Stephen Bayley Quotes

28 quotes in 621 categories

• The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
• Interior design is a travesty of the architectural process and a frightening condemnation of the credulity, helplessness and gullibility of the most formidable consumers -…
• Taste is more to do with manners than appearances. Taste is both myth and reality; it is not a style.
• Watteau is no less an artist for having painted a fascia board while Sainsbury's is no less effective a business for producing advertisements which entertain…
• Fashion is the most intense expression of the phenomenon of neomania, which has grown ever since the birth of capitalism. Neomania assumes that purchasing the…
• You are what you pretend to be.
• It is the fragrant lack of practicality that makes high-heeled shoes so fascinating: in terms of static mechanics they induce a sort of insecurity which…
• As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of…
• Everyone has taste, yet it is more of a taboo subject than sex or money. The reason for this is simple: claims about your attitudes…
• I have a character failing. I am quite incapable of identifying with anything whole-heartedly. Whatever I am doing, I am always planning to do something…
• I have no particular interest in antiquities or antiques, but I like things to meet a certain aesthetic.
• I just don't understand how you can not be concerned about your appearance. From time to time I'm vilified as the person who cares about…
• I wouldn't mind someone lobbing hand grenades at me, but having to reset the timer on the video recorder puts me into a blood-spitting frenzy.
• If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.
• It is sometimes easier to have furniture made than to find things.
• My wife and I both love cooking - I am an advanced male - so we argue about who gets to rustle up dinner.
• That's one of the things about getting older isn't it? You suddenly realise that you are what you set out to be. And there are…
• While there is a great value in things that are old, it seems that the overwhelming challenge in Britain in the late 20th century is…
• You must never aspire to 'finish' a house, you can merely hope to start it, and from then on it's an evolutionary process.
• Fashion is primitive in its insistence on exhibitionism, which withers in isolation. The catwalk fashion show with its incandescent hype is its apotheosis. A ritualized…

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