Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Otto Lagerfeldis a German fashion designer, artist, and photographer based in Paris. He is the head designer and creative director of the fashion house Chanel as well as the Italian house Fendi and his own fashion label. Over the decades, he has collaborated on a variety of fashion and art-related projects. He is well recognized around the world for his trademark white hair, black glasses, and high starched collars...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionFashion Designer
Date of Birth10 September 1933
CityHamburg, Germany
CountryGermany
I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.
I like the idea of craziness with discipline.
The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.
I'm a working-class person, working with class.
I only go to places if I have a professional reason. I'm not a tourist.
But if I have a lot of imagination, I could tell myself whatever I wanted, you know. I handle myself quite well. I'm kind of fascist with myself, you know. There's no discussion. There is an order. You follow it.
I'm never content with what I do. I live in a sort of permanent dissatisfaction. I think that's the secret to doing things well.
I must say, some are not very beautifully made. They’re coffee-table books for people who drink alcohol. I have nothing against coffee-table books as long as they are well done. They must not look like gravestones on a table. Sometimes they are too big, they come in boxes and things like this. No, a book has to be easy to open and you don’t have to be a bodybuilder to lift it. I like books I can read in bed. Those big tombstones would kill me.
I live my memoirs, I don’t have to write them down.
Fantasy is often better than reality. It's much more inspiring not to go to places than to go.
Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don't believe too much into inspiration, only I'm waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It's a little too easy to say that.
When I was 14, I wanted to smoke because my mother smoked like mad. I wanted to smoke to look grown-up. But my mother said: 'You shouldn't smoke. Your hands are not that beautiful and that shows when you smoke.
Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young.
I get along with everyone except for men my age, who are bourgeois or retired or boring.