few weeks to just kind of go through that whole process of reflection and refining - and it has to be done.