Christian Lacroix

"Basquiat and Schnabel, whose paintings we could have seen as caricatures, were normal icons of our times. "

"But it seemed like the more we advanced, the more the future looked impossible, making us return to the more radical times in the past. "

"But the Milanese have made bad choices, bad fashion, and bad jewelry. "

"During this summer's Paris fashion shows, everywhere I looked, I saw neo-Renaissance cloaks a la Port Royal. "

"For fifteen years I've had Swiss clients who tell me that it's a mystery how the French react to their own artists, especially the painters."

"For me, elegance is not to pass unnoticed but to get to the very soul of what one is. "

"French design hardly exists, except as artificial modernism. "

"Going out in Paris was like going out in the '30s dressed like the Andrews Sisters. It was everything I'd seen in books at my grandparents' house, only it was our generation. "

"I arrived in Paris at a moment when the bourgeoisie had become revolutionaries, giving the past it's honor due. "

"I like the Mussolini perspectives in Italian architecture, and the furniture from the time of King Victor Emmanuel. "

"I much prefer uniforms letting the personality, self-individuality or character appear. "

"I translated Beatles songs for my English class."

"I'd experienced the '40s and '50s by looking at my grandparents' old clothes, books, and magazines. "

"I'm by no means a complainer, but when you feel good you feel confident, and it's easier for me to make something of quality. "

"If I were a teenager, I'd make computer drawings. I need people to do that for me because I don't have the time. "

"In fact, just before the revolution of 1789, fashion was also inspired by history. "

"In Italy, the Milanese are well organized but follow bourgeois taste. They adhere to certain codes of elegance, but not to individualism. "

"Much later, designers like Dior and Saint Laurent recreated styles form the '30s and '40s. "

"My first time in England, in the '60s, the interiors were somehow familiar to me, probably because of the books I'd read and the images I'd seen. "

"That was the idea behind glam clubs like Seven and The New Eve. You could eat and dance to live music. To enter you had to descend a grand staircase."

"The French wait for the Beauborg-Pompidou stamp of approval before they buy."

"The idea of seeing everybody clad the same is not really my cup of tea. "

"The notion of time bothers me. You look at thirty-year-old photographs and realize how the time has passed."

"The things that bother me about Italy are the dancehalls, certain hotels, and sometimes people's homes. There's something that makes me ill aesthetically."

"They say that the best furniture and clothing design from the '50s and '60s is Scandinavian or Milanese. "

"We all look for lost time. "