More and more Karl Lagerfeld quotes from this week’s Chanel cruise show are trickling onto the Internet, with the latest coming from today’s Telegraph, whose reporter asked the designer about France’s new socialist president. While Lagerfeld understands the irony of staging a Marie Antoinette–themed collection on the eve of François Hollande’s inauguration, he insisted that politics really had nothing to do with the show:
Versailles was chosen a year ago and the show, he says, “is not about one government. The world of luxury is another world from that of daily life. This is what the French do best; perfume, champagne — luxury. These are the exports, so we better make an effort and not believe the world is all … just normal.”
Speaking of normal, he’s well aware that his shows need to provide a good spectacle for the hoi polloi who view Chanel as a source of entertainment — a provider of pretty pictures to click through while they’re bored at work — rather than something they can actually partake in. And even for us destitute 99 percenters, there’s always lipstick:
Today, on the internet, it is nice to see something that looks like a movie. Maybe 99 per cent of the people who see the clothes will never own them, but they can buy the lipstick or the perfume.
And, just because we’d never deprive you of any choice bits of Karl wisdom (or his thinly veiled insults), here are all of the other good quotes from the interview:
On the Met Costume Institute’s new exhibit: “I am against museums and exhibitions in fashion. One woman said to me — ‘In my world, the world of art’ — so I said: ‘Oh, don’t you make dresses any more?’ … If you call yourself an artist, then you are second-rate.”
On red carpets: “Now, everyone is bought … Most of them [the actresses] have contracts [to wear the clothes].”
On his ever-growing book collection: “I am a brain-bodybuilder. Schwarzenegger of the brain.”
Stay strong, Karl. ‘Til next time!
See the Complete Chanel Cruise 2013 Collection
