Best 31 quotes of Polly Allen Mellen on MyQuotes

Helmut Lang is an amazing man - always striving, always moving forward.

How many times have people said to me, "I think those pants are incredible, but I could never wear them." Well, why not? What's so different about these pants? I wear very classic things, but maybe with a little change here or there.

I always took a great interest in my clothes. My sister, who was 13 months older, and I always dressed alike, but as I got a little bit older, I didn't like that because I wanted to dress differently. So our mother would put Patty in blue and Polly in pink, or we would wear complementary colors, but the shapes we were wearing were always the same, and I was very interested in that. I also took great interest in my dolls and their clothes.

I cannot imagine what an influence a five-week trip to the Orient had on me. I mean, the culture, the absorption of the Japanese way of life, the Japanese way of thinking, the discipline. The entire thing was an extraordinary experience. So these were more than memorable things to me.

I do think there is a lack of modernity at the moment - and I don't even like that word, modernity, anymore. There aren't enough designers today anyway - there are more stylists.

If you've taken the job to be the stylist for a collection, then I think it's important for you to really listen to the designer and look at the board. Look at the wall, look at what the designer is interested in, and then move on to that. But the designer also must not lose sight of the reason for their point of view. Otherwise it won't come across.

I hate grunge. It was the worst period of my life.

I like people with guts. I want to feel in the clothes what the designer is really feeling when they're alone with themselves and their fabrics and they're drawings, and what happens when they let the creativity that they have been blessed with come forward. That's why they are who they are.

I loved the masculine style of dressing of Katharine Hepburn, who came from the same town that I came from. I was fascinated by the way she wore trousers. So I think the romanticism of the movies also influenced my life and my interest in fashion greatly.

I love street, adore street. Life is about mixing things and to be divine in the streets. Voila!

I personally do not think that I have ever done, in my working life, anything vulgar. I know I've done provocative things.

I remember once I didn't like a dress that we had to shoot - I'll never forget this - and so I turned it inside out and put it on the model backward.

I think Alexander McQueen was very, very special. When I went to his first show, I couldn't speak because I was so enthralled. I was saying to myself, "What am I looking at here? What's going on here?" Because, I'm really a loner. I've been a loner for a long time, because I guess I prefer that. For me to get the best out of myself, I have to trust my judgment. And so while watching an Alexander McQueen collection, I would feel isolated. Even though I was surrounded, I would still feel isolated by what I was looking at, if that makes sense.

I think Diana Vreeland recognized the passion and the energy I had. I stayed at Harper's Bazaar for two years, until I met my first husband and moved on to Philadelphia in 1952. But they were incredible years - wonderful, wonderful years. But, anyway, my career sort of took off from there. I was really blessed.

I think movies also played a part in my interest in fashion. I've also always been hooked on the movies. From my early teens on, I always had my favorite movie stars who I admired, like Carole Lombard and Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, and the men in my life who I loved, like Gary Cooper.

I think that some people have wonderful spots. I think that Karl Lagerfeld has a wonderful spot designing for Chanel. They really just let him go. I think John Galliano is a huge talent. Marc Jacobs is also a huge talent - and a very interesting one to me.

I think there a lot of great photographers working right now in the 2010. At the same time I do occasionally feel a great disappointment in some of the things that I see from certain people. But it is today.

I think the reason for vulgarity is because of the freedom that there is now to do certain things, and a lack of sophistication on the part of some people who, in their work, like to give the impression of, "Has there been intercourse or not? Are they about to?" But they take it into a realm that has a vulgar touch to it.

It's great advice - to open your eyes, have a little humility, and let go of ego. I think that instills in you a sense of responsibility. I also think you have to feel like you want to enrich your life, and you want to keep your eyes open, and you want to listen and be a good listener.

I was surrounded by talented people. I always remember Mrs. Carmel Snow, saying to me, "You know, Polly, if one person thinks they're a big star, then we're all stars. You just go out there and always do your best. And always have time to see any designer - no matter how big or how small, have time to see them. You don't have to just see the big shots. You never know what's coming around the corner and the talent that is going to be important. That is your job.

I wear all my T-shirts from Helmut Lang with the holes in the elbows, which people always speak of. When my husband gets a hole in his sweater, at his elbow, he says, "It's very Helmut Lang!

I will never get tired of looking at works by Pablo Picasso. I will never get tired of looking at work by Francis Bacon or Henry Moore or Francisco Goya. You cannot tire of the work these people have made because you can look it over and over again - the same thing - and always see something different.

One day, Sally Kirkland said to Diana Vreeland, who was the fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar at the time, "I have a young woman I want you to meet. She's very young, but I think you should meet her." When Sally Kirkland told me this, I said, "I can't possibly do that! I'm going to throw up! That's the scariest thing I've ever heard! I can't do that, Sally. I'm not ready to do that!" But Sally said, "You let them make that decision." I was absolutely terrified.

Steven Meisel is completely consumed with what interests him. He does what he wants to do, and when something doesn't interest him, he's not afraid to say so. I think that's why you don't see his work all over the place as often as you might like to. Today he only photographs what he wants to photograph, what turns him on. He has an extraordinary eye, and his sophistication is limitless. This is a man who doesn't miss a beat.

Style doesn't have seasons.

That bothers me when I see that fashion editors are consultants for brands. It tells me that the designer has lost sight of what he or she really wants to do, and that he or she is listening to the strength of a very strong stylist and being a little watered down - and by watered down, I mean, the strength of the designer's vision. I'm not saying it's easy.

There are certain people who hang onto nostalgia and I wish they wouldn't. I wish the young beautiful actresses and other people - I wish they would not hark back to clothes that look more like they've dressed in their mother's clothes.

There are some very creative people out there who are like Steven Meisel, and that is why their work is so extraordinary.

They were enormously chic. My father was very chic. My mother was a heavy woman and she wore wonderful, bright colors, and pajamas, but when she was in town or in New York City or in Paris, she would wear navy blue or black. But there was a flamboyance to both of them.

When I graduated from school, World War II was still going on. At the time, my eldest sister, Nancy, was working in New York City at Lord & Taylor, and she had a great friend named Sally Kirkland who she worked with there and who later went to work as an editor at Vogue. I always told them, "I want to work in fashion like you do," and finally, in the late '40s, I got a job at Lord & Taylor, too.

When you think about Balenciaga muse and model Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon - I mean, you look at their mother Jane Birkin, and what they have grown up to be . . . They aren't invaded in fashion, and yet they love it.I mean, who is going to schlep these big skirts and trains and all these things? How wonderful it is to see the young in miniskirts!