Tim Gunn Quotes

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Tim Gunn

Profession : Designer

Birth : July 29, 1953

I had this wonderful career and thought I would retire as a teacher.

Tim Gunn

If you told me when I was a teen that I would end up being a teacher, I would have said you're out of your mind, because quite frankly I hated school.

Tim Gunn

Life is not a solo act. It's a huge collaboration, and we all need to assemble around us the people who care about us and support us in times of strife.

Tim Gunn

Take the high road. No matter how much strife, and consternation, frustration and anger you might be confronted with - don't go to that level.

Tim Gunn

Part of what was in the ether all around me growing up, until I was between 19 and 20, was a terrible, debilitating stutter. It was part of what made me very reclusive as a kid.

Tim Gunn

But if fashion were easy, wouldn't everybody look great?

Tim Gunn

I have my mantra about silhouette, proportion, and fit. I believe that when they are in harmony and balance, you'll look great in anything.

Tim Gunn

With fashion, you really need to understand the aspects of construction. Not just design on an iPad.

Tim Gunn

Fashion was in a crisis up until the mid-'90s and, when it came out of the crisis, it was a very different place. It was a place that nurtured and cultivated young entrepreneurial designers.

Tim Gunn

There's nothing I like better than going to my apartment, closing the door, cooking my little dinner for one and just tuning out. My apartment really is my haven. It's a nest where I go to heal.

Tim Gunn

Men's wear is all about tailoring.

Tim Gunn

But I will add, there's one thing I will not do, ever: I will never talk to you about things you cannot change. It plants a negativity in the head of a designer or the student, and it's a distraction.

Tim Gunn

Whoever's designing for plus-size doesn't get it. The entire garment needs to be reconceived. You can't just take a size 8 and make it larger.

Tim Gunn

I found early on in teaching, if you're too blunt an instrument, the students discredit you and think you're just being mean. They're not interested in what you have to say.

Tim Gunn

I've never mentioned this, but when I was at Parsons teaching, the other design disciplines, they don't like fashion design. They see it as very nineteenth-century.

Tim Gunn

But if I had to choose a single destination where I'd be held captive for the rest of my time in New York, I'd choose the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tim Gunn

I'm one of the biggest introverts you could ever meet.

Tim Gunn

I do things like hem a pair of pants, I do my own tailoring but I wouldn't attempt a jacket.

Tim Gunn

If you want to write an angry e-mail, write it but don't send it. It's based on my experience that whenever I have acted out in some manner, I have always regretted it.

Tim Gunn

But my manners also came from when I was in college and began participating in critiques. You have to speak with someone respectfully about their work and be honest and open, without hurting them.

Tim Gunn