Quotes from Kenneth Cole

Life in my shoes has gotten me relatively far. Though it's also gotten me into trouble on occasion.

It is astounding how evolved and progressed India has become. It is holding on to its extraordinary rich culture and becoming global and Western at the same time.

People don't always read things the way they are intended.

I work out with my trainer at 5 A. M. three times per week and I also skip dessert - most of the time.

Often people ask me about getting involved in service and philanthropy, and my first advice is: Make sure it's real and it's transparent.

You can't build a fashion business with a short-term perspective, unless you're prepared to make investments that you know are not going to pay dividends immediately.

After working with my father for two years, we started Candie's, a line of imported shoes from Italy. Then in 1982 I set out to start my own business.

Every day when a man or woman gets dressed, they are in effect defining who they are. That daily clean slate is a time in our lives when we can determine who we want to be.

I wanted to make the brand cool again. I needed to make it a little smaller to make it bigger and I needed to change the consumer experience.

I've struggled with that over the years: Is fashion relevant? Is it frivolous? Is it trivial? Because I give so much of my essence to it, as do everybody I work with.

I don't care as much about politics as about social service.

I think the power of messaging is saying something in as few words as possible, because I think we all essentially have ADD. It's not a clinically diagnosed state anymore; it's a socially imposed state.

The best solution is very much the least expensive and most creative.

None of what I do is political. My messages are social and human messages. In many cases, they've been politicized but they are so much bigger than that.

In the fashion business, there weren't any rules. In fact, the better you were at creating something new, the greater the likelihood you would be successful.

In war is it who's right, or who's left?

It's very hard to argue against the message that we all have AIDS. It's not hard to make the case that we all have been affected, both culturally and spiritually.

I named the company Kenneth Cole because I didn't have a lot of time to make up a name.

In the early years I had no real plan. I figured it out as I went, which is easier to do when you don't have a lot of staff and overhead. Back then I believed my job was just to create great-looking shoes. That wasn't true. I learned that the shoes needed to fit, be comfortable, and not fall apart.

It's hard to ignore the hand that feeds you, and today our communities are far more needy than they've ever been, and governments neither have the will nor the ability in many cases to provide the services that they need to.

My father had a shoe factory in a depressed and rough area of New York City called Williamsburg.

When I was younger I would often go to nightclubs and sit in the best-lit corner to look at what people chose to wear, or I'd go out and around the city - to places where people express their sense of what they think looks good. So, I get a sense of that, and then I try to interpret it.

Very early on in this journey, I uniquely found not just an aesthetic, but also a voice. I found the ability to communicate with people, which has turned out for me to be a far more meaningful platform. To talk to them about not just what's on their body, but also on their minds.

A brand today is much more than status. Consumers have to be able to trust it.