KARL LAGERFELD: “THE WOMAN IS THE MOST PERFECT DOLL THAT I HAVE DRESSED WITH DELIGHT AND ADMIRATION”
Karl Lagerfeld was born at 10th of September 1938 in Hamburg (Germany). He lives in Paris from 1952. After he graduates, he works and assists to one of the most famous fashion designers as Pierre Balmain (from 1955 to 1958), art director to Jean Patou (from 1958 to 1963). In 1964 for a short time he is in Italy, where he learns the history of the art. At free lance, in one or another form he makes the design or he manifests as consultant for “Chloe”, “Krizia”, “Ballantines”, “Time Wear”, Charles Jourdan, Valentino, “Fendi”, “MaxMara”, “Dunhill” and others. The most influential fashion house, that Lagerfeld works for, is “Chanel”, which irremovable chief designer he is from 1983 till today (as to the lines prêt-a-porter, as to couture). From 1984 he develops successfully some his brands: “Karl Lagerfeld”, “KL”, “Lagerfeld Gallery”, as for men, as for women. He occupies actively with scenographic activity and with photography. He is bearer of many prestigious awards; among those is the prize of the Council of the fashion designers in America and the Fashion shoe association in New York. He is bearer of the prize “Golden thimble” for haute couture. He is a professor in the University of Vienna.
FIRST STEPS
Karl (Otto) Lagerfeld was born in family with father – dealer in evaporated milk and mother – violinist. The bigger part of his childhood he lives in the countryside during the Second World War. Reading of books and giving to his dreams are his main occupations. The communication with the book is his main spiritual activity and after decades when he already possesses 230 000 volumes. He and his bigger sisters were kept a strict hand over by their exacting mother that needed of quietness for rehearsals. Her attempts finished with failure to give them music education and to learn them to play at piano. Today the designer remembers her words when she, disappointed from the fact that he fails with the music instrument screamed to him: ”Draw, it makes less of noise”. Barely fourteen years old has he left for Paris to educate him self till the end (the other perspective is to sell milk like his father). The French capital is a great challenge for him and there he spares more time for the contacts with the art, especially with the cinema, than to visit private lessons, as in this way he doesn’t finish a French secondary school. In 1954 he finds almost by accident an announcement for competition of making of a sketch of dress or a coat, he wins it and in this way he finds him self at his first employer Pierre Balmain. To be accepted he even falsifies his age, making him self bigger. It is curious that both with the two years older from him Yves Saint Laurent are winners in the competition. A symptomatic fact for their genius (however at a mature age they strain the relations between them and they publicly have words).
The first memories of Lagerfeld from his manifestations in the design atelier of Balmain are rather unpleasant, than enthusiastic: ”Soon I find that the atmosphere in these surroundings is awful, mostly behind the curtain, but I said to myself again that all is like at a cinema. I remember my first work day, it rained, I couldn’t find a taxi and then I taught: ”If this is the world of the adults, it’s better to come back at home to my mother!”, but I resisted the challenge. I stayed. I met one wonderful girl Marie Claire that still is working with me”. The whole childhood of Karl Lagerfeld is marked by examples of independent and decided behavior with categorical likings for the art, for the world of the beautiful, the abstract and the imaginary. When he is at seven years old he understands his huge instinctive vocation for the art of painting and to a such degree falls in love in one drawing of the painter Adolph Menzel that his parents got into hot water and in the long run they give a present to him for Christmas a reproduction of the work of art.
The canvas, portraying an evening in the palace San Souci of men with wigs (in fact Friedrich ІІ, the writer Voltaire and their friends) is key for the child conscience. Lagerfeld himself admits: ”I realized immediately that those extremely refined and elegant scene from the drawing showed how have to be lived the life. This for me was the ideal to those I started to strive irresistibly in my life”.
THEORY OF THE FASHION AND BEAUTY
In contrast to those his colleagues that affirm incessantly how serious and important thing is the fashion, the designer is more careful in the classifications, because according to him the very serious is very boring. His concept about the fashion is that it is an art and in no way it’s not frivolous and silly. It expresses the spirit of the time and Lagerfeld has fun with this. The relation that he makes between the people and the fashion expresses in the fact that thanks to it man overcomes his limitedness. Having the name of “Kaiser Karl” (a byname that Vivian Westwood has invented for him) the designer uses the expression “strong intellectual opportunism” that opposes to the satiety, the banality and the backwardness. It is his one of the most original definitions about the clothing (and this in a certain degree signifies for the fashion) as “a way, with the help of whom we date our memories more exactly”. He belongs to those interpreters that examine and admit the common significance of the fashion – not only like a style of clothing, but as way of living. It is well-known that the fashion has good and bad sides, but it is good to give significance to the fact that something is good in some moment and it can’t continue eternally. Lagerfeld flouts at those his colleagues that are condemned to copy and to repeat them selves because they have forget their past and they have turn back to the adventures and to the challenges. A key word for the fashion designer is “the new”. Just for this reason “the durability” is contra-indicated characteristic of the fashion; it is a serious disadvantage, according to the theory of Karl Lagerfeld. He couldn’t wish to be conservative of his own works of art and he likes to repeat one of his favorite Jewish proverbs “For the past people don’t give credit”.
In connection of the affirmation of the great scientist Bertrand Russell that fashion can be irrepressible, Karl Lagerfeld commentates that this is really possible, if the circumstances allow it to manifest in this way. Together with this he is against the silly provocations of the fashion. More clearly can be felt his conception of the fashion and the beauty, when people enter into his arguments about the relation between the elegance and the sex-appeal and as a whole about that what is elegance. “Really, says Lagerfeld in interview for the Italian TV channel “Rai Uno”, the term sex-appeal is so outmoded, as the word elegance or at least it is a notion, liable to predefining. The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman”.
Lagerfeld inspires from the street, from the models, from everything. The variety and the splendor of the beauty power him with energy to create new and new original, stylish, effective works of art. The concept for the real character of the fashion passes through the rationalization of the role and the place of the materials. He things that the conception for the noble materials has outlive its time and he gives an example how one “stretch” – this elastic material gave new possibilities to the design – a chance that before has been never possible. “The knowledge of the fashion is a part of my occupation. The lightning changes in fashion during the last decade are due first of all to the materials. There appeared new, such as before have never existed and this allowed the creation of models, impossible to be made before years. You will see that in our collection there is “meerschaum” from wave. This is clearly new material. If from it we make short, draping dress, it is already fashion and chic. And in the same time, if this model is made from classic material it looks outmoded” – affirms in 1993 Kaiser Karl.
ORIGINAL CONCEPT FOR THE WOMAN
To understand the concept of Karl Lagerfeld for the woman, we have to enter into his arguments about her future: ”During the next 1000 years she will continue to surprise us with her rush in the development. I don’t see her like housewife, although some people want very much to give her back in the kitchen. The first woman – Eva, hasn’t sin to rest her followers the eternal Adam’s rib, but to shorten until they completely erase the difference between the man and the woman. In this sense I foresee a permanent development that will be reflected in her appearance and in her wardrobe. She will rise, but she will be spoilt, courted and defended by us – the designers, because we all are still playing at dolls... And the woman is the most perfect doll that I have dressed with delight and admiration”. As a part of his colorful proposals for the woman of the future it can be showed the flesh color, the ochre, the yellow, the brown-black color scheme etc.
More clearly his concept for the woman reveals from the way that he differentiates at his fashion messages according to the brands that he works for, respectively “Chanel”, “KL”, “Chloe”. At his confession, in his conscience the things are well-arranged, that he quickly and easily can “commutate” from one to another woman. This is something like puzzle that he arranges and rearranges. His striving for the young women, admirers at “Chanel” is to accommodate them in the world of the comfort, the silhouette of “KL” is destined for the women of all ages and the designer is sure that he excites and attracts them. The accent in “Chloe” falls on the tender, airy and indefinite from the time woman – the woman that has always existed for the designer and to that he with joy and without effort comes back again and again.
THE TOP MODELS ARE LIKE THE CINEMA STARS
Kaiser Karl is accepted discoverer of models and surely Inès de la Fressange, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Stella Tenant, Nadia Auerman, Devon Aoki etc couldn’t be this what they are without his exceptional intervention. In contrast to others designers that minimize the role of the top models, he doesn’t think like this and he compares them with the cinema stars. His argument is that after they present the fashion as spectacle, in stage way, they could be the most important part of this stage – as are the actresses in the cinema. In Nadia Auerman he likes her phenomenal, her iron will and tirelessness for the imposing of her appearance and he compares her with Marlene Dietrich on the basis of a unique charm and grandiose success. For Kate Moss he affirms that she corresponds to the type of the contemporary young generation and wins just with this that she isn’t by all means extremely beautiful like Claudia Schiffer or Christie Turlington.
For the designer it is very important the top model to can change, but not to freeze in one pose, because fashion is dynamic system and it doesn’t bear the monotony. He doesn’t hesitate to raise in the heights the model, after that easily to dethrone it, as was the case with Claudia Schiffer. The important for him is the model to be in harmony with the spirit of the time. The reasons because of those he affirms in 1996 that Claudia has to get down from the stage ate that she already belongs to another world, her wit is from another type and she is as a whole from another time. In Stella Tenant he likes the fact that she brings the style with herself and whatever she dresses – it suits her elegantly. According to the designer the models are part of the creators of images and visions, those people so much want. Here is what he shares: ”The humanity couldn’t exist without ideal visions, without idols. We, the designers and the models – we create these visions. The ideal vision has to change with the time. These are a few girls that master this skill. Linda Evangelista succeeded to change her appearance during whole 10 years. The fashion changes. The appearance changes. It could be very dangerous if it wasn’t like this”. Lagerfeld him self is a proof of his thesis through his own sensational change in 2002. Then from personal weight 102 kg (at height 180 cm) he achieved the record 60 kg that allow him to enter in clothes from the smallest size.
Regarding the top models Kaiser Karl is not only a selectionist, but he is daring experimenter and provocateur. Always searching for the unusual and the substandard in their manifestation, and through them of the presentation and spectacle of his style, he doesn’t hesitate to shock the fashion world. Among the great number of examples there show up two. Once, when in January 1994 he shocked the whole Muscleman world showing a dress haute couture for “Chanel”, embroidered with strophes of the Koran. The model was demonstrated by the top model Claudia Schiffer, but she provoked so sharp criticism that Lagerfeld officially apologized and affirmed that he takes back the dress from the collection. Another drastic case was when in March 1997 in fashion show of leather coats for “Fendi” he made the supermodel Christine McMenamy to show naked at the fashion stage, throwing on only with a newest model leather coat. Journalists and chroniclers then hurried up to qualify the toilet as “scandalous”.
UNIVERSALITY OF THE TALENT
The multi-direction of the genius and of the talent of Lagerfeld is a result of the special features of his individual cultural and intellectual development. In this case, the richness of the spirit and the erudition sublime in fresh, original and remembering designers works of art. The unique way, those he analyzes at, defines and predefines the aesthetical heritage of Coco Chanel makes him really great and emblematic creator. Karl Lagerfeld is an aristocrat and he knows perfectly the history of the haute couture, the aesthetical special features of ХVІІІ century, but together with this he doesn’t lose not for a moment the vibrations of the street style and in master way transfers them in his collections. If you open the fashion encyclopedias, you will find examples of his innovation like the fact that he for the first time uses leathers of squirrels, moles and rabbits for coats (as before this he colors them in intensive tones). Among his trade marks are the mini dresses and the corsages. It is underlined his attention to the accessories and to the details – necklaces, bags, bracelets, rings, and also – belts, shoes and hats. He contributes to the rediscovery of the style “neoclassicism”, but he doesn’t rest at this level, but permanently diversifies and refreshes his works of art.
The universality of the talent of Karl Lagerfeld appears in his amazing photographer’s skill. Other designers also have the habit of photograph his works of art, but he succeeded to rise it and to transform it one else art, at those he is a master. For some years in the end of the 80s Lagerfeld makes more than 8000 photos in the preparation of his photo album with photos and portraits. He photographs as photo models, as top models during the photo sessions for the advertising campaigns, as celebrities like the princess of Monaco Carolina. The specialists find some doze melancholic in his photo works, but they are respected by the ability with those he directs, composes and sees in advance his objects. Lagerfeld likes the photograph art, because it is a part of the so wished by him “permanent dialogue with the fashion”. Still more, when he stands behind the objective, he sees the imperfections of his works and he can better in one or another aspect his collection. Without making him deep analysis as photographer, it has to be given the well-deserved of his thin sense for perfection of the cadre, sense to the detail and aesthetical and poetical attitude to the common composition.
The great designer occupies with so much varied activities that it is difficult to be enumerated all of the directions, in those shoots up his unique talent. In 2008 he directed to a project, destined for some of the richest people at the Earth. It is about his contract with the Dubai Company „Dubai Infinity Holdings” for the building of 80 luxurious houses at the territory of the first island of fashion, famous under the name „Isla Moda”. It is provided the original designer work of art (Kaiser Karl responds for the interior design of the tempting places) to be finished after three years.
Lagerfeld takes to heart different ideas with commonly significant character. Recently he included at good will (without any remuneration) in the campaign, taking up by the French authorities for road safety and he even posed for advertising poster, dressed in signal vest, accompanied by the bottomless sincere inscription: „It’s yellow, it’s ugly, it doesn’t suit to nothing, but it can save your life!”.
* * *
The Karl Lagerfeld’s contribution to the world fashion design is due at least to three things. First of all, he in practice showed how is right the French thinker Jacques Derrida, when he affirmed that the creator is condemned to repeat the history until he reaches his true and than destroying to the ground the tradition, he creates the new. The designer learned perfectly the most important from the heritage of Chanel, without staying in its shadow, but listening to the rhythm of this day and answering to the needs of the modern and of the postmodern women. Second, Kaiser Karl proved that to be big professional and to create a great name, you have to be a widely cut intellectual, to know in details the other arts and to find their relation with the fashion in new creative way. Third, the whole creative of Karl Lagerfeld argues the thesis that fashion is field of the new, of the original and of the interesting; of the amusing and of the unordinary; of the beautiful and of the changeable. Thanks to him the fashion received recognition as an art, and as a unique instrument for preservation of the most important in the human civilization and culture.
Notes:
In the article are used the following sources: Ermilova, D.U. Istoria domov modu, “Academia”.Moscow, 2003; O’Hara, J. Encyclopedia of fashion. “Biblioteka 48 “, S., 1995; Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989; Feldman. E. Fashions of a decade. The 1990s. Facts On File. New York, 1997; Martin,R.The St.James Fashion Encyclopedia:A Survey of Style from 1945 to the Present.Visible Ink Press. Detroit,1997; McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000; Reuters Television News; O`Hara,G.The Encyclopaedia of Fashion.From 1840 to the 1980s.Thames and Hudson. London,1986; Stegemeyer, A. Who`s Who in Fashion. Third edition. Capital Cities Media, Inc. Fairchild Publications, New York, 1996;
Photos:
1. Karl Lagerfeld in the end of the 80s.
Photo: © Encyclopedie.Editions - De grote Mode Nathan. Paris, France,1989, p.124
1а. Karl Lagerfeld nowadays
Photo: © http://www.millionaire.bg/article.jsf?flashCategoryId=8&articleId=1317
2. The seventeen years old Karl Lagerfeld (the first from the left) together with the nineteen years old Yves Saint Laurent win the first award in the competition of the International Wool Secretariat 1954.
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.383
3. Karl Lagerfeld dines with friends in Paris, 1973
Photo: © Piaggi, Anna. Karl Lagerfeld. A fashion journal. London, 1986, p.186.
4. Karl Lagerfeld together with Anna Piaggi and Suzy Dyson, 1977
Photo: © Piaggi, Anna. Karl Lagerfeld. A fashion journal. London, 1986, p.8
5. Fashion illustration of Karl Lagerfeld,1978
Photo: © Piaggi, Anna. Karl Lagerfeld. A fashion journal. London, 1986, p.142
6. Karl Lagerfeld with his model Anna Piaggi – a suit for Venetian ball in Paris, 2th of March 1979
Photo: © Italian Vogue / Piaggi, Anna. Karl Lagerfeld. A fashion journal. London, 1986, p.118
7. Model of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chloe”, 1973
Photo: © David Montgomery / McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000, p. 298;
8. Model Karl Lagerfeld for “Chloe”, autumn-winter 1983 - 1984
Photo: © Istoria modu. Kolekcia instituta kostiuma Kioto. Moscow, 2003, p.633.
9. Models of Karl Lagerfeld, 1989, 1997-1998 and 1999
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.382
10. Collage of Karl Lagerfeld with sign elements from the heritage of Coco Chanel
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.113
11. Collection of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel”, spring-summer 1998
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.112
12. Models of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel” from the 90s
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.114
13. Karl Lagerfeld in top model company in the end of the fashion show for “Chanel”, autumn-winter 1995-1996
Photo: © Seeling, Charlotte. Fashion. The century of the designer 1900 – 1999. p.298
14. Models haute couture of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel”, autumn-winter 1997
Photo: © / McDowell, C. Fashion today. Phaidon Press Limited. London, 2000, p.192;
15. Bag of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel”, autumn-winter 1999 - 2000
Photo: © Istoria modu. Kolekcia instituta kostiuma Kyoto. Moscow, 2003, p.698.
16. Models of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel”, autumn-winter 2000-2001
Photo: © Istoria modu. Kolekcia instituta kostiuma Kyoto. Moscow, 2003, p.556.
17. Model of Karl Lagerfeld for “Chanel”, autumn-winter 2002-2003
18. – 19 а . Models of Karl Lagerfeld, spring-summer 2008
Photo: © http://www.catwalking.com/SHOWBRIEF/seasons/SS08/shows/LAGERFELD_ED_SS08/index.html
20. – 21. Models of Karl Lagerfeld, autumn-winter 2008-2009
Photo: © http://www.fashionising.com/forums/t--Karl-Lagerfeld-autumn-winter-2008-2009-2818-1.html
VIDEO:
Chanel Spring Summer 2007
Chanel : Haute Couture Fashion Show AW06-07 (Part 1)
Chanel : Haute Couture Fashion Show AW06-07 (Part 2)
Chanel : Haute Couture Fashion Show AW06-07 (Part 3)
Karl Lagerfeld: Spring 2008
Karl Lagerfeld: Fall 2008
Read: 11402 times © Fashion Lifestyle Magazine, issue 13, August 2008
MORE PUBLICATIONS:ISSUE 12: ANDRÉ COURRÈGES OR THE FUTURISM IN FASHION
ISSUE 11: JULIAN MCDONALD: “THEY WON’T STOP ME TO USE LEATHER”
ISSUE 10: ROMEO GIGLI: ROMANCE AND MULTIETHNIC CHIC
ISSUE 8: STELLA MCCARTNEY: "FASHION IS ONLY CLOTHING – DON’T FORGET THIS"
ISSUE 7: HUSSEIN CHALAYAN: “FASHION IS A COMBINATION OF ART, PROFESSION AND PRODUCT”
