Quotes from Edith Head

Building a proper wardrobe is like building a home. Indeed, you should think of it like a home, because it is something you're going to live in. It must be comfortable and suit all your needs.

Many women have asked me if it is possible to have a well-built wardrobe on a limited budget. 'Money,' I tell them, 'is no guarantee of taste, and an overstuffed wardrobe is often as bare as a skeleton when it comes to wearable apparel.'

Just imagine dressing the two handsomest men in the world, and then getting this!

A designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes.

As women, we all have certain weaknesses. I know one who can't resist pretty shoes but has nothing suitable to wear with them. Others adore frilly lingerie but never have any money to buy outer clothing.

You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.

If you hunger for certain types of clothes, for which you have little use, put yourself on a diet. Just as you resist too much whipped cream and French pastry to keep your figure in shape, you can say no to those yearned-for but unneeded purchases that lead to a wardrobe that is shapeless and without form.

Life is competitive; clothes gird us for the competition.

A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to prove you're a lady.

You can have whatever you want if you dress for it.

a designer is only as good as the star who wears her clothes

You can have anything you want if you dress for it.

You can do anything you want in life if you dress for it.

What a costume designer does is a cross between magic and camouflage. We create the illusion of changing the actors into what they are not. We ask the public to believe that every time they see a performer on the screen, he's become a different person.

We don't make glamorous movies today. Everything now is very realistic, artistic - and depressing. When is the last time you you saw a wonderful musical or a fabulous fantasy?

We ask the public to believe that every time they see an actress or actor that they are a different person.

Every different director has another language - for instance, Hitchcock does not like any bright color ever, unless the story says 'there goes the girl in a red dress.'

You can lead a horse to water and you can even make it drink, but you can't make actresses wear what they don't want to wear.

I always wear beige, black or white. For one thing I look good in them. For another, when I'm beside a star at a fitting, and she looks into the mirror, I don't want to be competing in any way.

Even the most beautiful legs - Marlene Dietrich's, for instance - look better when the kneecap is covered.

Couture has copied my things for years, in addition to countless other costume designers, claiming theirs were the original ideas. It's all part of the business, unfortunately.

There's no such thing as a standard size movie star, or woman for that matter.

I assure you that even the most beautiful women are not pretty all over. They have merely learned to use clothes deftly enough to give others the impression that they are.

With women, there's a basic female instinct of caring deeply about the way they look; women stars have a narcissist complex.