Charles James
Charles James
Charles Wilson Brega Jameswas a British-born fashion designer known as "America's First Couturier". He is widely considered to have been a master of cutting and is known for his highly structured aesthetic...
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth18 July 1906
fashion art form
I spent my life making fashion an art form.
body
All my seams have meaning - they emphasize something about the body,
men thinking judging
No human government has a right to enquire into private opinions, to presume that it knows them, or to act on that presumption. Men are the best judges of the consequences of their own opinions, and how far they are likely to influence their actions; and it is most unnatural and tyrannical to say, "as you think, so must you act. I will collect the evidence of your future conduct from what I know to be your opinions."
hate acceptance sight
A great designer does not seek acceptance. He challenges popularity, and by the force of his convictions renders popular in the end what the public hates at first sight.
fashion years miracle
Fashion, after all, is magic and miracle…intended to bestow proportion and beauty where both have been lost or faded with the years.
thinking style has-beens
We who have been ahead in STYLE have usually been also ahead in our thinking.
people mankind wells
So perverse is mankind that every nationality prefers to be misgoverned by its own people than to be well ruled by another
cutting ideas design
Cut in dressmaking is like grammar in language. A good design should be like a well made sentence and it should only express one idea at a time,
hands design creative
All creative work begins by doing something with the hands. Creation is simply a problem and design is the way out.
shapes silhouettes variation
There are not many original shapes or silhouettes -- only a million variations.
shostakovich mediums happens
Brancusi has his medium: Picasso, Faulkner, Shostakovich, theirs. Mine happens to be cloth.
long design digging
The best design reveals itself during a long fatiguing process of digging into the subconscious.
important magazines coats
You should know that my most important contribution was always in tailoring; coats, jackets, wool dresses… so few of which went into the magazines.
dresses helping figures
My dresses help women discover figures they didn’t know they had,