Daily Front Row

2010 March 19

The Quotable Tonchi

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Stefano Tonchi, Suzy Menkes
Patrick McMullan View Gallery

We’ve lifted a few of our favorite Tonchi-isms, just for kicks.

“I don’t believe in escapist fantasies. Escape to where?”—to The Daily, 9/14/2009

“It’s hard to say [who your competitors are] when you work for the most prestigious newspaper in the world. In that sense, there is not a lot of competition.”—to The Daily, 9/14/2009

“And I've come to a place now that has some of the elitism that I like. It's an elitism of education, more than anything else. It's an elitism of choice, not an elitism dictated by focus groups.”—on landing his gig at T to Mediabistro, 9/7/2004

“I don’t even own an iPhone. But I do have an iPod. I used to have a fantastic person who would update my iPod once a week. Unfortunately, he left the magazine.”—to The Daily, 9/14/2009

“I never tire of fashion. I do get tired of seeing clothes, or going to some of these fashion shows, definitely.”—to The Daily, 9/14/2009

"I'm not here to compete or play the games of W or Visionaire or Vogue or that kind of magazine, because they speak to a specific woman, a woman who is more or less obsessed with clothes and shopping.”—to Mediabistro, 9/7/2004

“Sure, I will never be known as a writer. That's not what I am. I'm much more about defining and telling a story through images and through a structure. I think this is also what, more and more, the next generation is doing."—to Mediabistro, 9/7/2004

“I love to pick up my paper on the doorstep at 6:30 in the morning. I still wonder how it gets there.” —to The Daily, 9/14/2009

“Shouldn’t we rethink the whole system and have fewer fashion weeks and instead more showroom meetings with buyers and fashion market editors? Shouldn’t designers take more time to really work on ideas and to research new fabrics and shapes and show only when they are ready and have something new to say? Shouldn’t their marketing teams make better use of the budgets for what really is significant to the life of the brand?”—to T regarding Milan Fashion Week, 3/3/2010

“We cannot look at the poor Alexander McQueen, abused child or abuser of substance. I think you have to put it in a larger context in terms of the fashion system. He’s just one of the little cogs that got squeezed.”—to NYMag.com's The Cut, 2/11/2010

“Well, think about New York Fashion Week—it's owned by IMG, a giant communications firm. There you have the picture. We live in a society of total entertainment. Fashion Week is very much about entertainment. What is happening—which on the one hand is sad, but it is a little difficult to stop—is that many shows have become more show business than the clothes business.”-—to Mediabistro, 9/7/2004