Coco Chanel: "Fashion changes, but style endures"!

Coco Chanel and Romy Schneider

• "Where should one use perfume? A young woman asked. Wherever one wants to be kissed".

• "It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong".

And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid, but I don’t think I’m a run-of-the-mill person".

I’ve been in business without being a businesswoman, I’ve loved without being a woman made only for love".

The two men I’ve loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness".

• "Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future"!

I’ve done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice".

• "Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity".

• "In order to be irreplaceacle, one must always be different".

• "If you were born without wings, do nothing to prevent them from growing".

• "Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening".

• "A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future".

• "As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!".

• "Gentleness doesn’t get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs".

• "Since everything is in our heads, we had better not lose them".

• "It is always better to be slightly underdressed".

• "Great loves too must be endured".

• "A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous".

• "The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud".

• "You live but once; you might as well be amusing".

• "Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman".

• "A girl should be two things: who and what she wants".

• "Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door".

• "Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance".

• "I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t think about you at all".

• "My life didn’t please me, so I created my life".

• "Fashion changes, but style endures".

• "Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable".

• "I don’t do fashion, I am fashion".

• "I don’t understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that’s the day she has a date with destiny. And it’s best to be as pretty as possible for destiny".

• "My reason for choosing diamonds is that, dense as they are, they represent the greatest worth in the smallest volume".

• "The best colour in the whole world is the one that looks good on you".

• "How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone".

• "Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute. It is the perfect harmony".

• "You can be gorgeous at thirty, charmimg at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life".

• "Only those with no memory insist on their originality".

• "Arrogance is in everything I do. It is in my gestures, the harshness of my voice, in the glow of my gaze, in my sinewy, tormented face".

• "Men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness".

• "Passion goes, Boredom remains".

• "In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different".

• "Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve".

• "Fashion has two purposes: comfort and love. Beauty comes when fashion succeeds".

• "I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men".

• "Everyone marries the Duke of Westminster. There are a lot of duchesses, but only one Coco Chanel".

• "I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like".

• "There is a time for work, and a time for love. That leaves no other time".

• "Fashion is made to become unfashionable".

• "Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger".

• "I imposed black; it still going strong today, for black wipes out everything else around".

• "Coquetry, it’s a triumph of the spirit over the senses".

• "Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions".

• "There goes a woman who knows all the things that can be taught and none of the things that cannot be taught".

• "It is the unseen, unforgettable, ultimate accessory of fashion that heralds your arrival and prolongs your departure".

• "Material things aside, we need no advice but approval".

• "I was the one who changed, it wasn’t fashion. I was the one who was in fashion".

• "May my legend prosper and thrive. I wish it a long and happy life".

• "I love luxury. And luxury lies not in richness and ornateness but in the absence of vulgarity. Vulgarity is the ugliest word in our language. I stay in the game to fight it".

• "Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty".

• "Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants".

• "I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one the things that women have is men".

• "Adornment, what a science! Beauty, what a weapon! Modesty, what elegance!".

• "There is nothing more comfortable than a caterpillar and nothing more made for love than a butterfly. We need dresses that crawl and dresses that fly. Fashion is at once a captapillar and a butterfly, caterpillar by day, butterfly by night".

• "A beautiful dress may look beautiful on a hanger, but that means nothing. It must be seen on the shoulders, with the movement of the arms, the legs, and the waist".

• "Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future".

• "A woman can be over dressed but never over elegant".

• "There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time".

• "Elegance is refusal".

• "Costume jewelry is not made to give women an aura of wealth, but to make them beautiful".

• "Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress".

• "There is time for work, and time for love. That leaves no other time".

• "I never wanted to weigh more heavily on a man than a bird".

• "Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury. ".

• "Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor".

• "Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains".

• "Hard times arouse an instinctive desire for authenticity".

• "Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous".

• "As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom. ".

• "Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death".

• "Youth is something very new: twenty years ago no one mentioned it".

• "One can get used to ugliness, but never to negligence".

• "Nothing goes out of fashion sooner than a long dress with a very low neck".

• "Fashion has become a joke. The designers have forgotten that there are women inside the dresses. Most women dress for men and want to be admired. But they must also be able to move, to get into a car without bursting their seams! Clothes must have a natural shape".

• "Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes. Fashion is in the air, born upon the wind. One intuits it. It is in the sky and on the road".

• "Scheherezade is easy; a little black dress is difficult".

• "Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress".

• "Fashion fades, only style remains the same".

• "There are people who have money and people who are rich".

• "In 1919 I woke up famous. I’d never guessed it. If I’d known I was famous, I’d have stolen away and wept. I was stupid. I was supposed to be intelligent. I was sensitive and very dumb".

• "A fashion that does not reach the streets is not a fashion".

• "Why am I so determined to put the shoulder where it belongs? Women have very round shoulders that push forward slightly; this touches me and I say: ‘One must not hide that!’ Then someone tells you: ‘The shoulder is on the back’. I have never seen women with shoulders on their backs".