I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.
I don’t want to do a cocktail party. I’d rather people left my shows and vomited.
I'm about what goes through people's minds. The stuff that people don't want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what's buried in people's psyches.
I think there is beauty in everything.
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 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.
Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual.
British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.
People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don't see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality.
If you ask any lady they want to be taller, they want to be slimmer, you know, and they want a waist. I'm not here to make people look like a sack of potatoes.
I spent a long time learning how to construct clothes, which is important to do before you can deconstruct them.
The reason I'm patriotic about Scotland is because I think it's been dealt a really hard hand. It's marketed the world over as . . . haggis . . . bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.
I feel more Scottish than Norman.
I work with people I admire and respect. It's never because of who they are.
The explosion of museum exhibitions is only a mirror image of what has happened to fashion itself this millennium. With the force of technology, instant images and global participation, fashion has developed from being a passion for a few to a fascination - and an entertainment - for everybody.
I was literally 3 years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life, through primary school, secondary school, all my life. I always, always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of twelve. I followed designer's careers. I knew Giorgio Armani was a window-dresser, Emanuel Ungaro was a tailor.
Really, what I'm aiming for is world domination!
I am a melancholy type of person.
When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin Of The Species, no one could have known that the ice cap would melt, that the waters would rise and that life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. We came from water and now, with the help of stem cell technology and cloning, we must go back to it to survive.When the waters rise, humanity will go back to the place from whence it came.Make no mistake, this is not sci-fi, this is evolution
I just want to be a wallflower. Nondescript. Just not anything. I don't want to see me.
There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company. (But) I always remember that it's the fantasy, the artistic side, that makes customers want to buy the straightforward black pants.
For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I'm getting there: I've found my customer, my silhouette, my cut.
I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.
You can get insular with fashion.
I'm prepared to forget about money if it affects my creativity because, remember, I started off with nothing. And I can do that again.
