Tim Gunn Quotations

Does a man need to know what a peplum is? Probably not.

I have my mantra about silhouette, proportion, and fit. I believe that when they are in harmony and balance, you’ll look great in anything.

I'm honest about expressing my opinions. At the same time, I'm diplomatic in how I do critique things if I have a negative response.

Take the high road. No matter how much strife, and consternation, frustration and anger you might be confronted with - don't go to that level.

Life is not a solo act. It's a huge collaboration, and we all need to assemble around us the people who care about us and support us in times of strife.

I found early on in teaching, if you're too blunt an instrument, the students discredit you and think you're just being mean. They're not interested in what you have to say.

With fashion, you really need to understand the aspects of construction. Not just design on an iPad.

But if fashion were easy, wouldn't everybody look great ?

There's nothing I like better than going to my apartment, closing the door, cooking my little dinner for one and just tuning out. My apartment really is my haven. It's a nest where I go to heal.

I wouldn't know what to do on a date. I don't have the time. To make a relationship work, I'd have to give something up, and I'm not so sure I'm willing to do that.

I always say I have a Socratic approach to most things that I do. I pummel people with questions, because I need to know what they're thinking, what they're trying to achieve, what they believe the final outcome is going to be.

Whoever's designing for plus-size doesn't get it. The entire garment needs to be reconceived. You can't just take a size 8 and make it larger.

I do things like hem a pair of pants, I do my own tailoring but I wouldn't attempt a jacket.

Part of what was in the ether all around me growing up, until I was between 19 and 20, was a terrible, debilitating stutter. It was part of what made me very reclusive as a kid.

I have my flaws and my issues, past and present and who knows what will happen in the future. I want people to know Im vulnerable too and each one of us is.

Everyone has a best feature, so find clothes and accessories to accentuate those, whether it’s your shoulders or your long legs!

But if I had to choose a single destination where I'd be held captive for the rest of my time in New York, I'd choose the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I don't know why I've always been so captivated by architecture.

I have to have my coffee. I probably have three cups a day, but only before noon.

But my manners also came from when I was in college and began participating in critiques. You have to speak with someone respectfully about their work and be honest and open, without hurting them.

Fashion was in a crisis up until the mid-'90s and, when it came out of the crisis, it was a very different place. It was a place that nurtured and cultivated young entrepreneurial designers.

If you want to write an angry e-mail, write it but don't send it. It's based on my experience that whenever I have acted out in some manner, I have always regretted it.

I'm one of the biggest introverts you could ever meet.

I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.

I haven't had a date in 26 years.

I learned early on in teaching how easy it is to hurt a young person and that's never my intention.

I learned quickly that if the student’s perception is that you’re not listening to them, and not understanding them, they discredit you.

In a manner of speaking. I certainly never want to lose my voice as an educator.

But I will add, there's one thing I will not do, ever: I will never talk to you about things you cannot change. It plants a negativity in the head of a designer or the student, and it's a distraction.

I just don't like conspicuous consumption. I find it distasteful.

I love HGTV. I love the Food Network.

On my first day teaching my own classroom, I threw up before I entered the building.

People put on certain clothes for certain reasons, I assume, when their closet is filled with clothes.

I've never mentioned this, but when I was at Parsons teaching, the other design disciplines, they don't like fashion design. They see it as very nineteenth-century.

If you told me when I was a teen that I would end up being a teacher, I would have said you're out of your mind, because quite frankly I hated school.

You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world.

I've had my own moments in front of designers when I've actually said, 'You know, there's a market here for expanding your work, and here it is. And frankly, there are two markets: The women who are larger than the 12, and then there are women who are petite. And most designers that I talk to have absolutely no interest in addressing either of those populations, which I find repugnant.

I have heard women complain about men holding doors for them,, as if it is inherently offensive and implies that they are weak. ... I would hold a door for anyone. ... It has to do with noticing our fellow human beings and saying, "I recognize that you're on this planet, and I don't want a door hitting you in the face.

I guess the most famous person I was so extremely exhilarated by being with - and actually sat next to her at a luncheon at the White House - was Mrs. Obama.

If you have to ask if a clothing item is a dress or a top, it is always a top.

I really believe things happen for a reason, and sometimes that reason isn't revealed until much much, much, much later.

Go to Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue, I think it's the eighth floor, and it's just a department called 'Woman.' It's rather devastating. You've never seen such hideous clothes in your entire life. I mean, it's simply appalling. Thank God there are no windows on that floor, because if I were a size 18, I'd throw myself right out the window [after seeing those clothes]. It's insulting what these designers do to these women.

I'm so lucky. I've met a lot of famous people.

I'm conflicted. On one hand, I don't want to say that because you were a man and now you're a woman, you can't be in a women's fashion show. But I feel it's a dicey issue. The fact of the matter is, when you are transgender - if you go, say, male to female - you're not having your pelvis broken and having it expanded surgically. You still have the anatomical bone structure of a man.

My advice to the 10 year old daughter is: fashion happens in a context. It's societal, it's cultural, it's historic, it's economic, and it's political. So all of her studies, everything that is happening in the world, all needs to be channeled through her in order to be a good designer.

I'm making the assumption that after Mrs. Obama leaves the White House that she will continue all of her work toward improving education in this nation and childhood health.

I'm much more of a Leo than I am a Cancer.

Life is a big collaboration. And we can't navigate it alone.

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.

I love the history of the sport, I love the culture that surrounds it, and I never dreamed I'd become a fanatic. I'm such a fanatic now that I'm committed to competing.

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.

Remember, channel your inner winner.

I will say that the high road can get so high that you can get a nose bleed, in which case you have to get off the high road.

I've never said I'm a fashion designer.

The clothes we wear send a message about how the world perceives us.

Success needs to be measured according to the ambitions and the resources of each designer. And many aren't interested in being a megabrand.

It's so important to reach out to people you trust, and who can give you honest feedback, and keep those people close to you. You don't want to surround yourself with enablers.

Being a student in an art & design school, that was the moment for me, that was when I began to develop a lot of self-confidence and really come into my own.

I've been in situations where I've said to young people: "You're so personable, you're so articulate, you're clearly so bright, you're so good-looking - feel better about yourself!" But if at the core if you don't, all those words mean nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It was very challenging to mentor the mentors, and yes, you do see more sides of my personality.

I want to say to anyone who works in a drone workplace, raise the bar! There's no reason why you have to dress to the lowest common denominator.

As I continue to mature and navigate the world, there are so many myths that are dispelled for me.

I have a very Socratic approach - I pummel the designers with questions, so when I get them to step back from the work and look at it with me, they'll eventually see what I see, coming to it fresh and unencumbered. That's always very gratifying because they feel a responsibility and an ownership of a solution.

My manners also came from when I was in college and began participating in critiques. You have to speak with someone respectfully about their work and be honest and open, without hurting them.

When someone new walks into a room, the first thing we notice about that person is probably their gender. And the second things is what they're wearing. And based on what they're wearing, we start making certain assumptions about them.

I'm frequently introduced as a fashion designer, and I quickly say I'm not, and instantly people are incredibly disappointed and think that I'm some sort of charlatan who's been perpetuating this falsehood.

So perhaps the real secret to style is filling yourself to the absolute brim with engagement. Loving not wisely, but too well and all that.

Whether it's fashion or it's home, it's all about style. The clothes we wear send a message about how we are perceived, and our home does the same thing.

What's important to a fashion designer? It's much more than learning how to make clothes. In fact, that merely makes you a dressmaker. It doesn't make you into a fashion designer.

I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.

Exude unconditional confidence.

I grew up with an absolutely horrible, debilitating stutter, and it was what caused me to retreat into myself and caused me to have very few friends and not want to socialize, and it made me absolutely terrified of giving reports in school. It was awful. It wasn't until I was 19 that I had intensive speech therapy. I had it for two years and it really helped, though I will say when I'm tired, the stutter comes out, even now.

If I could predict the trends, they would already be there.

I hate the word "eclectic" .I'm a classicist, and I like comfort. Lots of books, lots of artwork, pieces of family furniture, and newer upholstery.

I believe in letting karma do its thing. What comes around goes around.

Things are recalibrated according to new perspectives and perceptions. It's fascinating to me.

At all costs, avoid clothes that are too big. The more volume your clothes have, the more volume you appear to have.

Life is a big collaboration - and when you're tackling something that is painful and troubling and is causing you such desperate grief that you think life's not worth living - you need to reach out. To people who will reach back.

I will always be there in the wings saying, 'You need to be good to people. You need to take your work seriously. You need to have integrity. You need to work with what you've got.

Few activities are as delightful as learning new vocabulary.

Call me a schoolmarm, but few things make me angrier than people not taking good care of library materials.

As long as we have Netfix, Turner Classic Movies, Amazon, YouTube, and bookstores, there is no excuse ever to lack inspiration.

Most designers want to show apparel that makes the wearer look as long and lean as possible. And most people who buy clothes want to look as long and lean as possible.

If I had to choose a single destination where I'd be held captive for the rest of my time in New York, I’d choose the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I learned from teaching. If you are perceived by the student to be belittling them or purely criticizing them without offering up words of encouragement and support, they shut down and discredit you.

As I've matured, I've developed more confidence in pattern mixing and in having a slimmer fit and in taking some risks, and I enjoy it!

Frankly, from my perspective, the bomber jacket is such a classic item you can wear it even when it's not on trend.

We need to treat each other with consideration. In my world, the squeaky wheel does not get the grease.

Trying and acheiving are two different things.

The fashion industry at large has been the worst public relations vehicle for larger women and petite women, they are both maligned and neglected. And I honestly do believe it's getting better.

I don't know if people have gotten ruder or if my tolerance level has declined.

I've made more bad decisions at 3 in the morning then I can list!

When I'm working in the real world with real women and we're shopping, we find that fashion seems to end when you get any larger than a size 12. How ridiculous is that?

If you want to, you can share my teaching refrain: I can't want you to succeed more than you do.

Make it work

I am the anti-trend guy? I don't believe in chasing trends. And before anyone shops, I believe you benefit from doing a closet inventory. Ask yourself what am I wearing, what am I not wearing, and you'll probably discover things you didn't even know you had.

Remember someone is going to be out, so don’t make it you.

Mood has a scuba section? Who knew?

When it comes to dressing, comfort is overrated. A little discomfort probably means your clothes fit and they're not pajamas.

We shop out of boredom, for release, for excitement, for a sense of achievement, for a sense of control over our unruly existences. And every so often, we shop because we need something to wear.