Alber Elbaz Quotes

I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection.

A fragrance is a veritable story, told and explained in scent, in notes, in impressions. It's a score based on the emotions of each instant, a captivating music of the senses.

Run away from laziness; work hard. Touch intuition and listen to the heart, not marketing directors. Dream.

Elegant is not what you wear, and it's not about how you wear it, but it's more about who you are.

I like first class, but I don't like first class people - I prefer the people in coach. I like fine restaurants, but prefer the taste of McDonalds. I like to be perfect, but I don't like perfection - I think it's dangerous. There is nothing after perfection. I know, I am a walking contradiction.

Fashion is not about before, it’s not about after, it’s about now

Yves Saint Laurent gave women power, Chanel liberated them and when I joined Lanvin, I thought 'what do I bring to women? One day, I received an SMS from a friend in New York - she was in a taxi on the way to court to face her arsehole ex-husband, and she said to me 'Alber, I am wearing a Lanvin dress, and I feel so protected.' That to me was the biggest compliment I ever received. To have a 500 gram piece of silk make her feel protected - that made me very happy indeed.

When a woman's clothes are in harmony with her emotions, she shines from within.

Pure, intense emotions. It's not about design. It's about feelings.

If you change a woman's look, you change her persona.

It was not the story of design or clothes, it was the fantasy of women that made me want to work in fashion.

My dream is to be a doctor. I'm almost working in a laboratory, because I'm trying new techniques, new directions and fabrics, new weaving.

Fashion is like a fruit, you couldn't eat it a day before and you can't eat it a day after; it's just about today

I always say that women are very strong and men are powerful. But beauty gives you both strength and power. I never think of it. It's just one of those natural things. It's the only thing I know how to do.

I am not interested in perfection, and neither are the women who wear my clothes.

Making them feel gorgeous and comfortable is my way of making women's lives easier.

Sometimes you don't really need armor to feel protected. Sometimes maybe you need just a chiffon dress to hug you.

If I wasn't a designer I would love to be a doctor. That is my fantasy, my dream. A doctor will give you a tablet if you have a headache and I will give you a dress and we both make you feel good.

Fashion is not about buying a second skin. Fashion is about having a fantasy.

Fashion doesn't look good only on models, it can look good on different people of different ages and different body shapes.

For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.

How do you stand out as a fashion ad campaign? By using people off the street it does generate buzz.

What is beautiful for you may not be beautiful to someone else. Or whatever is beautiful here may not be beautiful there and what is sometimes beautiful today is not necessarily beautiful tomorrow. Perhaps this is the story of fashion and what makes it move forward, the fact that there is no decision whatsoever with what’s wrong.

I don't want to see a dress with a woman. I just want to see a woman, with a beautiful dress.

I like the dream, like fantasy dresses. Women can dream at 9 in the morning and at 10 o’clock at night, it doesn’t matter. I think it is also important for me to make it pragmatic and practical and wearable. I always say, 'If you can’t eat it, it’s not food, and if you can’t wear it, it’s not fashion, it is something else.'

I think that because I'm overweight, [my] fantasy was lightness. So I project my fantasy to the clothes, and now all I do is light, light clothes because it's the one thing I don't have. That is why I'm too afraid to lose weight because then I might make heavy clothes.

I am very much a people person. If I am in a beautiful place but I don't like the people, I am miserable.

I'm not a plastic surgeon, and I cannot change the DNA of a person, but when I see a woman try on my clothes and she feels beautiful, I know I am doing my job.

H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. I have said in the past that I would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public. This has been an exceptional exercise, where two companies at opposite poles can work together because we share the same philosophy of bringing joy and beauty to men and women around the world.

I adore women, and the one thing I want to do more than anything is to see a transformation of personality when someone puts on one of my dresses.

I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.

I was thinking recently, If the body really is the new dress, as some are saying - with women buying boobs, butts, faces - then who needs a dressmaker? So I started designing spring like a plastic surgeon - everything stretchy and nude. But after three weeks, I was so bored with myself and the world, I began adding diamond butterflies and chiffon and colors. I realized that fashion is not about second skin. It's not the perfect white shirt or camel jacket. What women need is a dream.

The nature of fashion is family. You see that at almost every house, it was owned first by a family. It wasn't owned by a bank.

Why not touch things that we hate and turn them upside down and inside out?

Style is the only thing you can't buy. It's not in a shopping bag, a label, or a price tag. It's something reflected from our soul to the outside world. An emotion.

Fashion is about having a fantasy.

I think 'modesty' is a beautiful word today - and a beautiful attitude.

I'd rather be relevant than cool.

If it’s not edible, it’s not food. If it’s not wearable, it’s not fashion.

Wear flats. You're short. It's much cooler not to pretend.

I do sport at the gym a few times a week, but I hate it. Work is my only remedy. I feel so twisted and horrible in the morning, but then I go to the office and I start feeling better. Work is my Tylenol. Extra-strength.

I think fashion is about longevity and doing your work. It isn't about winning or losing. It's about process, keeping it going.

I certainly can't complain. I work six days a week, if not seven, and eighteen hours out of twenty-four - fortunately, with a great deal of pleasure. Why? Because I only do something if I want to do it; I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, moving, inventing.

To be a fashion critic is easy because you just say, 'I love it, I hate it,' but life is more than love and hate.

I need to feel a desire, to find pleasure in moving forward, creating, inventing. The day I cease to learn, I must stop.

I want to know where is that committee in Switzerland that sits to decide what is in and what is out. I don't listen to the formula makers. I think maybe I have a selective hearing disorder.

Everyone wants to be young and skinny. This is awful. Curves are marvelous. Wrinkles are hypnotizing. Why not just be happy with who you are?

I created the peplum so you can eat in it. You can have a dessert, you can have another sandwich.

Fashion is instinctive and sensual. Learn to love what you wear. It should feel like eating chocolates...wi thout the calories

Everybody's talking about the new democratic world and whether high fashion is relevant. But without high there is no low. I don't like to intellectualize. I've always said fashion is like roast chicken: You don't have to think about it to know it's delicious.