TbT Photo of the Day: Lola Karl Lagerfeld

Isn't there already a published book of the mouthful of things articulated/expressed/quipped by the incomparable Karl Lagerfeld? 

The Yoda (I call her Lola) of the fashion world, other than designing clothes and accessories for Chanel, Fendi 

Mr. Lagerfeld and the five Fendi sisters, in a 1983 photograph. Credit via Fendi

and his eponymous line, Karl Lagerfeld, with more than 3 collections a year, is also a photographer, publisher, condominium interior designer (what could be the latest entry in his LinkedIn profile) and cat person to his pet Choupette, as he cited while pointing out why designers are not artists, in an article from The New York Times:

"I don’t think that most of the designers have a very quick sense of humor. They take themselves very seriously because they want to be taken as artists. I think we are artisans. It’s an applied art. There’s nothing bad about that. If you want to do art, then show it in a gallery. ... I’m a designer, I do photos, I do books, I’m a publisher, but I don’t have the self-proclaimed label “artist.” I hate that. Very pretentious. If other people say it, it’s very flattering, but if you start to say it yourself, you better forget about it."

Helmut Lang must have heed his sagely advice way back when.


He can be a Civil Registrar: 

“I said, ‘Hervé, this name is not possible, it’s too heavy"

Hence from his actual surname, Peugnet, it has become Léger, from the French word for “light.” And the rest is bondage dress history.


On being his own Stresstab:

“I don’t believe in it. It’s a job, one should not become hysterical.”

Lola doesn't look back:

"No, no, no, no. This is one of the sicknesses of our period, to look back. No, forget about it. Fashion is now and tomorrow. Who cares about the past? But at Fendi, they like to tour the past."

He has green thumb:

"It’s nothing going back to any roots. It’s planting new trees."

Maybe a reason why he's showing in SoKor on the same day as the Costume Institute Gala:

"There’s no history. I don’t even have archives, myself. I keep nothing. What I like is to do — not the fact that I did. It doesn’t excite me at all. When people start to think that what they did in the past is perhaps even better than what they do now, they should stop. Lots of my colleagues, they have archives, they look at their dresses like they were Rembrandts! Please, forget about it."

French DuoLingo 101:

"I don’t believe in waiting for inspiration. The French say, l’appétit vient en mangeant, the ideas come when you work. I work a lot for the garbage can. I have huge bins next [to me], for whatever I do, 95 percent goes to the bin."

What retirement?:

"No. I would die on the spot. Chanel died in the middle of a collection when she was in her nearly 90s."