Quotes from Sonia Rykiel

My favourite feature is my hair. It has always made me look different. It was so red when I was born that my mother thought I had blood on my head. When I was a teenager, I looked like a tomboy, but then I understood that I could be a woman who was an intelligent mix between a lady and my mannish side.

I was a tomboy, always fairly eccentric, and convinced I'd grow up to be an actress.

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.

People are going to figure out that I don't know anything. I always thought I'd be discredited in the end.

I have never followed fashion. What is fashion to me? I just think of things that inspire me, that inspire women, and I design that way.

I came from an intellectual Parisian family. My father was a watchmaker; my mother was a housewife. We discussed politics, art, sculpture - never fashion.

The lead of a film that wove around me, I played all the roles. I traveled the world; I loved life, pleasure. I adored to write, create.

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

A man is attractive when he is slightly disturbing like a woman, a woman when she's a little disturbing like a man.

I love flinging everything I buy behind me onto the back-seat of the car: it's always full of packages when I travel, when I leap in my car!

The key to my collections is sensuality.

I don't know how to knit.

With only one bag, you can change your outfit completely.

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.

I think in the darkest moments, we need a break.

The pill was the liberation of the spirit of women.

I never played a part in the feminist movement - it touches me, but I am not a militant.

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 don't like women who are multiform, who wear many different shapes. Women who retain a unique shape are usually unique people.

My mother knitted a lot, but I never did; it was no fun.

I'm not brave, I'm not fantastic. I'm like any other woman. I'm unhappy. I'm difficult. I'm sad. Am I strong, too? Maybe, but not always. There are days when I don't want to see anyone. The most important thing you learn? You can live with it.

I care a lot about my looks, although I'm not too adventurous. Every day I dress the same way in a kind of 'uniform' of black, although in varying fabrics - it's always black.

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

The fashion industry is a free world, with creative codes that can be hardly considered sometimes, but it's also up to women to create their own style, and own trend.