Fashion designers are a constitutive part of fashion cultural production, of which are among the most intriguing and controversial figures. In spite of the extraordinary amount of attention that fashion designers have generally received in the last centuries, critical literature of fashion has hitherto given little consideration to what designers have said and written. By taking into account fashion designers’ writings, and histories, the paper provides insiders’ views on the complexity and contradictions of the fashion industry. It relies on what fashion designers think about key issues such as identity, gender, training and education, creativity and constraints. Finally, it explores the dialectical relationships between creating fashion and being consumed by it.