Those Who Knew Karl Lagerfeld Best Share Thoughts About A Fashion Industry Great
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Fashion industry great Karl Lagerfeld + Choupette
Tributes are pouring in for Chanel creative director and fashion industry superstar Karl Lagerfeld, appearing here with his darling cat Choupette. AOC has a complicated history with Lagerfeld, having stood for my free press rights with his press representative. . . and not merely in email.
Facing financial ruin over threats from the fashion industry superpower, I am proud to say that Karl’s representative fell victim to his own agression, finding himself outsmarted with no choice but to stand down. The articles being unearthed in Google today, remind me that my buried thoughts about the enormously talented industry giant Karl Lagerfeld are no secret.
For the moment, I am just thinking about next steps. . . because the outpouring of genuine love and admiration for Lagerfeld is enormous. These tributes and commentary should stand as testimonials to the designer’s enormous body of work, articulated primarily by the women who loved and respected him.
If and when I have something to say, I will share it. ~ Anne
Update: Virginie Viard Assumes Helm of Chanel
Karl Lagerfeld Dies at 85; Prolific Designer Defined Luxury Fashion by Vanessa Friedman for The New York Times
Creative director of Chanel since 1983 and Fendi since 1965, and founder of his own line, Mr. Lagerfeld was the definition of a fashion polyglot, able to speak the language of many different brands at the same time (not to mention many languages themselves: He read in English, French, German and Italian).
In his 80s, when most of his peers were retiring to their yachts or country estates, he was designing an average of 14 new collections a year, ranging from couture to the high street — and not counting collaborations and special projects. “Ideas come to you when you work,” he said backstage before a Fendi show at age 83.
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His greatest calling, however, was as the orchestrator of his own myth.
A self-identified “caricature,” with his dark glasses, powdered ponytail, black jeans, fingerless gloves, starched collars, Chrome Hearts jewelry and obsessive Diet Coke consumption, he achieved such a level of global fame — and controversy — that a $200 Karl Barbie doll, created in collaboration with the toymaker Mattel, sold out in less than an hour in 2014.
He was variously referred to as a “genius,” the “kaiser” and “overrated.” His contribution to fashion was not in creating a new silhouette, as designers like Cristobal Balenciaga, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel herself did.
Rather, he created a new kind of designer: the shape-shifter.
That is to say, he was the creative force who lands at the top of a heritage brand and reinvents it by identifying its sartorial semiology and then pulls it into the present with a healthy dose of disrespect and a dollop of pop culture.
Karl Lagerfeld photographed by Annie Leibovitz,Vogue, September 2018
Anna Wintour Remembers Karl Lagerfeld Condé Nast Artistic Director and Vogue Editor in Chief
“Today the world lost a giant among men. Karl was so much more than our greatest and most prolific designer—his creative genius was breathtaking and to be his friend was an exceptional gift. Karl was brilliant, he was wicked, he was funny, he was generous beyond measure, and he was deeply kind. I will miss him so very much.”
Will the Real Karl Lagerfeld Please Stand Up? by Suzy Menkes for Vogue UK May 25, 2019
“I love the physical presence of books, and in my bedroom in Paris I pulled down every wall so it’s like a huge box of frosted glass,” he explains. “There are no doors, but a huge studio where I sketch and read and where Choupette lives. I must say, I’m pretty happy there. Everything is impeccable and one of Choupette’s two maids takes care of her the minute I leave, because she doesn’t like to be alone.”
As Karl involuntarily strokes his desk with his gloved hand, he continues talking about his furry friend. “I never thought that I would fall in love with a little cat like this. But I think it is very funny and I cannot imagine another life because I don’t want it. I’m envious of nothing.”
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“You know, the youth obsession is a kind of racism,” he says. “Do you know how long my contract is? Until 2045.” Is this for real? That is more than 25 years from now, by any reckoning bringing him to at least 105 before he is allowed to lay down his pencil. He speaks cheerfully about his never-ending work: “I have a lifelong contract and I am enchanted,” he says of his roles at the privately owned Chanel and at Fendi, now part of Arnault’s LVMH empire. “My work conditions are fabulous and don’t exist anywhere else.”
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In conversation, Lagerfeld switches from French to English and occasionally German, so I ask him which country feels like home. The answer is sharp and impassioned. “No! No! I am a citizen of Europe. I’m not French and I never intend to become French, because I like to be a stranger,” he says. “I’m a stranger in Germany and a stranger here. I never wanted to be part of something I could not get away from. I love to be an outsider. I’m part of nothing, no milieu. I am totally free in that sense of the word.”
I contemplate playing psychoanalyst and asking Karl why he feels this disconnection, but my proposed question is quashed before I speak. “I want to have a superficial image – I don’t want to look serious,” Karl says. “You can be serious, but you mustn’t show it.”
