Aphorism: Mode passes; style remains. (Coco Chanel 1965) Question about French version

victor steinbok aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM
Tue Aug 16 21:59:26 UTC 2011


Yes, of course! You started with the variant of "fashions fade", but it
included the "style remains the same" as counterpoint. And the citation for
YSL "eternal" was only from 2011. But this is the version I find more common
in pop culture and it would be interesting to track down if this version is
ever attributed to anyone else. Either way, the collocation of fashion and
style--in this context--seems to be ubiquitously French.

VS-)

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Thanks for your response Victor. The original post on this thread
> included the aphorism "Fashions fade, style is eternal" attributed to
> Yves Saint Laurent but searching further makes sense. (The punctuation
> in these aphorisms varies. Sometimes a comma splice is used as noted
> by Chris.) Another variant attributed to YSL "Fashion passes; style
> remains" was listed in the first post.
>
> The earliest YSL version I have evidence for is dated 1975 and is
> listed in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations:
>
> Fashions fade, style is eternal.
> YVES SAINT LAURENT (b. 1916). French couturier. Andy Warhol's
> Interview (New York, 13 April 1975)
>
> I do not know if the interview in Interview was conducted in French or
> English because I have not seen this cite on paper.
>
>
> In the 1966 novel "Lord Malquist & Mr. Moon" the prominent playwright
> Tom Stoppard wrote:
>
> You see, he understood that substance is ephemeral but style is
> eternal... which may not be a solution to the realities of life but it
> is a workable alternative.
>
> Garson

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