Fran Lebowitz’s is a cultural icon. Her perfect outfit consists of tailored Anderson and Sheppard jackets, vintage Levi jeans, and bespoke…cowboy boots (yeah, that’s not a typo). We stumbled upon her marvelous interview with Elle and thought we would share her most memorable quotes.
Her hilarious view on Men’s shorts:
I have to say that one of the biggest changes in my lifetime, is the phenomenon of men wearing shorts. Men never wore shorts when I was young. There are few things I would rather see less, to tell you the truth. I’d just as soon see someone coming toward me with a hand grenade. This is one of the worst changes, by far. It’s disgusting. To have to sit next to grown men on the subway in the summer, and they’re wearing shorts? It’s repulsive. They look ridiculous, like children, and I can’t take them seriously.
Her opinion on what fit means:
What people don’t know is: Clothes don’t really fit you unless they’re made for you. Especially when you wear men’s clothes, like I do. American women think that clothes fit them if they can fit into them. But that’s not at all what fit means.
Her thoughts on yoga pants:
All these clothes that you see people wearing, the yoga clothes—even men wear them!—it’s just another way of being in pajamas. You need more natural beauty to get away with things like that. What’s so great thing about clothes is that they’re artificial—you can lie, you can choose the way you look, which is not true of natural beauty. So if you’re naturally beautiful, wear what you want, but that’s .01% of people. Most people just aren’t good looking enough to wear what they have on. They should change. They should get some slacks and a nice overcoat.
Her hatred of Brooks Brothers:
I used to buy all my shirts at Brooks [Brothers], but that was completely ruined about 20 years ago. They discontinued the shirt I liked. If I had only known this—I mean, if you’re going to discontinue an item that thousands and thousands of people buy, announce it. Say, ‘We will no longer be making our excellent Brooks Brothers cotton shirts that we made for 5,000 years. We’re going to change them in some awful way. We’re alerting you so you can buy a lifetime supply.’ Shirts don’t go bad, they’re not peaches.
Her opinion on fast fashion:
People care more about trends now than they do about style. They get so wrapped up in what’s happening that they forget how to dress, and they never learn who they are because they never learn how to take care of anything. So much of what my generation was taught regarding clothes was how to make them last. How to wash and care for them.
Her thoughts on those Hillary Clinton pantsuits:
But I would not say her look (I won’t even call it style) is so imposed on her. Yes, there’s a narrow parameter for a woman that public, but I don’t feel that inside of Hillary Clinton there’s a Jane Birkin waiting to get out. I don’t think she cares. I don’t think she is interested in how her house looks, where her furniture is from—I don’t think she has any visual interests. And there’s nothing wrong in not caring. A man who doesn’t care about what he looks like, he’s applauded. We say, ‘Oh, he’s not superficial!’
I, myself, am deeply superficial.
This gave us a good laugh at the office! Read her entire interview here. (It’s worth the read!)
Ryan Roberts 