Quotes from Louise Wilson

I was born in Cambridgeshire and moved to Scotland when I was seven.

The press always pick on British fashion, but I don't think that there are more successful young designers than in Paris or Milan. It's all a myth.

Elegance for one society is not elegance for another. It's in the eyes of the beholder.

A lot of people believe that you don't need to know the history and that creates newness. I disagree: we should always be informed and then destroy it.

Everything is not on a plate for you at Saint Martins - it's about personality, about working out how to do it.

I may sound like a corny bastard, but I love fashion.

I don't see why you wouldn't cry when you're in an intense environment.

As much as I might decry the students, as much as they're a nightmare, it's a privilege to be among youth.

I think the problem is that fashion has become too fashionable.

I had a fabulous childhood. Not many people have an outdoor tennis court that you're allowed to put your ponies on and pretend you're at Hickstead.

I still believe that education is about provoking some kind of original, creative thought.

I never really liked Italy. 'Lots of cement' is my long-standing quote.

I try to stop my students doing random things on the Internet or putting work online. It doesn't get them jobs. This concept of being noticed, I don't know what it brings you.

There's a broad range of fashion: knitwear, textiles, journalism.

We always want more, more, more. You see good work; you want it better. We push, push, push.

What is good work? You just know it when you see it. You just can't explain it.

I was very successful at three-day events, point-to-points, Pony Club, and gymkhana. But then I went to college, and because I had really good horses, they weren't going to be left in the field, so they were sold.

I have very tidy cupboards. I do like a cupboard to look nice when you open it, with the labels facing forward.

I love Ikea: it's non-design, but it works.

You can't refuse to move forward when you're educating in design, because that's what we're asking students to do the whole time.

Now there is tons of information available online. 90% of students rarely look at magazines in their intended format because they're looking at them on a computer screen. They don't understand the layout, so when they come to putting their own portfolios together, they have no spatial awareness.

I'm becoming the Simon Cowell of fashion.

Fashion's transient - it moves.

I always say to students, 'You're never going to have all the skills, but you have to have a skill.'