Elsie de Wolfe

Good dressing is largely a question of detail and accessories.
Elsie de Wolfe

My business is to preach to you the beauty of suitability.
Elsie de Wolfe

I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint.
Elsie de Wolfe

We cannot do better than to accept the standards of other times, and to adapt them to our uses.
Elsie de Wolfe

To conform within rational limits to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to write according to the rule of grammar.
Elsie de Wolfe

It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there.
Elsie de Wolfe

Simplicity, suitability and proportion.
Elsie de Wolfe

The cardinal virtue of all beauty is restraint.
Elsie de Wolfe

I am going to make everything around me beautiful. That will be my life.
Elsie de Wolfe

You can't take it with you. There are no pockets in a shroud.
Elsie de Wolfe

I am going in now for interior decoration. By that I mean supplying objets d'art and giving advice regarding the decoration of their houses to wealthy persons who do not have the time, inclination, nor culture to do such work for themselves. It is nothing new. Women have done the same thing before."
Elsie de Wolfe, Designers on designers : the inspiration behind gr