Quotes from Vivienne Westwood

I don't watch television and I rarely go to the cinema, but I recently watched 'The King's Speech' on a flight. It was so beautiful and so simple.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.

If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

The capitalist system is about taking from the Earth and from the other great commodity, labour. What's happening with this system is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the only way out of it is supposed to be growth. But growth is debt. It's going to make the situation worse.

My clothes are very popular in Japan.

What I'm always trying to say to the consumer is: buy less, choose well, make it last.

There is so much that people take for granted.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.

Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well.

Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody's buying far too many clothes.

It's a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

I don't feel very comfortable defending my fashion except to say that people don't have to buy it. You do have to consume. You have to live. If you've got the money to be able to afford it, then it's really good to buy something from me, but don't buy too much.

I'm not sure what I think about current fashion, though. A few years ago, I would have said it's really, really bad and you hardly ever see anybody looking good. There must be some very good designers in the world.

Fashion is here to help make people look very important. If they have good taste and choose what suits them, I give them options on how they can do that. It's always sexy, and it's always with the same result: making women look fantastic.

The French have got taste.

The best night of my life was watching the Japanese Noh theater. I've only seen it once, but even saying it now, I think, 'How can I ever have this experience again?' It was so mesmerizing, so complicated and so primordial; I could not believe it.

I have certain signatures, certain cutting principles. It could be a raw-edged seam; it could be leaving the lining of sheepskin exposed so it's not perfectly finished. I invent new ways to do it, but the end goal is always the same.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

I disagree with everything I used to say.

But, the thing is, since I always had my own little shop and direct access to the public, I've been able to build up a technique without marketing people ever telling me what the public wants.

Fashion is life-enhancing and I think it's a lovely, generous thing to do for other people.

Everybody should have a fair deal; everybody should have the chance to life in this world. If we were evolved as human beings, we would hopefully be able to alleviate suffering in the world.