Karl Lagerfeld



Karl Lagerfeld (10 September 1933 – 19 February 2019) was a German fashion designer, artist and photographer. He was creative director of the French fashion house Chanel and of the Italian fur and leather goods maker Fendi.

Quotes

 * Fantasy is often better than reality [...] It’s much more inspiring not to go to places than to go.
 * Cited in Jess Cartner-Morley "Karl Lagerfeld shows off his Mad Hatter streak at launch of collection for India" The Guardian (12 December 2011)
 * There is no marriage, yet, for human beings and animals… I never thought that I would fall in love like this with a cat.
 * Referring to his love for his pet cat Choupette, CNN's Fashion Week: Backstage Pass, June 2013

About Lagerfeld
Even the various assistants, administrators and acolytes who flutter around him are so well trained in the importance of this anecdote that I am told it within minutes of my arrival, before they nervously usher me in to meet the man himself: "You know, when Karl was young, his parents gave him six bicycles ..."
 * Yet, for all his much-vaunted preservation of his privacy, he has always been noticeably willing to wile away an afternoon or so with journalists, spilling out well-honed anecdotes about himself - but these, of course, help maintain the mask. There is a particular story of which he seems especially fond, having trotted it out virtually word for word in almost every interview he has given during his 40-year career: "When I was a child in Germany," he merrily begins, "my parents gave me six bicycles - six bicycles, because I was a very spoilt child, hein? - and none of the other children had any because it was after the war, you know? But I wouldn't share, no, no, no. But I would instead come to school every day on a different bicycle and the other children would be very jealous."
 * Hadley Freeman "The man behind the glasses" The Guardian (17 September 2005)


 * That was his thing. He only ever wore black and white. Misogyny was also his thing, but they don’t want to talk about that.
 * Hannah Gadsby Interview (2023)