For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It’s usually only the intellectual ones who understand what’s going on in what I do.
I find beauty in melancholy.
These beautiful models were walking around in the room, and then suddenly this woman who wouldn’t be considered beautiful was revealed. It was about trying to trap something that wasn’t conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within.
There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company.
You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don’t need to do that any more.
If you’re an open book, there’s no allure.
I am a melancholy type of person.
I am married to work.
There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do – but that part is for me. It’s my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There’s a sadness to it, but there’s romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.
I’m the pink sheep in the family.
Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way.
I think I should be a president. President of the United States.
I’m 40 now, but I want this to be a company that lives way beyond me, and I believe that customers are more important to making that happen than press. When I’m dead, hopefully this house will still be going. On a spaceship. Hopping up and down above earth.
Rap music’s been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn’t.
I can’t get sucked into that celebrity thing, because I think it’s just crass.
Sting’s my ideal man, because he’s a real man.
As a designer, you’ve always got to push yourself forward; you’ve always got to keep up with the trends or make your own trends. That’s what I do.
I believe in that one-on-one sell. I don’t really believe in flooding the market with loads of goods that don’t mean much, and you lose your identity.
I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I’ve always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it’s late.
I feel more Scottish than Norman.
Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive.