Suzy Menkes
Suzy Menkes
Suzy Peta Menkes, OBEis a British journalist and fashion critic. Formerly the fashion editor for the International Herald Tribune, Menkes is now International Editor for 19 international editions of Vogue online...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth24 December 1943
beating emotion excitement experience fabric fed online purchase thrill touch
There is no doubt that online shopping has fed the craze for speed, because when you can't touch the fabric or try on the outfit, the only emotion you experience is the excitement of the purchase and the thrill of beating everyone else to it.
cannot earlier echo era excitement game imagining remind wills
As a journalist, I cannot help imagining with excitement a new era with a face-off between Hedi Slimane at YSL and Raf Simons at Dior - a magnificent battle of style and wills to echo the Armani/Versace, Gucci/Prada or even Chanel/Schiaparelli face-offs of earlier years. But I remind myself that this is not a game of chess.
bit english expression thrown
When I look at my clothes, I think of them as an expression of the joy and fun of fashion - with a bit of English eccentricity thrown in.
sad tomb
There is something sad about clothes laid in a tomb of trunks.
people worn
The clothes most worn by people are the clothes least commented on by the press.
audience boarding captivated elegant gilded glamour grand nina paris russian taken white whom
I was taken to my first fashion show - Nina Ricci haute couture - in Paris by the White Russian princess, down on her luck, whom I was boarding with in Paris in 1963. I was captivated by the glamour of the gilded salon, the elegant clothes, and the audience of grand ladies.
agony attain decorative designers endless feeling keen saint sort towards
I think there's a sort of agony with all intelligent and very creative designers that it's only fashion, that in the end it's only the decorative arts. I had a feeling towards the end that Saint Laurent and Berge were very keen to attain that immortality that a lot of designers long for. You know, those endless exhibitions.
armani collection separated stands whether
I always have separated myself from my critiques of collections. My judgment is not about whether I would wear it - but how the collection stands in the lexicon of an established designer. As I am a maximalist, not a minimalist, I don't wear Armani or Celine - but I so appreciate what they have achieved.
daft nostalgic round seems ways
Smartphones are so fabulous in so many ways that it seems daft to be nostalgic about the days when an image did not go round the world in a nanosecond.
dollar euro journalist poor time trained true word
I was trained as journalist never to use the word 'I,' never to put my own opinion there. In fact, if you had a dollar or a euro for every time I use the word 'I,' you would be a poor person. But this is not true in general. I like the idea of being able to stand away and make a judgement.
change good
Change is good; it's what fashion is all about.
decoration love marie people school
I have a love for colorful things. I'm a fashion maximalist. I come from the school of people who look at the decoration in Marie Antoinette's bedroom, and think 'Why so reserved?'
backing call designers easier french investment perhaps
Fledgling designers need investment - but how much easier it is to put them in a dead man or woman's shoes, perhaps also backing the new designer's namesake line, but only as what the French call a 'danseuse,' a plaything.
beauties bed clothes fabulous inside life sleeping special tissue
My clothes are fabulous - colourful, fun and by some very special designers. They deserve a better life than being sleeping beauties in a bed of tissue inside a trunk.