Stephen Bayley Quotes

You are what you pretend to be.

If you were born in Britain after World War II, you see a continuous atmosphere of decline, moral and economic and political.

My wife and I both love cooking – I am an advanced male – so we argue about who gets to rustle up dinner.

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 new is the same as acquiring value… If the purchase of a new garment coincides with the wearing out of an old one, then obviously there is no fashion. If a garment is worn beyond the moment of its natural replacement, there is pauperization. Fashion flourishes on surplus, when someone buys more than he or she needs.

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 else. I would rather travel than arrive.

Interior design is a travesty of the architectural process and a frightening condemnation of the credulity, helplessness and gullibility of the most formidable consumers – the rich.

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 some find titillating.

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 no role models any more.

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.

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.

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 to make every effort to see value in the contemporary and in the future.

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 enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.