James Laver

The erogenous zone is always shifting, and it is the business of fashion to pursue it, without ever catching it up.

— James Laver

If we could understand the full significance of a woman's hat we could prophesy her clothes for the next year, the interior…

— James Laver

Ten years before its time, a fashion is indecent; ten years after, it is hideous; but a century after, it is romantic.

— James Laver

Nothing is more revealing of an age than its hypocrisies.

— James Laver

Clothes are inevitable. They are nothing less than the furniture of the mind made visible.

— James Laver

When women take off their corsets and heighten their skirts it always means high inflation and low morals.

— James Laver

Poor Englishwomen! When it comes to their clothes- well, the French reaction is a shrug, the Italian reaction a spreading of the…

— James Laver

The same costume will be Indecent ten years before its time, Shameless five years before its time, Outre (daring) one year before…

— James Laver

When seen in retrospect, fashions seem to express their era. Although it is more difficult to draw conclusions from contemporary clothes, the…

— James Laver

Every style seems completely appropriate to its epoch. We cannot imagine Madame de Pompadour, or the Empress Josephine, or the early Victorian…

— James Laver

Avisitor from Mars contemplating a man in a frock coat and top hat and a woman in a crinoline might well have…

— James Laver

Clothes are never a frivolity: they always mean something.

— James Laver

Clothes are never a frivolity: they always mean something, and that something is to a large extent outside the control of our…

— James Laver