Dress Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old dress quotes, dress sayings, and dress proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Put even the plainest woman into a beautiful dress and unconsciously she will try to live up to it. Lady Duff-Gordon
Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman. Coco Chanel
The finest clothing made is a person's skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.. Mark Twain
We are all made up of the same skin and bones. What separates us is what we dress over it. Stefania Yarhi
When you don't dress like everybody else, you don't have to think like everybody else. Iris Apfel
One is never over-dressed or underdressed with a little black dress. Karl Lagerfeld
In a machine age, dressmaking is one of the last refuges of the human, the personal, the inimitable. Christian Dior
Don't dress to kill, dress to survive. Karl Lagerfeld
Take care of your costume and your confidence will take care of itself. Amit Kalantri
Fashion is what you're offered four times a year by designers. And style is what you choose. Lauren Hutton
Your dresses should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady. Edith Head
The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress. Hubert de Givenchy
Dress like you're embracing life, not hiding from it Peter Morrissey
Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak. Rachel Zoe
Dress changes the manners. Voltaire
Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves will, in general, become of no more value than their dress. William Hazlitt
No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up! Regina Brett
Good clothes open all doors. Thomas Fuller
A great dress can make you remember what is beautiful about life. Rachel Roy
Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim. Jane Austen
There is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us, and not we, them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. Virginia Woolf
A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view. Sophia Loren
You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it. Edith Head
You can never be overdressed or overeducated. Oscar Wilde
A modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation. Oliver Goldsmith
Clothes are like a good meal, a good movie, great pieces of music. Michael Kors
Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them. Marc Jacobs
What is important in a dress is the woman who is wearing it. Yves Saint Laurent
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 you live. Gianni Versace
A dress is a piece of ephemeral architecture, designed to enhance the proportions of the female body. Christian Dior
We act the way we dress. Neglected and untidy clothes reflect a neglected and untidy mind. Anonymous
The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in. Paris Hilton
It's not about the dress you wear, but it's about the life you lead in the dress. Diana Vreeland
Always dress like you are going to see your worst enemy. Kimora Lee Simmons
Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners. Loretta Young
Dress for success. Image is very important. People judge you by the way you look on the outside. Brian Tracy
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Henry David Thoreau
Clothing through its meaning that we substantiate our sense of self and our place in society. Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Clothing becomes, then, an indicator of our personal worth, values and beliefs as well as those of the culture in which we live. Bowling Green State University Popular Press
The associations that we have with dress have the potential to reveal the connections which we make with our culture in a very intimate way. Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Dress, in the context of popular culture, includes clothing worn in everyday life by ordinary people, as they go about the daily activities of their lives and carry on the traditions that bring meaning to them. Bowling Green State University Popular Press
Dress can reveal how we spend our working hours and leisure time. Bowling Green State University Popular Press
The terms 'dress' and - even more so - 'fashion' have many different meanings. Amy De La Haye
Dress performs a wide variety of important social functions. Amy De La Haye
Dress carries moral and political meanings. Amy De La Haye
In the late twentieth century, there are certain Islamic groups who advocate, or require women to wear forms of dress that hide their bodies, in order not to distract men. Amy De La Haye
Dress and other kinds of body adornment make the human body culturally visible. Amy De La Haye
People wore clothes long ago. They used animal skins too make the first clothes. Vickey Herold
Many people used leather to make clothes. Leather is animal skin without the fur. People learned how to make the skins soft. Vickey Herold
People in Egypt before used plants to make linen. Vickey Herold
Many clothes were not comfortable long ago. Women wore dresses that were long and heavy. Man also wore clothes that were not comfortable. Vickey Herold
Clothes for children were different long ago, too. Both young girls and young boys wore dresses. Vickey Herold
Dress can be the ultimate signifier of a person's gender, age, class, employment, and religion down to more subtle indications such as aesthetic predilection, political standpoint, and marital status. Lydia Edwards
Dress can hold the power to alter perceptions and opinions, to disguise and reinterpret, to heighten or lessen the wearer's very sense of themselves for better or for worse. Lydia Edwards
The study of dress is an invaluable methodology when attempting to understand and deconstruct the past. Lydia Edwards
With clothing for so long deemed a woman's main interest and occupation. Lydia Edwards
Dresses! We love them, we hate them, we gawk at them, we long for them, we disdain them and we buy them. If dresses could talk, what stories might they tell? Peter Lang
Ask women to talk or write about dresses, and without much prompting, they will regale you with detailed snippets from their lives, anecdotes that start out ostensibly about clothes, but end up being about so much more. Peter Lang
Dress stories reveal so much more than we may realize about who and how we are in the world and what sort of culture we are living in. Peter Lang
A male in a dress is likely to prove such an event. Gregory G. Bolich
Dress has become almost invincible in the formal discussion of cross dressing even though it is the obvious spark to our attention. Gregory G. Bolich
The significance, or meaning, of dress is a proper entry point into the world of crossdressing. Gregory G. Bolich
Dress also provides a way to convey ideas about how different genders should act and be perceived. Gregory G. Bolich
Dress thus both sets and reinforces cultural ideals. Gregory G. Bolich
Beauty in dress can only be achieved by applying the principles of art to clothing. Linda Przybyszewski
Knowledge, not money, is the key to beauty in dress. Linda Przybyszewski
The most pathetic, as it is the most common, result of vanity is more to be witnessed amongst women than amongst men. It is pitiful to think that many are vain of their dress. W. Robertson Nicoll
A woman who dresses well according to her means only does her duty, but beauty when unadorned is adorned the most. W. Robertson Nicoll
It has always been my ambition to design clothes that are related to life and related to the body. I have never tried to make a woman look like anything but a woman. Mainbocher
Even the simplest dress must not look timid. It should have and give that quite assurance which is just as compelling in fashion as it is in human beings. Ibid
Smart women are wary of uncertain fashions which are not sure what they are about, just as they avoid over-aggressive fashions and people. Both are bores. Ibid
A woman can be dressed in fashion without necessarily being dressed in taste. Bettina Ballard
Best dressed for what, under what circumstances, on what occasions? If you must have a best dressed list, let it be for women who work, who are constantly in view and who do not have unlimited budgets. Prudence Glynn
Women's fashions reflect social attitudes, shorter skirts and loose-fitting outlines tend to go with periods when women and society in general see themselves as emancipated, free and prosperous. Margaret Allen
The minis have revealed that there are far more pretty legs around than pretty faces, and therefore the short skirt will never be far away in future fashion. John Carr Doughty
A woman no longer has to dress to be attractive to a man; she has to be attractive to herself; she has to feel right, And whether or not a man is going to dig the way she looks is entirely up to him; it's not up to her. Norman Parkinson
Artistic dress communicates your unique expertise and profession. Jamie Yasko-Mangum
Uniform attire has been around as long as classic professional dress. You may not need to concentrate on what to wear, but your attention should be directed to the details of your uniform. Jamie Yasko-Mangum
The way I dress needs to communicate my expertise, my knowledge of the audience, and the message I want to communicate. Jamie Yasko-Mangum
Understanding and applying calendar dress to your professional life is essential for your professional success. Jamie Yasko-Mangum
How you feel and how comfortable you are in the clothes you wear comes from your self-image. Tracy McWilliams
Claim your confidence and be lifted up, explores the importance of confidence to expressing your inner beauty through the way you dress. Tracy McWilliams
Dressing to let your inner-self shine forth is what makes you dynamic and beautiful as a woman. Tracy McWilliams
If you can dress to express your own personal image, your self confidence will shine through. Tracy McWilliams
Cloth is a social tissue. By means of its convenient sheathing we move among one another freely, smoothly, and in peace, when without it such association would be impossible. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Our clothing is as literally evolved to meet our needs as the scales of a fish or the feathers of a bird. It grows on us, socially, as theirs grow on them individually. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The next great governing influence in dress is symbolism. We do not commonly realize how strong is this influence in modifying our attire. Charlotte Perkins Gilman