Karl Lagerfeld,
the German-born Paris designer
who has been called
"The King of Fashion."
He designs
for three labels,
he's a professional
photographer as well,
he creates and publishes books
under his own imprint.
He is a legend
in his own time.
Karl loved being more
French than the French.
He used fashion like paint.
It was a medium.
He was
an incredible storyteller.
Every single collection
of Karl
is such a love letter
to women.
Karl will be remembered
for the icon that he created,
that was himself.
He felt
very untouched by everything.
He felt very preserved
in this childlike wonder
that he had.
He really is that
little boy dreaming.
I sketched all the time.
The only toys and things that
I asked for
were paper and pencils,
and books.
I discovered French culture
through the letters
of Princess Palatine.
It's the daily life
at Versailles,
and all the gossips
of Versailles,
and Karl liked gossips.
The French 18th century
is like a spine.
It was not mine to begin with,
but I have appropriated
this spiritual heritage.
I only wanted to learn
one thing,
and that was French,
because I wanted to get
to Paris.
And then my mother said,
"You better go to Paris
because Hamburg is a door
to the world,
but it's just a door."
There was a big poster
all over Paris
about a contest for amateurs,
saying,
"Send a coat or a dress
in a sample of wool."
So, I made sketches,
sent them,
and got first prize
for the coat.
And the boy who got the prize
for the dress
was Yves Saint Laurent.
He was a schoolboy then too.
My first day
when I started to work
at Balmain,
I said to myself, instead of
the rest of the life
it's to commit suicide.
But I said to myself,
"You're not here
as an art critic,
"you are here to learn."
I started
as an assistant.
There were six other people
a hundred times older than I.
And six months later,
they were all fired,
and I was a boss.
And after that, I worked for
a few years for Patou,
and I was the art director
of the Patou.
When Karl arrived at Chloe,
Gaby Aghion was
an incredible woman
who was running that house.
So, Karl at Chloe invented
the Pret-a-Porter that wasn't
coming from
a couture house.
Karl was hungry.
He wanted to see,
he wanted to know,
he wanted to hear.
And I used to see him
with Antonio Lopez.
Antonio Lopez was a very
talented American illustrator
from Puerto Rico.
So, the three,
they were like a little
triangle of creativity.
Karl, Gaby, and Antonio.
Antonio would do the sketches,
and I would model them.
And Karl would come up
with these concepts.
In America, when I
first started modelling,
black beauty was not
considered beautiful.
But when I arrived in Paris,
Karl saw all races
as one bouquet.
We came along from New York
with the sounds of America,
and the energy, the freedom.
We were liberated women,
and we were beyond couture.
We were just kids
from the street
who dressed up.
Look, how does
this look, darling?
Beautiful.
It was just us
playing around
and ripping things up,
and everybody was so excited
to build an outfit.
We were combining these
new feelings of pop art
in America with the 1920s.
Fashion was art,
it was underground,
it was drag,
it was Candy Darling,
and the combination
with Karl's
refined European royal nature.
I hated
to be out of Paris
for more than 24 hours.
There was the feeling that
wherever you were in Europe,
you did whatever you had to do
to make it back to Paris
for drinks
at the Cafe de Flore,
and dancing at Le Sept.
The Club Sept
was some kind of
little Eden in Paris.
Karl Lagerfeld
was very present
with Antonio
and all these people
I was very in awe of,
you know.
I wanted to be part of
that thing.
It was also the home
of Guy Cuevas,
a very famous Cuban DJ,
who really had the sound
of the Sept.
The music
was completely new,
like nothing we had ever
heard before.
And there was a feeling
of freedom.
Someday I would like to live
like that again, just as free.
The first time
I saw a Chloe show,
I went to the Sept,
and we came home
at probably like
seven o'clock in the morning.
We went straight on to
Place du Trocadero,
where Karl
was having the show,
and Guy Cuevas was there,
playing music, like, you know,
when we left him
the night before at the Sept.
So, it was like, you know,
the Sept part two.
I remember
those shows,
because I had seen Dior
number one,
number two, trois,
with the dresses passing
like that and all that.
There, it was life,
it was the street.
The energy was that
it was close.
You wanted the dress because
you were nearly in it.
Karl did it,
and you could buy it.
It was
an all over experience.
Luscious and exciting.
It was the beginning
of fashion
becoming fashionable.
It was just like,
"We're young, we're beautiful,
"we love fashion,
we love fun."
And there's that picture
of Karl having dinner
at La Coupole.
You could feel that sex
was in the air also.
It was transpiring
from the picture.
And Jacques was there also,
representing sex in the world
of Karl.
Jacques de Bascher
was the devil incarnate
with the face of Garbo.
He had an elegance
that was absolute.
He dressed like no one else,
before everyone else.
He was the person
who amused me
more than anyone.
Karl was
into bodybuilding.
He was very beautiful.
He would go down to
the south of France,
Saint-Tropez,
and we'd put on that
Bain de Soleil,
and our bodies would be
just shining.
And Karl would always close
himself in his room
and read like 20 books
in the afternoon,
never going out with the boys
or looking for anybody
or anything.
So, Jacques was part
of the entourage
of the boys who came over.
And Jacques told me,
"I'm in love with Karl.
"Can you help me?"
He was always dreaming about
how beautiful life could be.
He was a charmer.
Jacques wanted to charm
everybody.
And made you feel like
you were his best friend
whenever you talked to him,
whoever you were.
Jacques was my opposite.
He was also impossible,
despicable.
He was perfect.
And he was the cause
of an appalling
amount of jealousy.
Everybody was fascinated
by Jacques,
which I was not so fascinated
by Jacques.
But I thought, well,
maybe I'm a girl, you know,
I don't have the same point
of view.
And I thought that Jacques was
very manipulative.
He wanted to be the focus
of Paris,
one way or another.
Fashion is
a very, very small,
closed,
ultra-competitive world.
The senior designers,
the creative directors,
are not talking
to each other, because
you are in competition.
But there's a lot of crossover
going on.
Our assistants are also
sleeping with each other.
The court
reigns supreme in Paris,
and in Paris, fashion
really is hierarchical.
And there's a whole rhetoric
with signs and signifiers
that only the informed
can decipher.
For Karl,
the attractiveness
of Princess Palatine
was her astute observations
of the court,
and the way
she could manoeuvre
through gossip, power.
Of course, I knew about
the affair with Jacques
and Yves Saint Laurent.
But it had never
anything to do with me.
I was never mad at Yves.
I had been close friends
with Yves
for more than 20 years.
We used to go out all the time
in the early days.
Jacques was
a very provocative person,
so was what could he do that
would be more upsetting
than anything?
And Karl did care a lot more
about his relationship
with Jacques
than he wanted to let on.
It's only when he realized
that he could lose Jacques
that he started understanding
how important
Jacques was to him.
I wish I'd met her.
I think she would've been
probably more frightening
than Gabrielle Chanel,
but with an equally, you know,
quick whip wit.
She was like
a Spartan mother.
That's how Karl
treated himself, too.
It was like,
"You better succeed
at anything you do."
My mother
said, "It is possible
to have a child with any man,
"so, let's not exaggerate
their importance."
Oh, my sense of Karl was that
he was so fully apprised
of the dignity of women.
I do think it has
something to do with
that generation, though.
There was a sort of equality,
way... you know,
pre-political equality.
A kind of matriarchy,
actually,
that really was
a functioning thing.
It's not just about feminism,
it's not about women even,
it's about a kind of
liberated spirit.
Karl's vision
for the Fendi woman
was a multifaceted woman.
A very strong, independent,
and ironical,
and clever woman,
who was approaching fashion
for her personal pleasure.
Karl worked for Fendi
for 55 years.
His relationship
with the five sisters
was the most energized,
happy, outrageous,
challenging each other,
warm family.
The Fendi sisters
wanted Karl,
because they really wanted to
do a revolution.
And they understood that
he was a genius.
Fur, at the time,
was somebody that a man
would buy for a woman,
to have this woman
like a trophy,
to show the wealth of the men.
The Fendi sisters hated that.
The motto of the company is
"Nothing is Impossible."
In '77, the sisters decided
to start ready-to-wear.
And so, they did this movie,
written by Karl,
and directed by Jacques.
It was their first
professional film, for sure.
It's very simple, you know,
this girl that is a liar,
she said that she was going
to Baden-Baden
to drink the waters
in the spa,
but in reality, she has
a lot of fun in Rome.
I think it's very Karl.
By the end of the '70s,
fashion was becoming
a real business.
It was not
just about creativity,
it was about selling
around the world.
Karl himself was extraordinary
because he was working for
so many different people.
Karl Lagerfeld,
you know, is big,
really big, and brave,
and bold,
and bright, and brash.
And Houston is too.
And so, today,
we're going to give him
a thoroughly Houston,
Texas welcome.
It's just sort of
the peak of chic, I think.
What did you think
of the airport reception?
Oh,
that was the funniest
thing in the world, huh?
That was really funny,
and it looked divine.
I saw it on TV.
You know, I'm not
the Queen of England,
I'm not really used to that.
Lagerfeld loved it, loved it.
Is this
one of your favorite stores?
Definitely, I spend most of
my husband's money here.
It seemed that
when Karl became
more recognized,
he was becoming
like a business,
building a business.
He became like a royalist.
He was starting to disappear
into this world of grandeur,
and it was like...
almost untouchable Karl.
Did you
decorate all this?
I mean,
it's very 18th century,
there are candles and...
You know,
in a house like this,
with all the panelling,
what else would look okay
except 18th century, huh?
I don't like really
dirty houses, huh?
That's because
you have a busy life.
You need to keep it orderly.
How many lines of clothing
are you working on?
I don't
even know, myself.
I have lots
of fashion families
and all
my different businesses.
I think it's very funny, huh?
They're all jealous
of each other,
it's very good,
and I all play them
one against the other.
I think it's very amusing.
Because I think
I like them all
very much,
but it's very good that
they are stimulated
by an idea
what they think
the others are.
Because they hardly know
each other.
Now, I have to
ask you about Chanel,
because I'm sure
everybody has asked you
about Chanel.
You start officially
in January '83?
Yes, exactly.
Or have you
already started?
No, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
You're going to be
a celebrity,
I'm sure,
to a certain extent.
I don't know. But, you know,
what I really like
about the thing
is doing the thing.
One business
is quite powerful,
let's say Fendi is
quite powerful in a way,
Chloe... but Chanel
is even more powerful.
And what I'd like
is the power
of all of them, huh?
The idea of hiring Karl
came to me in '73 first.
I proposed to Chanel
to hire Karl,
but, as Karl said,
"Ce n'etait pas le moment."
It was not the right time.
So, we had to wait
nearly ten years.
There were a lot
of legal problems
because all these contracts
he had with other brands.
And so, he had to get free
for Chanel
but not losing
the other things.
People said, "They are mad.
"They are mad,
hiring that man."
And his friends said,
"Don't take this old house."
At that time,
Chanel was only Number 5.
99.9 percent of the turnover.
It was like a Protestant bank,
there was
no creativity at all.
Chanel was dressing up
very classic women,
elegant,
who loved their habits,
and it was for us, Chanel,
it was our minister of health,
Simone Veil,
who was always dressed
in Chanel.
When Karl took over,
we were all excited,
"What is he going to do?"
There, Karl,
doing Chloe,
dancing and going out
at nightclubs,
Le Sept, tout ca,
and taking over
that old house,
with old clients,
and with old women selling.
Everything was old.
It was beautifully old.
In her youth,
Chanel was a very eccentric,
wild, revolutionary woman,
who had many lovers.
She is considered the woman
who invented the modern woman,
battling against everybody
and fighting
against everybody.
That is exciting, that is fun.
But after the stupid thing
she said about the knee
and the miniskirt,
from then on
in the early '60s,
till her death in the '70s,
she was mean, mean b*tch, huh?
I have nothing against
mean b*tches,
being quite mean myself,
that's not the problem.
But lesson-giving,
and I hate people
when they give lessons.
American Vogue
in '83 asked Karl,
"How do you revive
an old house?"
And Karl said...
Well, this is Karl's way
to speak, it's not mine,
but I think he is right.
You know, it was
his destiny to do Chanel.
He had all that
pent-up vision and desire.
The first show
was in January '83,
in Rue Cambon,
and all Parisians
and worldwide journalists
wanted to come to the show.
And the people invited
were queuing in Rue Cambon
to get in,
like in the biggest years
of the old
Mademoiselle Chanel.
It was exciting.
It was suspense.
And the one who wanted
to look like
if they were excited
and they were willing,
and it was gonna be good,
and the ones were thinking,
"We're gonna see what
he's going to do."
He launched this show
with the music
of Douce France,
de Charles Trenet.
And this was very, very new,
because never a sound of music
at Chanel, never.
Three girls with three suits,
bleu, blanc, rouge.
I don't have to translate,
bleu, blanc, rouge.
It was very moving,
very... really moving.
The first show,
the way he used red...
how cool.
I remember those images
of Ines de la Fressange
walking and transmitting
in such a powerful way
his essence, and the essence
of Chanel.
The old ladies say
it's not the same,
and the young loved.
So, of course,
we had criticism,
but we had a lot of success.
It was
the evening dresses
that stimulated
the greatest response.
By the time the traditional
last dress appeared,
a stunning white wedding gown,
it was clear that Lagerfeld
had scored a triumph.
C'etait genial, we knew...
new life.
The concept of taking
a younger designer
and putting them
at an older house,
and having them
re-invigorate it
was an absolute new idea.
Karl was the first.
And he paved the way
for what is now
standard practice.
It was a time when we were
doing huge collections.
Two haute couture,
two ready-to-wear.
We didn't stop working,
it was a lot of work.
Ines was already very chic
when Karl met her,
and she was a huge inspiration
for our collections.
He decided to hire
an in-house model
who will be exclusive
to Chanel,
so, Ines was
the face of Chanel.
That was one of the big,
big ideas of Karl.
For Karl, Ines was a Parisian.
Karl liked everything Ines,
at that time.
The way she walked, she was
taking it in front of her,
and that's what he wanted,
and she was perfect for that.
She moved like she moved
in the street, her allure.
She had that sort of knack.
Often,
a new type of beauty
will come along
that resets everything.
And I just remember thinking,
"Wow, who is that?"
The first few seasons
of Chanel were startling.
I remember the obsession
with Chanel at that time.
I mean, everyone,
it was "fashion".
The 1980s was a moment
of exuberance,
like the 18th century
all over again,
before Marie Antoinette
had her head chopped off.
You felt that, you know,
it was lux, it was expensive,
it was bigger, it was better,
it was, "Greed is good".
It all starts with paper.
My favorite material in life
is paper.
Because when I was a child,
in the years after the w*r,
paper in Europe was not
a thing you could get.
I make a very precise sketch,
with all the details,
all the proportions.
And then the people who used
to work with me
can read everything
like you can
read a page of writing.
Everything is there.
And this helps me also to do
things in Rome, in New York,
in Paris, at the same time.
If not, I couldn't do that.
When I was
a young girl, I really
always wanted to go
on the ateliers
when Karl was in Rome.
It was kind of a magic trick
that he was doing.
From a blank page,
you would see
the magic happening.
He was so fast in designing
and sketching,
like he was fast
with his words.
His premieres could
absolutely interpret
the sketch perfectly.
But there were always
adjustments.
The line and the proportion
for Karl was everything.
He would go, "I am sorry,
ladies, just a millimeter.
"Just a millimeter here.
"Look at my sketch."
And he'd always be right.
My collaboration with Karl
begins with an internship.
I'm 19 years old.
After one week or 10 days,
I'm asked to end
this internship.
And I cannot.
I go back home,
but I'm back on Monday.
I was already in love.
I met Karl here,
in New York.
My mum had always said,
"The shoes that people
are wearing
tell you how they are."
And so,
I was looking at his shoes
when I walked in,
and our eyes met
because he had been
looking at my shoes.
And we started laughing.
You never know
exactly what he sees in you.
What I think he saw the most
is that I was having
so much fun.
This is something
he was generating.
He had kind of a fluid,
an electric fluid,
that was bringing you high.
We all started
extremely young.
We were more as like a family.
People in my studios
are like my friends,
you know, like my family.
Nobody can fire them.
It's like a closed world.
Karl was like my dad.
I never spoke about it,
because he hated people
conceiving him as a dad.
But Karl was my dad.
He educated me.
Every night we went
to the bookstore.
I would say something
during a fitting,
and I would say,
"But, Karl, remember
we saw that painting?"
So, then we would go
to the bookstore,
and all of a sudden,
these books would start
falling in front of me.
He'd say,
"This will tell you about
what you were asking.
"This will tell you about
what you were asking."
He'd buy two for me,
and maybe four for him,
and I was to tear out one
and keep the other.
Because he believed in
tearing up
and gluing
and making collages.
I made collages non-stop.
Each one of Karl's studios
were different.
If you were in the Lagerfeld
studio,
they'd say,
"Oh, those people
at Chanel, oh, God."
The people at Chanel
would say, "Oh, Left Bank,
"Rive Gauche people
at Lagerfeld.'
Jacques de Bascher was coming
pretty often to the office.
As it was really
this family atmosphere,
everybody was welcome
to the studio.
He would sit close to Karl
or close to someone else
and discuss
what he was seeing.
He was often
passing by also
the backstage
at the time of the show.
Coming from the nightclub
a bit drunk, a bit high.
He was putting a bit of a mess
in the backstage.
But that was part of life
with Karl.
And Karl was super happy
to have Jacques around.
I don't think
there was any sexuality
between Karl
and Jacques de Bascher,
and it has never been
sexuality between them.
Karl was not interested
by sex.
He was too much in control
and he has been educated
in a strict way.
And he was not
letting himself go.
Karl got apart with Ines
at the end of the '80s.
Ines was in love with Luigi,
who became her husband,
and she had less time
for Karl.
And he started
getting jealous of Luigi.
They divorced.
It was very difficult
because I was in charge
with Ines' contract.
So, I had to ink the divorce.
It was like every break
with Karl,
when it was with someone
he loved.
It was pretty brutal.
The moment he would say,
"Okay, let's finish,
"I won't see you anymore,"
he was really managing
to never cross your path
anymore.
He was very...
How can I say?
He didn't want to talk,
he didn't want to
approach these problems.
A bit immature.
Very childish.
I think it was maybe
the more fragile side of Karl.
You know,
everything changes,
everything.
I mean, there are very few
events in a life
that cannot
not change your life.
We started
losing some friends,
and more friends.
Somehow it would seem
that all the people
in the creative world
were being attacked,
maybe more than other people.
Now, this rumor about Jacques
and this moment of when
one began to be aware
of when he was ill.
My first trip with Karl,
Jacques called to check,
and he says, "Are you okay?"
And I said, "Yes, I'm fine."
I said, "But Karl's next door,
you've got the wrong number."
I mean, I wasn't thinking
that Jacques de Bascher's
gonna call me.
He goes, "No, no,
I'm calling you.
"I just want to make sure
you're okay,
and how are things going?
"You just have to get into
the pace of things."
Then he made a joke
or something,
he goes, "Make sure he doesn't
leave all those cookies
"underneath his bed,"
or something like that.
And I said,
"What are you talking about?"
He goes,
"No, no, no, sometimes
"he has bad eating habits,
so, check on him."
But he did these kind of
things with me,
so that was like him saying,
"You're gonna have to start
traveling with him a lot."
I think there was also a sense
that something's not right.
And all of a sudden,
Jacques arrived at the studio,
and I just like jumped up
and ran to him,
and hugged him.
And he sensed that maybe
I had heard something,
and he literally just kind of
like pulled back a touch,
tapped me on the shoulder,
and he goes,
"Don't worry, darling,
I'm fine."
And then I knew it was true.
That's kind of sad.
When Jacques de Bascher
was ill,
no one spoke about that.
No, no one spoke
in the studio.
Karl came every day, as usual.
Did he need us to show
our concern about Jacques
when he came to the studio?
The answer was no.
We were his relief
from what had
happened to him all day.
Karl had bought
this house outside of Paris.
That house,
he basically bought
as a place for Jacques.
We worked a lot there.
And Karl had
a different demeanor.
There was less of this...
high-octane force
that would go through the air
when you were
working with him.
It was more like...
and he kept... he kept
looking to the window.
He would look to
Jacques's window.
Oh, we could be
doing anything,
and he would look
to Jacques's window,
and it was really...
from the garden.
And then he went back
into the hospital,
and I never saw him again.
When Jacques passed away,
Karl was a soldier.
He was strong enough...
...to face the fashion shows,
interviews, the fittings.
That was pretty impressive.
What's
your biggest passion
outside of fashion?
Photography.
Sometimes
people ask me,
"Well, how does he design
"all of these
different collections
for different houses
"and does photography,
and does books
and exhibits and..."
So, you know what I answer?
I said, "He doesn't sleep."
I was with him in Paris,
and we worked
till four o'clock
in the morning,
and the only reason
why he stopped
at four o'clock
in the morning
was because we were dead.
Yeah.
You were unbelievable.
But obviously, I don't have to
be in front of the camera
or I'd be beautiful
like you, huh?
I can look tired
and who cares?
Nobody sees it, huh?
Yeah, but you still
have the energy.
That's unbelievable.
Yes, thank God.
That's a gift, er...
from heaven
to have energy, huh?
We are in the '90s now,
and I think
there is real 180, or 190,
or 200-degree change
in the last two, three years.
Where everything was right in
the rules for the '80s, today,
who cares? Nobody cares.
I was 18 years old
when Chanel first hired me.
I was wearing a rip-up jeans,
and vintage t-shirts,
and I was really shy.
But I got to meet Karl,
and I couldn't look at him.
I was...
I looked at my shoes.
I think he just wanted to,
you know, meet me,
smell the little animal
that I was.
Jean-Paul Goude was to
do the picture and the ad.
And Jean-Paul came into
this apartment,
of the Coco apartment.
And he, er, found this.
Coco,
the spirit of Chanel.
Does it
annoy you, amuse you,
please you that today,
models are the new Hollywood?
I was
behind it in a way,
and I think
it's very important
for fashion.
It makes fashion
much more interesting.
People watch fashion now
like they used to
watch movies, in a way.
On the runway, it's like
the silent movie of our days.
Lots of girls, I used them
before everybody,
when everybody thought
they were still ugly
or uninteresting.
There's an American girl
called Kristen McMenamy.
Five years ago,
nobody wanted her.
I thought she was genius.
Now everybody thinks
she's the greatest thing,
and they are right.
She is divine.
Karl Lagerfeld
was the first one
who said, "I like it.
"You're weird."
You know, "You are different.
"It's not bad. It's unique."
Ooh, and walking on top of it.
Karl really liked
having his studio
full of
different personalities,
different backgrounds.
Anna Piaggi was someone
who was incredibly important
to all of us.
In the '60s and the '70s,
that's when he began
to become very close
with Anna.
She never does
what is expected,
and yet once she has done it,
it is always so obvious.
Anna was a source
of inspiration,
a source of bringing
people together.
It's even like with the music.
Karl loved music because
music connects you to the day.
In the studio,
the music was incredibly loud,
and people would always say,
"How are you two understanding
one another?"
If we didn't have that,
we would not have been able
to work those hours
we were working.
'Cause I don't take drugs,
I don't drink,
he doesn't drink,
he doesn't take drugs.
Even Anita
and the older women, huh?
They knew the music
was blasting loud.
They wouldn't say,
"Can you turn that down?
I can't concentrate."
There was a store
next to the studio,
so Karl says,
"Have you heard
of Champs Disques?"
"Yeah, I have."
And we go,
and we go downstairs,
and that's when I met
Michel Gaubert.
Eric Wright
came to see me
at Champs Disques
and asked me if I wanted
to do the music
for Karl Lagerfeld,
so I said, "Okay!"
Like Karl
didn't like fashion...
he always said he didn't
like fashion
that was too intellectual.
He didn't want people
to cry at the show,
because of all that beauty.
And also, he never wanted me
to use slow music,
that he called "runway glue".
It was like a codeword
between all of us
who worked on the music.
Karl would just say,
"Mm, it's very beautiful.
"Runway glue."
And we knew,
"Well, that's out."
In 1992,
Karl wanted to
do a hip-hop show.
He was starting
to go back to New York.
He saw all those people like
wearing Canal Street,
Chanel logos
on bags and belts.
And he said, "Oh my God,
they're using Chanel.
"I want to do the same thing.
"I want to, again, amplify
the Chanel phenomenon."
It was them who used
Chanel things
to make them look cooler
and then Chanel
used their things,
and they looked cooler again
when they wore
their Chanel things.
So that was very fun.
That show I really liked,
that became
later known
as the Barbie Show.
We played that song called
Short d*ck Man,
"I don't want
a short d*ck man."
Don't want
a short d*ck man
Don't want
a short d*ck man
The music was literally
creating this story
of a Barbie doll,
and just having fun.
There was this
undercurrent of like
clicking on the switch
for a moment
and letting
something come out,
and then closing the switch.
And the music,
with the girls walking down
with those zipper skirts...
that only would have come out
of the wittiness
and the funniness
of the studio of Chanel.
There was a review
from Women's Wear Daily
that said that
"The Chanel show
was so much fun,
"so much joy.
"There were even songs
with lyrics we can't print.
"That's why we love Paris."
It really summed up
what we wanted to do.
No intellectualization
of fashion or nothing,
just pure fashion
with a capital F.
The designers I prefer
are the designers
who do things completely
opposite to what I'm doing.
At the end of the '90s,
fashion start to change again.
And we have these
English creators
arriving, like Galliano,
McQueen.
I like other people
to do good things,
and I think it's important
that there are
many good designers,
because the fashion world
would be too boring.
For competitive people,
for people who like
to be the leader,
often something like that
can propel you, can push you.
All of a sudden,
there's competition
when you haven't
had competition.
It can make you better.
It can make you strive.
It can make you go back
and rethink.
It can reinvigorate you.
And I think
that's what happened.
Galliano was dangerous
for Karl.
Too talented at Dior.
Maybe he hired Amanda Harlech
because she was working
with Galliano.
I think
Amanda came to Karl
because all of a sudden
when Galliano's career
took off,
Amanda was not included.
And she had been
very instrumental
in helping John
establish his look.
And so, I think that was
a perfect moment
and very smart of Karl
to say, "Okay, fine,
"Amanda, come to me."
The greatest difference
between working with John
was the pure speed
with which Karl worked.
He didn't obsess
over a piece of fabric.
He saw things grand scale
immediately.
No second option.
A McQueen show
was a McQueen show.
But no matter
where the venue was,
somehow it remained intimate.
A Galliano show was always
a Galliano show,
big, crazy,
whatever you wanted.
But somehow that also
remained intimate.
And we were still
into the big runway,
big runway,
big runway, big runway.
And he just said, "Okay,
now this has to change."
The story is becoming
more and more important now
because of these two
creative kids
that were on the block.
McQueen and Galliano,
they were always
telling a story.
If you look around
Gabrielle Chanel's apartment,
there's so many inspiration
for Coco Chanel and for Karl.
There are so much details.
It always starts here.
You had these
very famous shutters
and room dividers,
the coromandels
that were from China.
And Chanel was influenced
by this
for her embroideries
and things like this.
And Karl did quite a series
that was based on this.
That was taken from a corner
of the coromandel,
and just blown up,
and then intricately filled.
It always felt like
there was a kind of
cosmic connection
between him and Chanel.
His spirit was always
in the house,
or the house's spirit
was always in him.
There was a real kind of
symbiotic relationship there.
Karl began to gain weight
a lot in the '90s.
When Jacques was gone,
Karl really began to get big.
I think the reason why
Jacques would say,
"Be careful
about what he eats",
is he knew
how Karl reacted to
certain stressful situations.
But when Karl did have
Jacques around,
there was an ease
that happened to his body.
It was something like, oh...
You knew that Karl was happy.
He always pretended
that he was somebody
who didn't have feelings
or emotions.
You know, that he was
above that.
Er, and then losing Jacques
made him realize that,
after all, contrary to
what he was pretending,
feelings are
the most important things
in one's life.
He did sort of stumble
in October of 1998.
Karl had developed a handbag
that was truly hideous.
And then
his ready-to-wear collection
just seemed off the mark.
I pushed Chanel
so far in one direction,
I suddenly had the feeling
to clean the room out
and go back
to the starting point.
But in a way,
right for the middle '90s.
Most of the fashion critics
wondered what was up.
It was my first show
as a director general
for fashion.
It was a very weird one.
It was not the best collection
that Karl designed,
and minimalism is nothing
about Chanel.
Karl wanted to be
part of this trend,
but it was not his taste.
It was a kind of,
you are a top success,
and the trend start to change,
and you feel lost,
and you don't know
how to rebound.
Karl became the subject
of all of these rumors
that things
were falling apart,
that they were going to need
to bring somebody in.
You know,
after this show,
it was a kind of drama
in the US fashion world.
I remember
being sent to New York
to try to find
some explanation, you know,
about what happened.
I think that
Karl was so upset.
He was asking himself
how to rebound.
Do you wake up
one day and say,
"I'm gonna change"?
No, I looked
in the mirror.
And I saw another fashion.
You know, vanity is
the healthiest thing in life
because you cannot
let you go yourself.
You have to be careful.
You know, if you wake up
and the pants are too tight,
it's a bad moment, huh,
for a superficial person
like me.
I'm kind of fascist
with myself, you know.
There is no discussion.
There is an order.
You follow it.
Karl was changing his house,
and he had cleared out
all this stuff
on the second floor.
And all of a sudden,
he swishes by,
and he goes, "I'm coming,
Mr. Wright, I'm sorry,
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry."
And he just went
zhoomp, zhoomp,
and I said,
'He's changing right now
in front of our eyes.'
It had to do with Karl
beginning a new chapter
and adapting himself,
adapting himself
to the times,
not holding onto his past.
And if you held onto the past,
that was your problem.
So... I presume
you have heard.
It's hard to believe
he is doing it.
But is it really true?
Well, it certainly looks
like it, doesn't it?
Is it true?
I get a call from Karl.
he is telling me
about a proposal
he has coming from H&M.
'Yes, they would like to do
a collection with me.'
And I have to be honest,
my first reaction was like,
"Never do this."
It was completely new
that a couture designer
was collaborating
with a fast fashion brand.
You have to realize that this
never ever happened before.
That's outrageous.
What kind of sick pleasure
does he find in this?
Isn't that obvious?
We were a little bit anxious.
But Chanel let him do it
because we trust him.
And...
What? Don't say it.
Argh! Karl!
Karl, is it true?
Of course, it's true.
But it's cheap.
What a depressing word.
It's all about taste.
If you are cheap, well,
nothing helps.
I never expected it
to make such a splash.
The morning it started, I got
a call from Caroline Lebar.
She told me that wild scenes
were going on.
We were almost crushed.
I saw one guy
biting a woman for a coat.
And, really, in ten minutes,
nothing left in the store,
it was a mess.
The mannequin were nude.
The fact is that
from that day,
his life has been changing.
I was working for a designer
who became a pop star,
you know,
he was like Michael Jackson
of the fashion, you know?
He loved it, he drank it up
like gallons of Coca Light,
it was like champagne
to his very existence.
Some performers
have an alter-ego,
and so much of what was
Karl's look was artifice.
It was the white hair,
it was the glasses,
it was the high neck collar.
It was
18th century caricature.
I mean, imagine
if you saw Karl in a t-shirt.
You know, what would that
have been?
It's an armor, it's a persona
that you play.
And it was part of what
made Karl so iconic.
He had
this endless box of tricks
and naughtiness,
and provocation.
I'm DJ Karl.
This is my radio station.
One of his project
was Grand Theft Auto.
Grand Theft Auto
is an amazing game,
a bit controversial,
like Karl.
Liberty City, home of
the bourgeois squander.
Live fast, burn out,
move to the suburbs, you see?
You know you're listening
to the studio,
but what you don't know
is that
you are focused too much
on the past.
Saying things were better
in the old days.
They were not!
For someone working in PR
for such a personality
with no limit,
there were some times,
some critical moments.
Sometime I told him,
"You know,
"there was this moment
where you said this and this."
Maybe it will be tomorrow
in the newspaper.
Most of the time,
I did not realize
how big it would become.
I mean,
I cannot say that
everything he said
was correct.
We all know that.
And if he would have asked me,
"Oh, what do you think
about that?"
And I would
probably have said,
"I don't think that's funny.
"You don't have to say
those things."
Women in the past
were restricted
by what they wore,
whereas today,
women perhaps
are not restricted
by what they wear,
but they're enslaved
in a way
by the fashion industry's
insistence
on women being thin.
Yes, but I see it as like
a normal evolution, you see?
You mean it'll be okay
for women
to be fat in the future?
I'm afraid, yes.
Chanel didn't have to comment
on his personal statements.
That is all I have to say.
Today, we do a show,
not only for the audience,
we do it for the whole world.
It's something people watch.
I do a kind of
Cecil B. DeMille job
for Chanel.
Like a super production movie.
It's not a bad thing.
Karl, when he was a child,
had visited a great exhibition
at the Grand Palais in Paris.
He never forgot the beauty
of the bizarre architecture.
And I think he knew
that it would become
a source of inspiration
at the right scale
for Chanel and for him.
When it reopened,
he jumped on the Grand Palais,
and it was the beginning
of this amazing story
between Chanel
and the Grand Palais.
Everything was possible
inside the Grand Palais.
And for sure,
we did everything there.
Last Year at Marienbad,
it's a key movie
in the story of Chanel.
Gabrielle Chanel
created the costumes.
And it was the show
of the comeback
of Ines de la Fressange.
And it was so striking,
so moving.
I remember walking in
and we were standing
underneath the first two tiers
of the Eiffel Tower.
And everyone was in shock.
He was a little bit like
a magician in that way.
He just made us all
four years old.
It just felt like
we were inside
a part of Karl's brain
that had just kind of birthed
this insane thing.
The later collections
at the Grand Palais
could be perceived
as eclipsing fashion
and therefore, were newsworthy
in just their enormity.
Lift off.
But really,
Karl was reading
what was coming up ahead.
He was so amused that
the demonstration show
coincided with demonstrations
in Paris.
Karl's strange psychic genius
that great designers have
is to really interpret
what is about to happen.
When he said,
"Uh, next show,
we do supermarket",
oh, my God, supermarket,
I was like...
even I told all my team,
"What I can do
with a supermarket?
"What I can do
with supermarket?"
So, I was so stressed.
We have to make
a Chanel story.
Chanel is like very kind of...
all the rich people
wearing the jackets.
So, we had to make
expensive jacket
from the supermarket idea.
So, we went
to all the supermarket,
I take all the picture of
the vegetable, everything.
That's my favorite thing,
is to be sitting next to him
and this onion colors.
I never thought about this,
the onion can have a beautiful
Bordeaux colors, you know.
We made also this kind of
frozen kind of carrot colors.
Salad colors...
kind of a red meat tweed.
And then this one is from egg,
so you see.
We made this one Chanel bag,
it's quite an education.
It'll fit in the bag.
Everything
you could exist
in a supermarket
was like branded by Chanel.
And they made the supermarket
like a Walmart,
something not very glamorous,
which I also liked.
It looked like, oh, my God,
super discount.
I've still got
the picture of Karl
when he first
inspected the set.
And he just stood there,
a bit like a lost child.
Sort of picking an apple
out of a pile of apples.
And then looked at me,
and he said,
"I've never been
in a supermarket."
The pleasure of shopping
is a cultural activity
of our days.
I loved
the supermarket collection.
So clever and so smart.
And funny.
Were you thinking
and realizing that, you know,
because we're
so into Instagram
and like the whole generation,
it's very Instagram ready,
isn't it?
I think it's already
all over the place.
But that's why I do it,
you know.
Departure to Rue Cambon,
Chanel Lines flight number 19
at Gate K.
He made Chanel
what it is today,
so attractive
to the whole world.
Cuba, it was magical.
And then, at night,
we all danced.
Well, Karl was amazing,
amazing dancer!
Just so onto the rhythm.
And it was
the first time also,
because maybe
it's the first time
that he was holding me
like this,
that I felt Karl as the man.
You know?
Like there was
something about...
the sensuality.
He was, like, constantly
wearing those big,
smoky glasses,
you could rarely see his eyes.
And I loved when he
took off those glasses,
each time was like ,
it's like...
falling in love, you know?
The man had this look
in his eyes.
And his eyes was like
the look in the eyes
that you can find
in, like, kids,
they're four
or five years old,
where it's still pure,
nothing has been damaged.
Maybe that's why he kept
his glasses, you know,
because he didn't want
to maybe look
so sensitive or vulnerable.
Karl and I
developed this trust.
He became more closer to me
when my mother died.
He was talking more
about his private life.
And he start now
to be more open
to talk with me,
you know?
The relationship
between Karl and Sbastien
was very tender.
But they fought
like a bad marriage.
Karl would mutter to me
in the car, you know,
"Sbastien's in a bad mood.
"He left his phone on the roof
of the car, and it smashed.
"And his world had ended."
But equally, Sbastien gave
all his time up.
It was 24/7 with Karl.
We were like family,
but we were not family.
But we were family.
If he was my father,
at one point,
I would have said, like,
"Go f*ck yourself, sorry.
"You know,
you're too much now."
But you cannot say that
when he's not your father.
But you do everything
like he was.
He started
calling me Choupette,
and it was really sweet.
We bonded a lot over our cats.
Choupette represented
the softness in him, you know,
represented his affectionate,
kind of very lovable,
very childlike side.
Choupette was his alter ego.
It was him.
He would express love
through Choupette,
pretending that she was
loving you
but in reality, it was him.
Choupette is
a very beautiful cat.
And I think she really became
this spiritual friend.
She was like the spirit of
Karl's mother,
of everybody who protected
and loved Karl.
So that that, particularly
when he'd been diagnosed
with cancer,
must have been a huge solace
to him.
The illness of Karl's
start like in 2015.
Like basic problem
of the start of the sh*t,
you know.
Maybe if he decide
to go to have
this surgery on himself,
and to take off the prostate,
maybe he will be still
alive today.
But at this moment,
he decide to
do the other way.
He didn't want to people knows
that he have this problem.
He didn't want to lose times,
about collection and things
like this.
He didn't want to stop.
The machine was going on
for the... on the front.
You know, the train was like
keep going, you know.
That's what Karl wants.
Paris-Hamburg show
was the profound show.
That was Karl coming home.
He also knew that
he wasn't going home.
I think he knew that
things weren't going right
health-wise.
He always told me
that they were living
in the north of Germany,
and they were
not very touched by w*r.
And I think he made
a special legend about it
because he want himself
to forget
about all those crazy,
horrible things
happened there.
The symphonic
of Hamburg
was a new building
by Herzog & de Meuron
which was quite stunning.
It was the new pride
of Hamburg.
And for the music,
we had an orchestra.
There was this track
called La Paloma,
which is a song
that Karl adored.
That's what the wives
of the sailors
would listen to in Hamburg
when their husbands went away.
When, during the rehearsal,
Karl asked me,
"Can the musicians
do it again?"
And like, we'd listen to it
like five, six times in a row.
He twisted it.
There was an atmosphere
that wasn't Karl...
the Karl we knew...
or the Karl... he showed us.
But it was Karl.
It was... the materials
were thicker.
There was something
very, very emotional.
'Cause he doesn't
like the past.
So, to go back there
meant something also.
There was something
very elegiac about it.
The line of those coats.
Even the shoe,
which has a narrow,
narrow toe box,
it's just so elegant.
That collection was
unbelievably comfortable.
You know, those jerseys
are my favorite jerseys.
And those trousers,
it just felt really practical.
So, it did feel like
a return collection
and a sort of essentials.
Like a capsule for a journey.
Maybe he became closer
to his mother, finally.
He spoke about
how much he had to
leave Hamburg,
and how his mother
encouraged him.
How he'd...
watched the boats
sailing down the River Elbe
and out into the infinity
of the world
with all its potential.
He knew he was ill.
But it was suddenly this way
he was looking at me.
And we'd leave the studio,
and we'd be in the lift,
Sbastien, Karl, and I,
and Karl had really
kept it together.
He must have been
in great pain.
That in itself sluiced
with a great fear,
the work keeping him going
like a sort of lifeline.
But then in the lift,
going down
to get to the car,
he almost slumped against
the wall of the lift,
the metal wall.
He just didn't...
not wearing his glasses,
like sort of everything
coming apart,
like buttons, jacket,
so unlike the Karl we know
where everything is strictly,
you know, the line,
the discipline.
And he would be looking
at me,
looking at me...
as if he was looking at me
from very, very far away,
and he was leaving.
Spring/Summer 2019,
his last haute couture
collection.
The scene
was like ideal villa,
in the south of France,
with this beautiful garden
in the 18th century.
It was a vision of
what he loved the most.
At Versailles,
Madame Pompadour
ordered porcelain flowers.
They were in the gardens of
Versailles during wintertime.
And some dresses were inspired
by these porcelain flowers.
Karl was really passionate
about those ceramic flowers
because... they wouldn't die.
I mean, they were here
in the winter.
I was trying to put Karl
in the show.
I said, "Karl, let's go.
We have to go.
"We have to go.
It's not good not to go."
Because I know,
for everyone,
if he was not at the show,
that was the end.
Because Karl never happened
in his life
to miss a show.
I saw him after that show.
I saw him,
I remember very well
speaking with him.
And his favorite
speaking with me
was about Princess Palatine.
He loved to speak to me
about Princess Palatine.
Karl was like a falcon
in a gyre.
He just rose on this thermal
of his own creativity
from decade
to decade to decade
until what was left, heaven.
I have no regrets.
Remorse perhaps,
but not any regrets.
You know that quote,
"I have been everything,
"loved everything,
tasted everything,
"and now I am an icy star."
This is the number one song
in heaven
Written, of course,
by the mightiest hand
All of the angels are sheep
in the fold of their master
They always follow
the master and his plan
This is the number one song
in heaven
Why are you hearing it now,
you ask
Maybe you're closer to here
than you imagine
Maybe you're closer to here
than you care to be
He was a designer
for the modern woman,
you know,
or for the modern person.
Whatever modern meant
at that time.
His spirit is
completely alive everywhere.
That's my favorite thing,
is to be sitting next to him
and hearing him telling me
all the worst gossips
about everybody around.
He gave me
loads of books,
which I didn't read, okay?
Where we connected
was on Rilke,
not that he said
you could ever
understand it
in anything
except for German.
Virginia Woolf, definitely.
Absolutely.
Emily Dickinson, a lot.
Don't ask me to quote any.
If he said, "Oh, I read
this incredible book,
"have you read it?"
And I said no,
he wouldn't exactly go,
"Oh."
But he almost did,
and you felt like, "Damn,
I'm letting him down,
"I can't have
that conversation."
But then the next time
you saw him,
you would say,
"I've read it."
And he'd say, "Right,
let's talk about it."
And we did.
And he loved it
when you thought differently.
What Karl has given
to the future generations
of design
is so enormous.
By setting up 19M
with Bruno Pavlosky,
which houses
the artisanal skills
which were really endangered.
I mean, literally
couldn't pay the rent,
they have flourished
to the point where
the ateliers are full
of young embroiderers,
pleaters, featherers.
I love that building.
I went there
and I took my daughter
to see how everyone is,
like, working by hand.
Because my grandmother
taught me how to knit,
how to sew,
and I'm teaching my daughter.
I would love to spend
a week there learning.
It's number one,
all over heaven
It's number one,
all over heaven
The number one song
all over heaven...
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Did you know that you can remove censorship board-wide, use our advanced search functions, be notified when new content is posted, join our memberships, set episodes to show in any order you want & more if you are logged into your account?
Register or sign in here: ucp.php?mode=register
Karl (2025)
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