Oh Karl. *love*

Karl Lagerfeld's New Perfume Smells Like Books

This new interview with Karl Lagerfeld in The Sunday Times is beyond fantastic. Even better than the interview from March that made me stop thinking of him as a mean old fop and begin respecting him as a person. He's genuine, and though he has the luxury to say exactly what he thinks, I still respect him quite a bit for his honest take on life.

The best part of this interview are the insights into what made Karl Lagerfeld what he is today. I'm torn on whether these tidbits are too good to be true, or if they're so perfectly, dysfunctionally fitting that they HAVE to be true.

(Surprise!) His mother:

His mother was free-spirited, stylish and harsh. Lagerfeld recalls he was not allowed to chatter on when talking to her and had to be quick, the reason why he now talks so fast. “ ‘You may be six years old, but I am not,’ she used to say.” She refused to let him wear glasses although he was short-sighted, saying: “Children with glasses are the ugliest thing in the world.” She also took little interest in his schooling, never attending a parent-teacher evening. Nor did she ever attend one of his fashion shows later in life, despite his success. “She said, ‘Well, I didn’t go to your father’s office either,’ ” he laughs.

On why he owns so many books:

He shrugs his shoulders, purses his lips, then tells a story from his childhood: when his uncle (“I adored him, he was the chicest man I ever knew”) took him for a walk, Lagerfeld failed to recognise the name of a minor German poet on a street sign.

“I was 10 and he slapped me in the face. I had never been slapped in the face by anybody. When we returned to the house, my uncle shouted at my mother, ‘Your son is as shallow and superficial as you!’ I will never forget that.”

And the best one:

“I buy my shoes a size too small,” he says. “I like the way it feels.”

In the old days there was luxury but no market. Today there is all market and no luxury. -- Karl Lagerfeld

Excellent interview with Karl Lagerfeld in the March 2008 issue of Prestige Hong Kong.

He is so entertaining -- not many people can be so arrogant and yet so charming. How can Karl say he is "too superficial" to be bothered to comment on certain things, that he "reads 10 books at a time" and hates charity, and that he will only go places via private jet because he "cannot go on airlines because people stare at me, you have to be touched by people" and be taken seriously? Is it because we are obsessed with -- and love to hate -- arrogance, vanity, wealth, celebrity, and the social hierarchy we all create with those things?

Sure. But I think people listen to him mostly because he's honest, and extremely articulate when he's not just pared down to misanthropic soundbites, and that is respectable. He is outrageous, but if more people were as honest as I think he is, our world would be something else entirely. Our species might die out, but at least we'd all be owning it.

This interview gave me a newfound respect for Lagerfeld. He's made it in a world where you are only the sum of what other people think of you. And whether or not his cutting persona and misanthropy are a result of being in the fashion field, whether or not in the end one thinks he's just a superficial and mean bitch, some of the things he says are refreshing to read, because I really do think he means what he says. That honesty in his line of work is rare.

Haha, but speaking of misanthropic soundbites, you must check out this bit summarizing from the article what Karl can really do without in this life. Fat people. Children. The Smell of Cooking. Love. He's certainly a piece of work.