Alexandra Shulman > Quotes

“New York collections are often a commercial version of what Europe provided for the previous season. It’s what America does so well: the designers turn someone else’s idea into something that makes money.”
― Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year

“I feel like the industry hasn’t caught up to the fact that people don’t want to see clothes only in cool fashion pictures but in a context. This attitude is also completely mad when houses lend to street-style girls to be snapped by hordes of Japanese photographers as a way of marketing. Yet they won’t, for instance, want to lend something to be worn by a head of pathology in a hospital. How are we meant to inspire young girls…when worlds they admire, like high fashion, don’t encourage the notion that you can mix being a fashion plate with working in other fields?”
― Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year

“Despite the multitude of extraordinary changes that have taken place in almost every area of life, jewellery is still used for pretty well the same purposes as it has always been.
Primitive man is said to have worn a kind of ornamentation to enhance his sexual attraction as well as provide protection against all manner of disasters, from snakes to evil spirits. Cleopatra used jewels (with a particular fondness for emeralds) to seduce admirers and rivals not only on her body but in her home. They showed off her fabulous wealth and position. Julius Caesar ruled that only the highest born women could wear pearls, which were Rome’s most valued jewels. Not only does our jewellery mean something to each of us, but it also has meaning to those who view us. Jewellery has forever been a currency understood by all.”
― Alexandra Shulman, Clothes and Other Things That Matter

“My mother always said you can have only two out of three - work, family, and social life.”
― Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year

“Commercially [America has] had the last word, and over the past 40 years the American market has been the primary powerhouse of the [fashion] industry - giant malls, massive department-store chains, numerous large cities. It’s changing now, though: China and other Far Eastern countries are becoming the leading players. No where is it clearer that we are in the last days of the American Empire than in the fashion industry. Fabrics and designs are being tailored to the requirements of the Eastern market. The big brands are spending fortunes expanding there, and although many Middle Eastern women are hidden behind burqas, their wardrobes contain some of the most ravishing Western fashion.”
― Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year

“My mum always says there is no such thing as a new idea, and if that’s true (which I’m not sure it is), fashion is certainly the best exemplar. Everything comes round and round in terms of style of clothes and photography but, still, in each iteration they do have something different.”
― Alexandra Shulman, Inside Vogue: A Diary Of My 100th Year