Sonia Rykiel Quotes

A scarf has to be the most beautiful thing ever invented to wear! It's a winding, a continuity, an infinity! I love things that are endless, I hate them to stop. It's like order and disorder: I rather love disorder and things that move, it's a state where one gets more things done!

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.

Everything I do is really an expression of myself, through colors and shapes and, at the same time, I try to explain what I feel not only as a creator but also as a woman. I cannot separate one from the other.

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

Your body can be very female, which is something you can do nothing about, but then you can have the soul, the mind and the spirit of both male and female. The women friends I am closest to somehow have this masculine side to them, they shove their hands in their pockets when they walk: I love that side.

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.

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.

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

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.

The natures of men and women are very mixed and for me the most fascinating type of woman is the one who is a little masculine, has a little of the man in her, and the sort of man who is fabulous is the one who is a little woman too. It's impossible not to mix them!

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.

I think that there are so many women who understand nothing about clothes and they should try and understand themselves before they start putting on disguises: they should stand in front of the mirror for a day, two days or three, and find out what they have which is beautiful, interesting: what they should show: hair, neck, arms, or hands.

My clothes are put together out of different basic elements so that a woman can express the way she wants to look, transform, metamorphosize herself not as the woman I decided but as she herself wants to be.

I love to leave, to be ready-for, to be on the run! That's my boyish side, it's the pant's me! Pants which allow for the attitudes, gestures and movements of a man but that are still female in taste and free enough so that I can slip my hands inside!

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."

You have to be luxurious nude. It's difficult to move in the nude in front of a mirror. It's much easier to move when you're dressed. But if you can walk around in the nude easily in front of your man, if you can be luxurious in the nude, then you've really got it.

Fashion is also a form of art, and like every kind of art, it has its own way of expression. In other words, if a dress looks better on a thin girl, on a catwalk, during a very specific moment of time and space then it's represented as part of a "fashion Show". It is after all a "Show" and it has to be understood by people that it is a "show" and not real life.

I hate the word feminine! I mean, there is a woman and a man and when I say "woman" it suggests all that is radiant, tender, fascinating, gentle, demoniac, exaggerated! Feminine makes me think of somebody who is spindly and over-sweet: I don't like that!

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.

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.

At hotels, you are an actress. Absolutely. You can do what you want. Go where you want. I love my home too. But I love to arrive in a hotel. They have books, chocolate, food. I put things in the little refrigerator.

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.

Men and women are so alike that a woman must make an intellectual effort to differentiate herself. As soon as one understands who one is, one can disguise oneself any way one wants. As soon as one has found one's look, one's shape, one does not need to alter it too much, in fact I would say that one should not change it.

For me, luxury isn't just the real thing. It's also fake. Swarovski crystals or real diamonds? It's a game. You have to be luxurious nude.

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

I'm not at all interested in doing clothes for movies or stage, in stage dressing or costuming. Nor can I design lingerie, for I never wear any! At one time I used to wear a lot of lingerie but now I'm in a mood of total nudity!

The key to my collections is sensuality.

I married a man who was in fashion. I began to work when my daughter Nathalie was about eight or 10 years old. Then one day I began to make a sweater, and eventually the sweater was on the front page of Elle magazine. And the day after I was the queen of knit in America.

As a young girl I was a real tomboy, only listening to myself. I carried on with this attitude even as a woman and when I first launched the Sonia Rykiel line, and said to women to remove their bras or when I designed sweaters with stitches inside out, everybody said to me that it was crazy and risky, but I ignored what they said and I did what I felt was right at the time.

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 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.

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

A very young girl, myself, and my 70-year-old mother all look quite different wearing some of the same clothes from my shop. The whole secret is to know how to do it and some people never will, just like some can't make light pastry: they are lacking in some sort of grace.

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.

I always have a lot of vents and slits in the clothes I design, even inside the pockets so that I can slip my hands inside my clothes and touch my skin. I want to be able to feel my body naked inside my clothes.

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.