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
When I was a child, my mother always told me that you could wake up in the middle of the night and be deathly sick, so you always have to be impeccable. I laugh about it now, but I think everyone should go to bed like they have a date at the door.
My sisters were sent away because my mother thought they were boring. I was not boring.
When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday.
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.
The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.
When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded - 'It's like hair color. It's nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It's not a subject.' This was a very healthy attitude.
Everything is about cut. But worse than couture cuts. The dresses from far away, you think that it is a little T-shirt. And then you get near to it, you are scared by the craftsmanship put into that dress.
Every coat is different and in every kind of material,
It does not worry me personally - I like communication and visibility - but then I don't have to think about commerce. I like the idea of seeing it everywhere. Designers can't live in an ivory tower. And to copy well is as difficult now as it was in the past.
My family is from there. I thought it was my moment in time to show a little of what this part of Europe is all about -- the poetry, the inspiration, the art and the spirit and the feeling of that area.
Maybe there's a little '70s touch, ... One has to find something,
I never had to learn English, French and German because I was brought up as all three languages. I had a private French teacher before I even went to school. That helped a lot.
Normal people think I'm insane.
Filming the girl was a really nasty trick,