Top 140 Tim Gunn Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “In 1916, Infants’ and Children’s Wear Review insisted upon pink for boys and blue for girls. In 1939, Parents magazine claimed that pink was a good color for boys because it was a pale version of red, which was the color of Mars, the war god. Blue was good for girls because it was the color of Venus, and of the Virgin Mary. So, pink for girls is a relatively recent trend, and utterly random.”

— Tim Gunn

52. “I’ve made more bad decisions at 3 in the morning then I can list!”

— Tim Gunn

53. “Life is a big collaboration – and when you’re tackling something that is painful and troubling and is causing you such desperate grief that you think life’s not worth living – you need to reach out. To people who will reach back.”

— Tim Gunn

54. “Mood has a scuba section? Who knew?”

— Tim Gunn

55. “I learned from teaching. If you are perceived by the student to be belittling them or purely criticizing them without offering up words of encouragement and support, they shut down and discredit you.”

— Tim Gunn

56. “If you are going to be catty, you have to be careful with whom you do it, and in what manner! It’s the kind of behavior that is best kept behind closed doors.”

— Tim Gunn

57. “I just think the Kardashians have an absence of taste and I don’t think that that should be perpetuated. I’m sorry I’m sounding like an old farty, snob, but it bothers me.”

— Tim Gunn

58. “When it comes to my vocabulary, I felt a responsibility when I was teaching to raise the bar of conversation in my classroom. And with my own students, I refused to let them use the phrase “I like” or “I don’t like” when we were engaged in a critique.”

— Tim Gunn

59. “If you had pockets, you were associated with a labor force. It meant you had things to carry yourself. Otherwise, your lady’s maid or your manservant would have done it for you.”

— Tim Gunn

60. “I would certainly rather the industry not go broke, but if that’s what it takes for everyone to acquire some values and lose that sense of entitlement, maybe a little belt-tightening wouldn’t be so tragic.”

— Tim Gunn

61. “At all costs, avoid clothes that are too big. The more volume your clothes have, the more volume you appear to have.”

— Tim Gunn

62. “When it comes to Project Runway, for me the most memorable look ever presented goes back to season one, episode one, when Austin Scarlett created a ravishing cocktail dress out of cornhusks. It was really amazing.”

— Tim Gunn

63. “Does a man need to know what a peplum is? Probably not.”

— Tim Gunn

64. “I wouldn’t know what to do on a date. I don’t have the time. To make a relationship work, I’d have to give something up, and I’m not so sure I’m willing to do that.”

— Tim Gunn

65. “So perhaps the real secret to style is filling yourself to the absolute brim with engagement. Loving not wisely, but too well and all that.”

— Tim Gunn

66. “And I’m the first one to tell people to break the rules. But you can only break the rules once you know what the rules are. The other thing is, fashion is the last design discipline to actually have academic texts and historical analysis.”

— Tim Gunn

67. “People come up to me and share very personal and intimate things with me, and I am so touched by all the trust they have in me.”

— Tim Gunn

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

— Tim Gunn

69. “I learned early on in teaching how easy it is to hurt a young person and that’s never my intention.”

— Tim Gunn

70. “A couple of things for the not-so-diminutive man: avoid any prints that are large scale, because you will look like the print is wearing you, as opposed to you wearing the print.”

— Tim Gunn

71. “To cheer myself up, I try to remember the difference between short-term and long-term success. Living a good life and making a real mark on society is a marathon, not a sprint.”

— Tim Gunn

72. “Don’t give up! You’re too talented. You’re too good!”

— Tim Gunn

73. “The fit of jeans can be worlds apart from brand to brand. If you can find the right fit, skinny jeans can be very flattering.”

— Tim Gunn

74. “Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.” – Epictetus.”

— Tim Gunn

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

— Tim Gunn

76. “I’m really not a trend promoter because I feel that people push trends on people they shouldn’t.”

— Tim Gunn

77. “I would never dream of telling people how to dress. but I do say to them, however you are dressing, accept responsibility for it. And also, unless asked, I don’t judge. And if asked to judge – I would approach it socratically, I would approach it with questions.”

— Tim Gunn

78. “The pervasive idea is that if you’re a man in the fashion industry, you’re gay until proven otherwise. And of course there are lots of men who aren’t. But people make certain assumptions.”

— Tim Gunn

79. “It was very challenging to mentor the mentors, and yes, you do see more sides of my personality.”

— Tim Gunn

80. “I haven’t had a date in 26 years.”

— Tim Gunn

81. “One of the hardest things for a teacher is to know when to keep quiet and when to let go. It is a terrible thing to hold someone back from success, or to insist on sharing credit, or to tie someone to your apron strings. We need to have faith that we have done all we can, and then we need to kick our birds out of the nest.”

— Tim Gunn

82. “If you don’t have experience sewing, start with that, because that will inform what you are able to design.”

— Tim Gunn

83. “I have my flaws and my issues, past and present and who knows what will happen in the future. I want people to know Im vulnerable too and each one of us is.”

— Tim Gunn

84. “This explosion of athletic wear and rompers is very ironic when you think about how much more sedentary we’ve become. As we’ve become less active and higher-tech, we’re wearing more and more workout clothes.”

— Tim Gunn

85. “I’m very budget-minded myself, and it serves me well.”

— Tim Gunn

86. “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

87. “The fashion industry at large has been the worst public relations vehicle for larger women and petite women, they are both maligned and neglected. And I honestly do believe it’s getting better.”

— Tim Gunn

88. “And Brooke Elliott is a great actress.”

— Tim Gunn

89. “I always say I have a Socratic approach to most things that I do. I pummel people with questions, because I need to know what they’re thinking, what they’re trying to achieve, what they believe the final outcome is going to be.”

— Tim Gunn

90. “Most designers want to show apparel that makes the wearer look as long and lean as possible. And most people who buy clothes want to look as long and lean as possible.”

— Tim Gunn

91. “Borrowing from cultures without understanding the fundamentals can yield some pretty weird and wholly illogical perversions.”

— Tim Gunn

92. “Why must she dress that way? I think she’s confused about her gender.”

— Tim Gunn

93. “Call me a schoolmarm, but few things make me angrier than people not taking good care of library materials.”

— Tim Gunn

94. “Until the twentieth century, the T-shirt’s role was strictly to form a barrier between a man’s body and the more valuable clothing he actually wanted the world to see.”

— Tim Gunn

95. “As long as we have Netfix, Turner Classic Movies, Amazon, YouTube, and bookstores, there is no excuse ever to lack inspiration.”

— Tim Gunn

96. “I have a couple of thousand books in my personal library. Choosing a favorite is next to impossible. But I do love the written word.”

— Tim Gunn

97. “If someone doesn’t ask, you don’t have a moral obligation to say every thought that pops in your head.”

— Tim Gunn

98. “What’s interesting about textiles is that they are determined about three seasons in advance, that’s why when you walk into a store you think “Gee, everything looks about the same.””

— Tim Gunn

99. “People put on certain clothes for certain reasons, I assume, when their closet is filled with clothes.”

— Tim Gunn

100. “I will always be there in the wings saying, ‘You need to be good to people. You need to take your work seriously. You need to have integrity. You need to work with what you’ve got.”

— Tim Gunn