Robin Givhan > Quotes

“He was talking to the teenagers, not the suits. Indeed, he often said he still felt like an adolescent even as he was moving into his forties.”
― Robin Givhan, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

“Every time the fashion runway makes a place for a plus size woman, an eccentric tomboy, an awkward aristocrat, or four dozen sorority girls, it is a nod to Versailles. That was a moment when the individual trumped the group, when five Americans triumphed not because of the cut of the clothes or any extraordinary embellishments, but because of the spirit in which they were worn. American individualism showed its best face.”
― Robin Givhan, The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History

“Being an African in Africa is the equivalent of being a White man in America,” Agyeman explained. “If you keep that attitude, and add to that with hard work, that undergirds your ability to win. [My parents] wouldn’t say, ‘You have to be twice as good to succeed.’ You already know you’re that good.”
― Robin Givhan, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

“In thirty-two years of modeling,” said Naomi Campbell, “I’d never felt that feeling of unified love from every single person there.”
― Robin Givhan, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

“visit any 3rd world country and the space between cars is a place to make money…”
― Robin Givhan, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh

“Enid Nemy, The New York Times writer, sat through the entire dress rehearsal; she witnessed Halston’s wretched behavior as well as his close attention to his public image. “He said to me, ‘If you report that, I’ll never invite you to another show.’ And I said, ‘Halston, you never invite me to your show as it is.”
― Robin Givhan, The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History

“That Jordan 1, that was a childhood dream,” Abloh said. “In that golden era of the ’90s, when the sneaker brands made sneakers seem bigger than life, they were making these shoes seem like Superman! Like capes!” As a teenager, he saved his pennies and bought his first pair of Air Jordans from Marshalls; he estimated that over the years he’d collected some two thousand pairs of sneakers, most of which were in storage. He kept about thirty pairs on hand to wear. “This generation may value sneakers more than a Matisse because [Matisse] is not attainable,” he said. “I hold sneakers as art, to hold on to and be close to.”
― Robin Givhan, Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh