29.5.10

When Alexa met Lagerfeld, I died a little inside.




                 
My new issue of Vogue came through the post today, and I see contributor and incredible style icon Alexa Chung had the amazing opportunity of interviewing the one and only Karl Lagerfeld. Instantly I am  jealous of her, holding her Chanel shopping bag, with the famous 31 Rue Cambon address. I mean, it's Karl Lagerfeld, he's a genius and even in black and white stills everything amazing about him oozes through the tiny little pixels of this picture; the immaculate and eternal style, a crisp suit, his polar bear muse, the signature glasses, white wisp of hair, and the embellished finger gloves with holes at the knuckles. EVERYTHING about this image is LAGERFELD, even down to the faux fur couch he sits royally on.
As Alexa elaborates, Lagerfeld, despite being a creative wizard on a sketchpad and sewing machine, his studio is somewhat underwhelming. Tame, to be precise. And as Ms Chung put it, he is really "Kaiser Karl". King Karl. He is truly the king of fashion. If someone was to ask you the name of a fashion label, the first one is very likely to be Chanel. And as King Karl reigns over fashion from his throne and sits at his average sized desk the brain of a mastermind is forever ticking, slightly syncopated from the rest of the world, but oddly, at the same time, he is perfectly in tune with the world. "...Sitting at his average size desk, overseeing a huge operation as if doing an average day's work. Because, to him, it is." - Alexa Chung
 I couldn't have put it better myself. A monstrous task such as handling the final day before a show, it all seems to come naturally to him.
Since the seventies Karl has always been able to keep what is Coco in Chanel. He is just like her, he thinks in such a diverse way like her, I'm surprised he isn't actually a  reincarnation. When Alexa asks him if navy was the new black, he responds with:  
"I always liked navy blue, but black is more basic because when you wear black you think about nothing. With navy blue you think you are still wearing colour, you know? When you work in fashion you have to work with all the colours, you can't be there in green, pink or something very fancy, because, in the end you, have the feeling you are just a sample yourself. In black you can just forget about yourself. I don't think about myself when I am looking at materials and doing fittings."
 After all these years, its astounding that Lagerfeld has been about to keep the Chanel in Chanel, it's classic and clean cut, but it's also constantly ground breaking, but it never insists upon itself. It isn't pretentious drab, it's pure beauty. "I am a designer; I hate designers who tell people that they're 'artists'. Chanel never said she was an artist" 
I have so much appreciation for Karl Lagerfeld, I think he's pure genius. 

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