Maureen Chiquet

“From the time I was 16, I wanted to live in Paris. When I graduated college and didn't have a job, I went to take the LSAT because I didn't know what else to do. I walked out in the middle of the test and eventually found an internship in Paris at L'Oreal.”

“Creative thinking begins by embracing your naiveté and rejecting the obvious in favor of the unusual, the extraordinary, the evocative and or the new.”

“I wrote Beyond The Label to open up the aperture through which we look at the world. I want us to reconsider what it means to be a woman, a mentor, a wife, a mother.”

“I've been inspired by Coco Chanel. She broke all the rules of her time when she was designing. She pretty much revolutionized the way that women dressed at the time, and in doing that, she modernized the way they looked because they could move more freely in their clothes.”

“Good leaders are always in the “act” of leading. They listen as much to others as they listen to themselves.”

“Men display less self-doubt and lead with what seems always like a sense of force and direction. We are not as familiar with women leaders, and so we question their skills. As women, we always need to work harder to prove our competence.”

“Often, the pressure of the business and fear of having an open position encourages us to hire people who are either not right for the job or not ready to take on the responsibility.”

“Could we imagine that beauty itself doesn’t just exist in society’s version of aesthetic perfection? Beauty also emerges from places and things that tell us stories.”

“I'm like a sponge: I like to listen.”

“The underlying issue in getting women to top positions is what kind of leadership we value and how we teach, assess, and promote “good” leaders in all organizations.”

“I just dreamed about living in Paris and being French. I always loved the visual arts, film and theatre, and I hoped to be involved in creating beautiful products and images.”

“The risk of any great luxury brand that has its history in the past is that it can get dusty.”

“This book is for those of you who are tired of trying to squeeze into constrained categories, who long for a life without limits on who you are or who you will become.”

“Allowing yourself to follow the crevices of your heart lines is a messy process and not easy to characterize or rationalize into neat and tidy lists and boxes.”

“A lot of companies talk about letting creative lead, but Chanel actually does let it lead.”