"Students sometimes turn up at my course and they look a bit like they're going to Bali with only Wellingtons and a map, and they never leave their hotel room because they didn't think to bring a bikini. I'm full of bizarre analogies like that."

3 likes

Source: Remembering Louise Wilson OBE. Interview with Donatien Grau, origin.anothermag.com. January 2013.

About the author

Louise Wilson

Fashion Designer

Louise Wilson was a prominent fashion educator known for her innovative teaching methods and emphasis on resilience in the fashion industry.

All quotes by Louise Wilson →

Same author

More quotes by Louise Wilson

See all →
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"Are there a lot of designers that matter? The industry hasn’t got a litmus test any more. The whole thing has imploded. Watch it die, like the banking industry"

Read quote
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"Students may feel the criticism is harsh, but I think it's possible they haven't had criticism before. It's my job to point out when something is badly done, or when there's no point of view. To build a brand you have to have something about you. If not personality, then some thought process. I'm 40, and they're young, so they're meant to be informing me. They should be bringing me a book or something that I haven't seen, not like some obscure chant book by Dominican monks, but an image of the way they see the world."

Read quote
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"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."

Read quote
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"Don't crave fame, do what you do and just apply. I don't think many of them here today are that interested in fashion. Perhaps it's because there's not much going on. No punk, no reaction to something. I think we are in a waiting period."

Read quote
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"I think the problem is that fashion has become too fashionable. For years, fashion wasn't fashionable. Today fashion is so fashionable that it's almost embarrassing to say you're part of fashion. All the parodies of it. All the dreadful magazines. That has destroyed it as well, because everybody thinks fashion is attainable."

Read quote
Louise Wilson Fashion Designer

"I've always believed that you have to have the skills before you destroy the skills. If you want to be crude, be crude, but don't be crude because you don't know how to do it, because you're not perfect at drawing and pattern-cutting."

Read quote