I designed the miniskirt that caused so much havoc in the Sixties - the miniskirt that was such fun but has travelled well to today.

All a designer can do is to anticipate a mood before people realize that they are bored. It is simply a matter of getting bored first

Of course, I remember when everybody was thin. It wasn't until I went to America in the Sixties that I saw anyone who wasn't skinny thin.

I long for my garden to be complete. Working in it is one of my joys, but it will never be finished because it's forever changing with the seasons.

One of the things I've learned is never to horde ideas, because either they are not so relevant or they've gone stale. Whatever it is, pour it out.

As a child, I used to spend nearly all my summer holidays with my aunt in Wales, and we used to catch mackerel in a boat and then cook them on board.

Fashion is a very ongoing, renewing thing, about change and reaching for the next thing. You are permanently dissatisfied, and it's always got to get better.

As well as being a creative genius, Vidal Sassoon was a formative figure of the Sixties. Along with the Pill and the mini-skirt, his influence was truly liberating.

Fashion is a tool... to compete in life outside the home. People like you better, without knowing why, because people always react well to a person they like the looks of.

I saw no reason why childhood shouldn't last forever. So I created clothes that worked and moved and allowed people to run, to jump, to leap, to retain their precious freedom.

When I opened my first shop, city gents were still carrying tightly furled umbrellas and wearing bowler hats. It was into this world that I launched my new ideas about fashion.

The whole 1960s thing was a ten-year running party, which was lovely. It started at the end of the 1950s and sort of faded a bit when it became muddled with flower power. It was marvelous.

I divide my time between all the mud and open space in Surrey and the social life and work in London, particularly Chelsea, which still has the same village feel that it had in the swinging Sixties.

Let me give you an idea of Fifties Britain. The war had ended ten years before, and most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities.

In the old parts of Nice, the family tables are out in the cobbled streets so that you can't drive past. They insist you join them at midnight on a hot July evening. So that's just what you do, abandoning the car.

Jean Shrimpton was the most beautiful of all the models I have known. To walk down the King's Road, Chelsea, with Shrimpton was like walking through the rye. Strong men just keeled over right and left as she strode up the street.

In America, they never make anything without first having a market survey to ask the public what they want. People only ask for things they already know about, so you don't get anything new that way. That's why American fashion is stuck.

I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter.

I absolutely adore cows. They're the most fascinating, gentle and beautiful animals. Their eyes are so amazing. I have ten that live on the land around my house. I love to talk to them. There are few things better than falling asleep in a field and being woken up by an inquisitive cow.

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