Elizabeth Hawes Quotes

“Women want to wear what they do because of what goes on in their heads. Their size and shape have practically nothing to do with it.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“It is impossible to be completely abstract about clothes because they have no life unless they are worn. They must fit onto a body or they do not exist.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“No garment which distorts the shape and motion of the wearer is beautiful, nor s any garment beautiful which emphasizes more than one or at most two of your sexual characteristics.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“If you are the type who truly longs to be a Southern Belle at all times, regardless of taking twice the space available in bus, subway or elsewhere, you had best remove yourself to a large estate replete with servants.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Paraphrashed :People wear what they wear because of what goes on in their heads ... it has nothing to do with their size or shape.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

And again and again, why, oh why, Joe Rosenthal, were you so surprised when skirts got long and waists natural? For three long years it had been coming. It was a style, Mr. Rosenthal. Style is never unpredictable. But Rosenthal and Levine are not occupied with style. They believe that everything changes twice a year and they want it to. Otherwise people wouldn't have to buy so many clothes. Nor are the manufacturers occupied with quality because it wears and makes future buying unnecessary. They are not concerned with whether clothes are useful or beautiful or functional. That, apparently, is not a part of their job.

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Take all the fullness out of this skirt," they say. "Ok," we say, "but you'll feel awfully silly in it next year." "What do I care about next year?" they answer. "Any dress which isn't in style for at least three years isn't any good to begin with," we say.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“After all, the butt of Fashion's dirtiest jokes is the public. The present American boast, that all women can be beautifully dressed if they choose, has been so clearly stated in so many ways for so long a time, that a large number of American women believe themselves to be beautifully dressed who are actually horrors to behold. Take those $10.75 copies of the dresses worn by the Duchess of Windsor in the summer of 1937. You could tell by the look on the faces of the American girls who wore them that they really felt beguiling enough to snatch off a Duke because they had a modified silhouette corresponding to that of a Duchess. The actual dress, stinted on material, cheaply imitated as to print design, bad in color and ill-fitting, was a horror to behold. You may say, if the girl feels like a Duchess, what more do you ask? I say, she looks to me like the worst mass-pro- duced imitation of a Duchess I can imagine, and it just isn't pretty.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

Being chic not only takes a great deal of money but an enormous amount of time. It practically precludes everything else, even being on charity committees. Half of one's time goes getting chic, the other half being seen that way.

— Elizabeth Hawes

Chic is a combination of style and fashion.

— Elizabeth Hawes

“There is no word in English for chic. Why should there be? Everything chic is by legend French. Perhaps everything chic is in reality French.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“One of the most fascinating things about the world of fashion is that practically no one knows who inhabits it or why it exists. There are a few people who know how it works, but they won't tell.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Fashion is that horrid little man with an evil eye who tells you that your last winter's coat may be in perfect physical condition, but you can't wear it. You can't wear it because it has a belt and this year 'we are not showing belts.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Style doesn't change every month or every year. It only changes as often as there is a real change in the point of view and lives of the people for whom it is produced.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“After marriage, all things change. And one of them better be you.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Is woman a lost sex? If so, is she the only lost sex? Has woman alone conceived all the vipers in our land?”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“It was my idea that if you started any kind of business, you should begin somewhere near where you hoped to end. In other words, if I wanted to make really good clothes to order, I would start out making good, and therefore expensive, clothes to order. If I started making inexpensive clothes, I thought probably I'd die making them.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“If you feel like getting a divorce, you are no exception to the general rule.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“I don't know when the word fashion came into being, but it was an evil day. For thousands of years people got along with something called style and maybe, in another thousand, we'll go back to it.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“All one really requires for putting anything over is enough energy and resistance to keep on plugging the idea. Someone will eventually fall.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

There is a sound reason why one and a half billion dollars are spent for cosmetics in your country every year, and only half that sum for education: There are no naturally pretty girls in the United States.

— Elizabeth Hawes

“If one is willing to have children, rhythm is probably the best method of contraception.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“The process of education is not generally a process of teaching people to think and ask questions. It ... is mostly one of teaching the young what is and getting them into a mood where they will go on keeping it that way.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“Yesterday people were permitted to change things. They will be permitted to advocate changing them tomorrow. It is only dangerous to think of changing anything today.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“All changes in clothes rise out of the lives of the people who wear them. The function of the designer is simply to see a little ahead of time what the people want, and to provide it. No designer can start anything really new and different unless there is a public all ready for it ...”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“The French legend is a very simple one. All really beautiful clothes are designed in the houses of the French couturiers and all women want those clothes.”

— Elizabeth Hawes

“You are being trained to be a Queen, but you do not have to act like one until y ou get your own hive. Being a Queen will not overtax you as you will never be called upon to use your mind on any major matter. You will use the National Mind, their mind. It's very restful ...”

— Elizabeth Hawes