Tim Gunn Quotes

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

2. I try to remember the difference between short-term and long-term success. Living a really good life and making a real mark on society is a marathon, not a sprint.

3. (on Hillary Clinton) I think she's confused about her gender.

4. I am a stickler for good manners, and I believe that treating other people well is a lost art. In the workplace, at the dinner table, and walking down the street - we are confronted with choices on how to treat people nearly every waking moment. Over time these choices define who we are and whether we have a lot of friends and allies or none.

5. (on Hillary Clinton) She has a Jersey Shore style.


6. 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.

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

8. 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.


9. Men's wear is all about tailoring.

10. You know people like this, right? People who are incapable of enjoying anything.

11. You'll have 30 minutes at Spandex House.

12. Make it work.


13. Grandpa has trouble with these ropes

14. (on Taylor Momsen) She was pathetic, she couldn't remember her lines, and she didn't even have that many. I thought to myself: "Why are we all being held hostage by this brat?"

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

16. And Brooke Elliott is a great actress.


17. What are you doing with those animal wooly balls?


18. It looks like it's a pterodactyl out of a gay Jurassic Park.

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

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

21. (on Isaac Mizrahi) He really is a terrible, terrible, terrible person.

22. Have you seen most of the plus-size sections out there? It's horrifying. 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. In my travels, I've been an advocate for larger women. I've been talking to designers, but only a half-dozen make an effort. Most say: "I don't want a woman who's a size 10 or 11 wearing my clothes." Well, shame on you! It's not realistic. We need to address real women with real needs. At Parsons, we had fit models that ranged in size from 2 to 10. We've got to reconceive clothes for all sizes. Sometimes I say: "I'm going to do a clothing line!" I'd love nothing more to respond to those designers who refuse to address it.

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



24. 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.

25. There would be times when I would be watching Season 2 shows and I would hear my voice offscreen and I would think, is that me or Santino?

26. 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.


27. 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.

28. I'm talking to them about aspirational looks - looks they can't wear right now. I didn't believe in aspirational clothes before this. I was always of the belief: "Let's fit the size you are now. Let's not talk about being four sizes smaller." But there is the health issue.

29. 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.




30. 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.

31. I realized that teaching was either going to kill me or cure me, and I was determined that it was not going to kill me. I kept thinking that I could not let my mentor down. She had hired me and I thought, I just cannot disappoint her. Did I want to stay home and hide under the blankets in bed? Yes! But, I thought, I can't let her down. I really do believe that it is good to have people outside of yourself that you do not want to disappoint because when you are ready to throw in the towel and say: "This is it!" if you think about that other person, you probably will stick it out. But there hasn't been a single semester of teaching, even twenty-nine years' worth, when I don't have some serious butterfly moments meeting a class for the first time. But nervousness is good, it's useful, it keeps you on your toes, it keeps you alert. It means you're not taking things for granted.

32. (on Anna Wintour) It's insane that people don't call her out on the things she does. Is it fear? I was certainly afraid of her. When her office called me, I thought I'd have to go into the witness protection program.





33. 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.

34. I'm not sure what the moral is here…I really just wanted to tell that story.

35. 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.

36. You have a way to go. So go, go, go, go!

37. Men don't wear jeggings!

38. Think of yourself as a series of thirds from your shoulders to your toes, and dress observing those demarcations. The underlying message being, don't cut yourself in half with your apparel.



39. (said in "Project Runway") The work is at such a high level and is so well executed, it really is a matter of taste…

40. 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.

41. (on the type of guest to invite to a party) I also like having at least one person around who is widely disliked among your crowd of lovely people. You never know who's going to get along with whom, but you do know people need someone to gossip about later, and you don't want it to be you.

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






43. 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.

44. 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."

45. Jay, listen to your own voice...And tell her there's a reason why she's a model and you're the designer.





46. 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.

47. In my book, I include a not-so-favorable story about Anna Wintour. I had seen her exit a fashion show by being carried down five flights of stairs by her two male bodyguards - all to avoid having to ride the elevator with the rest of us. I told the New York Post about what I had seen and Anna had a terrible reaction to it, and put me through such torment over it. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have included it in the book. But the message is: "Anna, accept responsibility for your behavior. If you don't want people writing or talking about this, then don't let two men carry you down five flights of stairs." Vogue has already come out with a response saying that I have a "vivid imagination." All I can say is, you can't make this stuff up. Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

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

49. This is NOT fashion camp.

50. 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.

51. Trying and achieving are two different things.

52. I would certainly rather the industry not go broke, but if that's what it takes for everyone to acquire some values and lose that sense of entitlement, maybe a little belt-tightening wouldn't be so tragic.

53. 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.

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

55. I haven't had sex in 29 years. Do I feel like less of a person because of it? No.

56. 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.

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

58. 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.

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

60. I hate hot pants, but they're very now.

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

62. 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.

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

64. I love helping people.


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


66. I just think the Kardashians have an absence of taste and I don't think that that should be perpetuated. I'm sorry I'm sounding like an old farty snob but it bothers me.

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

68. I love HGTV. I love the Food Network.



69. (on children watching "Jersey Shore" I will tell you it pains me when I hear 12-year-old girls say it's their favorite show. You shouldn't be watching it! And it's so incendiary that New Jersey is no longer permitting it to be taped in New Jersey.

70. Few activities are as delightful as learning new vocabulary.

71. Is she going to look like she's wearing her mother's dress?


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

73. 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.

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

75. I learned early on in teaching how easy it is to hurt a young person and that's never my intention. I have had a student throw his portfolio across the room and storm out, sobbing and then we couldn't find him, and I thought: "Oh God, this is exactly what he wants me to go through - this torment," and I did. So I've learned the hard way to try to never insult someone's character. You never say things like: "Well if you didn't arrive here thirty minutes late every day." But I still have to stop myself at times thinking, how do I phrase this in such a way so this person does not shut down like a garage door and not let me in? It's hard. I would never say it's easy.

76. Don't give up! You're too talented. You're too good!

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

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



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

80. 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."

81. I haven't had a date in 26 years.




82. We are fabulous. We don't have to meet anyone fabulous.




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