08-02-2009
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#1141 |
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V.I.P.
 
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Houston Chronicle 2/6/09
 Karl Lagerfeld is the world’s most fascinating designer, an accomplished photographer who’s shot many memorable Chanel advertising campaigns, a provocateur who likes to titillate with bawdy jokes and outrageous pronouncements, and a raconteur who seems bemused by his success. But don’t call him a dressmaker, even though he’s been at the helm of the fabled French design house for more than 25 years. “I don’t spend 100 hours on a dress,” he says in Lagerfeld Confidential, a fascinating yet oddly unrevealing documentary that airs at 6 p.m. Monday on the Sundance Channel. “Making them takes lots of work, talent, physical effort and patience — something I don’t have. I just come up with the idea.” And where do these ideas come from? “The best things I’ve done have come from dreams,” he said, referring to a haute couture show years ago that featured a stark white tiered set peppered with models who, on cue, removed their black coats to reveal brightly colored Chanel suits and dresses. “I filled in the details (later), but I had dreamed it all, including the sets.” Yet he maintains in the documentary, “I don’t fall asleep thinking of dresses. I’m not that obsessive.” In recent seasons, when I’ve viewed them live, Chanel’s ready-to-wear shows have indeed been dreamlike. They’ve featured a gigantic carousel whose “horses” were supersized handbags; a replica of the famous rue Cambon store and a wintery ice-skating rink. At the end of each show, Lagerfeld appeared — his gray hair pulled back into a small ponytail, rings on every finger and a Mona Lisa smile. The audiences went wild. Dazzled by these displays, I could barely remember the cut and color of the clothes. I always had a clear impression of Lagerfeld but not much insight. He remains an enigma who rivals Madonna in his desire to manage his public image. Though Chanel recently laid off 200 employees, Lagerfeld’s haute couture show last week maintained its lavish traditions, with a floral paradise crafted from nearly 4,500 yards of white paper and a collection that highlighted white structured dresses topped with towering paper headdresses. Lagerfeld Confidential director Rodolphe Marconi and his camera captured Lagerfeld over three years — in his lavish yet messy Paris apartment, backstage at Chanel shows and at a photo shoot with Nicole Kidman. The designer lives in opulence, flying by private jet to lunch with Princess Caroline in Monaco, and has a room filled with clothes he never wears. Unconvincingly, he suggests this high-flying lifestyle means little to him. He is also modest about his accomplishments at Chanel. He claims he had little experience when he was hired in 1982 to resuscitate the stuffy design house. That’s a bit of revisionist history — he had apprenticed at Balmain and designed for Fendi and Chloe. But his genius has been reinterpreting Chanel classics in fresh ways. “When I took on Chanel, it was a sleeping beauty. Not even a beautiful one. She snored. But the owners knew that. That’s why they called me. They saw that respect doesn’t sell. Respect never works,” he said. He has been less successful at Fendi, which is known much more for furs and Silvia Fendi-designed handbags than the ready-to-wear collections he has designed since 1965. His namesake Lagerfeld Collection seems more like a vanity project, and a collection backed by Tommy Hilfiger in 2006 was quickly discontinued. Sidestepping Lagerfeld’s failures, Marconi seems mesmerized by the designer’s idiosyncrasies. Lagerfeld wears dozens of rings on his fingers at one time and rarely is photographed without his trademark dark glasses. (At one point in the film, he’s miffed to be caught reading a fashion magazine without his glasses on. He’s actually more handsome, less vampirelike without them.) He craves disorder. “I would freeze at a tidy desk,” he says. He abhors air conditioning and says he likes the smell of building sites. When he travels, he carries a worn pillow that he has had since he was child. The movie doesn’t include my favorite Lagerfeld moment. In 1987, he canceled a trip to Houston to accept a fashion award because his flight was rescheduled and he would have had to change clothes in an airport to get to the event on time. “I very much like the people in Houston, but I will not change in the pee-pee room of the Atlanta airport. I have to have a private jet,” he told then-Chronicle fashion editor Linda Gillan Griffin. No such candid moments exist in Lagerfeld Confidential. It all seems terribly contrived until the end, when he is asked whether anyone really knows him. “I’ve molded people’s ideas about me so much that I think it’s almost impossible,” he replied. “I want it to be impossible, even for the people I love dearly. I don’t want to be real in other people’s lives. I want to be a ghost.” At last, after nearly 89 minutes, he seemed to be telling the unvarnished truth
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"We’ll get there fast, and then we’ll take it slow That’s where we wanna go, way down to Kokomo." |
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08-02-2009
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#1142 | |
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V.I.P.
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Quote:
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"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that
we have to alter it every six months." -Oscar Wilde |
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08-02-2009
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#1143 |
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backstage pass
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Oh i missed this thread.
Karl karl karl ...........oooooh KARL!!*declared in a quite dramatic way* I feel so B.R.A.V.O when i think of this man and feel like i can just be somebody.  
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"One night of magic rush The start a simple touch" |
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08-02-2009
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#1144 |
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V.I.P.
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^^ I know what you mean! I find him very inspirational..His philosophy and world view is a little cynical and off the wall sometimes, but he has such a fun attitude towards life in general and accomplishes so much in a breezy manner...I mean, Yves was so tortured by his life and art; Karl just has fun with it all!! I love the be all you can be and enjoy it approach!!
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"We’ll get there fast, and then we’ll take it slow That’s where we wanna go, way down to Kokomo." |
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08-02-2009
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#1145 |
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fashion insider
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^ yeah that's true, I like him for that.
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08-02-2009
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#1146 |
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windowshopping
 
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Thank you Boomer for sharing those articles!
I really do find him to be an infinitely fascinating person : ) |
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09-02-2009
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#1147 |
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V.I.P.
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 ...   bryanboy.com
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09-02-2009
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#1148 |
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V.I.P.
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^^ Ummm...
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"We’ll get there fast, and then we’ll take it slow That’s where we wanna go, way down to Kokomo." |
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10-02-2009
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#1149 |
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windowshopping
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10-02-2009
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#1150 |
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V.I.P.
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As a native New Yorker, I vote this as the greatest picture ever taken!!
 I think I will have it made into a poster!!   NewYorkMagazine.com
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"We’ll get there fast, and then we’ll take it slow That’s where we wanna go, way down to Kokomo." |
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11-02-2009
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#1151 |
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backstage pass
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^
 We need a bigger version of that pic! |
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11-02-2009
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#1152 | |
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trendsetter
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Quote:
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12-02-2009
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#1153 |
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windowshopping
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Here's another part from an interview with Karl. I post the rest later, when I have time to translate it. Source on the file
Dokümen.pdf BTW, Karl visited yesterday the EU. Of course he was too late |
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12-02-2009
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#1154 |
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front row
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he was shooting some of the stars from german film festival berlinale at feb, 5 2009
here's a link to the video from the shoot - unfortunately all in german... http://www.stern.de/lifestyle/mode/:Berlinale-Der-Flirt-Karls-Kamera/654634.html my favoutite quote of him is "for me the best proof for everybody's feeling comfortable about the shoot, is: they came to me and told they are in a hurry and had only 2 or 3 minutes for the pics, but finally they stayed for 4 hours!"
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http://www.jasminfuhr.com | illustration work http://bold-mag.blogspot.com/ | online mag from berlin
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12-02-2009
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#1155 |
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V.I.P.
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^^ Danke, PinkSofa!!
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"We’ll get there fast, and then we’ll take it slow That’s where we wanna go, way down to Kokomo." |
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