I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.
Interpretation
Embracing one's uniqueness can lead to acceptance and authenticity.
This quote by Alexander McQueen highlights the importance of accepting one's individuality and the journey towards self-acceptance. Rather than striving to conform to societal expectations or norms, he embraces the notion of not fitting in, suggesting that true confidence stems from authenticity and self-recognition.
In practice
A motivational speech about self-acceptance.
My friend George and I were walking on the beach in Norfolk, and there were thousands of [razor-clam] shells. They were so beautiful, I thought I had to do something with them. So, we decided to make [a dress] out of them. . . . The shells had outlived their usefulness on the beach, so we put them to another use on a dress. Then Erin [O’Conner] came out and trashed the dress, so their usefulness was over once again. Kind of like fashion, really.
I want to be honest about the world that we live in, and sometimes my political persuasions come through in my work. Fashion can be really racist, looking at the clothes of other cultures as costumes. . . . That’s mundane and it’s old hat. Let’s break down some barriers.
I was this young boy and I saw this man with his hands round my sister's neck, I was just standing there with her two children beside me... Everything I've done since then was for the purpose of making women look stronger, not naïve. And so, when everyone started saying I was a misogynist, that really freaked me out. They didn't know me. They didn't know what I had seen in my life. That was the first part of fashion that I hated - people labeling me without knowing me.
Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
I'm interested in designing for posterity.
It is important to look at death because it is a part of life. It is a sad thing, melancholy but romantic at the same time. It is the end of a cycle - everything has to end. The cycle of life is positive because it gives room for new things.
Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three- piece suit.
The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.
We've got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. We've murdered them; we've burned them at the stake; we've run them out of town for something over which they have no control. And that's immoral.
When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself.
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.
One of the guiding beliefs of our consuming age is that we are all free and independent individuals. That we can choose to do pretty much what we want, and if we can't, then it's bad. But at the same time, co-existing alongside this, there is a completely different, parallel universe where we all seem meekly to do what those in power tell us to do.
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