101 Fashion Quotes

101 Fashion Quotes for Dressing Well + Fashion Captions for Instagram

Do you love to get inspired by quotes?

I do! I’ve rounded up my favorite fashion quotes from designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Coco Chanel as well as style leader like Vogue’s Anna Wintour. I’ve also included funny and inspirational quotes as well as quotes on style and attitude and dressing well.

How to Use Fashion Quotes

Decorate with them! - Put a favorite quote in an editor such as Canva and then print it out. You can hang it in your bedroom or closet to give a fun fashion vibe to your space.

Fashion Captions for Instagram - If you like to post your OOTD or latest shoe purchases, why not add a few fashion quotes to your Instagram feed?



1. “You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.” - Edith Head

2. “Buy less. Choose well. Make it last.” - Vivienne Weswood

3. “If you can’t be better than your competition, just dress better.” - Anna Wintour

4. “I don’t dress to be stared at. I just dress for myself.” - Iris Apfel

5. “I want everyone to wear what the want and mix it in their own way. That, to me, is what is modern.” - Karl Lagerfeld

6. “I’m for style. Fashion changes too quickly.” - Coco Chanel

7. “Color is like food for the spirit - plus it’s not addictive or fattening.” - Isaac Mizrahi

8. “Style is a deeply personal expression of who you are and every time you dress you are asserting a part of yourself.” - Nina Garcia

9. “I don’t design clothes. I design dreams.” - Ralph Lauren

10. “A woman is never sexier than when she is comfortable in her own clothes.” - Vera Wang

11. “Great personal style is an extreme curiosity about yourself.” - Iris Apfel

12. “Women who wear black lead colorful lives.” - Neiman Marcus

13. “I’ve always thought of accessories as the exclamation point of a woman’s outfit.” - Michael Kors

14. "What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." - Muiccia Prada

15. “You can wear whatever, be whatever, do whatever you want.” - Christian Siriano

16. “I have fun with my clothes onstage; it’s not a concert you’re seeing, it’s a fashion show.” - Freddie Mercury

17. “You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” - Oscar Wilde

18. “What’s my style is not your style, and I don’t see how you can define it. It’s something that expresses who you are in your own way.” - Iris Apfel

19. “Fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life.” - Bill Cunningham

20. “Dressing well is a form of good manners.” - Tom Ford

21. “Playing dress-up begins at age five and never truly ends.” - Kate Spade

22. “Clothes aren’t going to change to world, the women who wear them will.” - Anne Klein

23. “Walk like you have three men walking behind you.” - Oscar de la Renta

24. “Fashion has to reflect who you are, what you feel at the moment, where you’re going.” - Pharrell Williams

25. “Life is a party. Dress like it.” - Audrey Hepburn

26. “I never buy what someone says is ‘in’ or a ‘must-have.’ I buy what makes me happy.” - Iris Apfel

27. “Fashion is what you’re offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose.” - Lauren Hutton

28. “One is never overdressed or underdressed with a little black dress.” - Karl Lagerfeld

101 Fashion and Style Quotes

29. “Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside.” - Coco Chanel

30. “The difference between style and fashion is quality.” - Gorgio Armani

31. “Fashion is a trend. Style lives within a person.” - Oscar de la Renta

32. “Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it.” - Yves Saint Laurent

33. “Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak.” - Rachel Zoe

34. “I say dress to please yourself. Listen to your inner muse and take a chance. Wear something that says ‘here I am’ today.” - Iris Apfel

35. “Don’t be like the rest of them darling.” - Coco Chanel

36. “Always dress like you’re going to see your worst enemy.” - Kimora Lee

37. “The joy of dressing is an art.” - John Galliano

38. “When the fun goes out of getting dressed, you might as well be dead.” - Iris Apfel

39. “Fashion is about dreaming and making other people dream.” - Donatella Versace

40. “Elegance is not about being noticed, it’s about being remembered.” - Gorgio Armani

41. “In a world full of trends, I want to remain a classic.” - Iman

42. “Create your own style. I’m not interested in the girl who walks into my office in a head-to-toe label look that’s straight off the runway. I’m interested in a girl who puts herself together in an original independent way.” - Anna Wintour

43. “When in doubt, wear red.” - Bill Blass

44. “I love black because it affirms, designs and styles. A woman in a black dress is like a pencil stroke.” - Yves Saint Laurent

45. “Shine is my favorite color.” - Marc Jacobs

46. “A woman with good shoes is never ugly.” - Coco Chanel

47. “Pearls are always appropriate.” - Jackie Kennedy

48. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out.” - Anna Wintour

49. “Fashion is instant language.” - Miuccia Prada

50. “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.” - Coco Chanel

51. “I encourage you to stop saying, ‘I just want to look not so bad.’ Instead say, ‘I want to look fabulous’.” - Isaac Mizrahi

52. “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.” - Karl Lagerfeld

53. “I dream in jewelry.” - Rachel Zoe

54. “Style is something each of us already has, all we need to do is find it.” - Diane von Furstenberg

55. “Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.” - Marilyn Monroe

56. “Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness, simply didn’t know where to go shopping.” - Bo Derek

57. “Don’t dress to kill, dress to survive.” - Karl Lagerfeld

58. “There are no ugly women in the world, just lazy ones.” - Coco Chanel

59. “I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.” - Alexander McQueen

60. “Fashion is about something that comes from within you.” - Ralph Lauren

61. “People will stare. Make it worth their while.” - Harry Winston

62. “A girl should be two things: classy & fabulous.” - Coco Chanel

63. “Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” - Edith Head

64. “More is more and less is a bore.” - Iris Apfel

65. “Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.” - Coco Chanel

66. “Style is wearing an evening dress to McDonald’s, wearing heels to play football. It is personality, confidence, and seduction.” - John Galliano

67. “Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci

68. “Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.” - Coco Chanel

69. “Reinvent new combinations of what you already own, improvise. Become more creative. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Evolution is the secret for the next step.” - Karl Lagerfeld

70. “Style; all who have it have one thing: originality.” - Diana Vreeland

71. “When you don’t dress like everybody else, you don’t have to think like everybody else.” - Iris Apfel

72. “Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.” - Audrey Hepburn

73. “The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don’t wear her.” - Mary Quant

74. “Jewelry is like the perfect spice - it always compliments what’s already there.” - Diane von Furstenberg

75. “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.” - Coco Chanel

76. “Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, for each other. If girls dressed for boys, they just walk around naked at all times.” - Betsey Johnson

77. “Confidence is the best fashion accessory.” - Vivienne Westwood

78. “Just the way it never rains when you have an umbrella, you'll never run into people if you look fantastic. But go outside in pajamas, and you'll run into every ex you have.” - Tim Gunn

79. “Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress.” - Karl Lagerfeld

80. “Style is very personal. It has nothing to do with fashion. Fashion is over quickly, style is forever.” - Ralph Lauren

81. “When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear,’ what she really means is, ‘there’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.” - Caitlin Moran

82. “Elegance is a physical quality. If a woman doesn’t have it naked, she’ll never have it clothed. - Karl Lagerfeld

83. “Remember this: no one is looking at your imperfections; they’re looking all too busy worrying about their own.” - Isaac Mizrahi

84. “I don’t do fashion. I am fashion.” - Coco Chanel

85. “Create your own style…Let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” - Anna Wintour

86. “Always have fun with fashion. Dress to entertain yourself.” - Betsey Johnson

101 Fashion Quotes to Live By

87. “Real style is never right or wrong. It’s a matter of being yourself on purpose.” - G. Bruce Boyer

88. “Fashion is not superficial; it is a dynamic tool to transform oneself, and it can be used to command the attention of those around you.” - Christian Siriano

89. “Style makes you feel great because it takes your mind off the fact that you’re going to die.” - Isaac Mizrahi

90. “Trendy is the last stage before tacky.” - Karl Lagerfeld

91. “When you go to a nice restaurant, you want to be relaxed and have a drink and everything, you want to look at people who look well. You don’t want to look at some slob with and open shirt and a hairy chest - at least I don’t.” - Iris Apfel

92. “Being well dressed hasn’t much to do with having good clothes. It’s a question of good balance and common sense.” - Oscar de la Renta

93. “I feel the same way about clothes as I do about food - I want everything.” - Mindy Kaling

94. “Keep your heels, head and standards high.” - Coco Chanel

95. “I believe in the semiotics of clothes. They send a message about how the world perceives us. For me it goes beyond clothes, it's grooming. It's accessories. It's the whole head to toe look.” - Tim Gunn

96. “Isn’t elegance forgetting what one is wearing?” - Yves Saint Laurent

97. “Style is the only thing you can’t buy. It’s not in a shopping bag, a label, or a a price tag. It’s something reflected from our soul to the outside world - an emotion.” - Alber Elbaz

98. “I know what women look good in. I don’t think the rules ever change.” - Michael Kors

99. “Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them.” - Marc Jacobs

100. “Put your money into accessories. You could create a million different looks.” - Iris Apfel

101. “I like Cinderella; she has a good work ethic and she likes shoes.” - Amy Adams

102. “Fashion changes, style endures.” - Coco Chanel

103. “Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live.” - Gianni Versace

104. “You can never take too much care over the choice of your shoes. Too many women think that they are unimportant, but the real proof of an elegant woman is what is on her feet.” - Christian Dior

105. “I have always believed that fashion was not only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence.” - Yves Saint Laurent

106. “Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There’s no how-to road map to style. It’s about self expression and, above all, attitude. - Iris Apfel

107. “I have four bedrooms in my house. One is for guests, the other three are for closets.” - Andre Leon Tally

Fashion & Style Quotes

108. “We must never confuse elegance with snobbery.” - Yves Saint Laurent

109. “Fashion is all about happiness. It’s fun. It’s important. But it’s not medicine.” - Donatella Versace

110. “People with a lot of money don’t dress as well as people who have to make do, who have to be inventive.” - Iris Apfel

111. “Clothes are like a good meal, a good movie, great pieces of music.” - Michael Kors

112. “When you don’t feel to dress means that you are depressed. You need a fashion shower.” - Anna Dello Russo

113. “Shoes transform your body language and attitude. They lift you physically and emotionally.” - Christian Louboutin

114. “The clothes we wear send a message about how the world perceives us.” - Tim Gunn