Lagerfeld: So Many Challenges, So Little Time : Profile: The designer behind Chanel often labors around the clock and never takes vacations, but says, ‘Work? I never work.’
Karl Lagerfeld says he couldn’t care less about the Chanel cult, that global fan club of women who covet anything with the Chanel logo attached. Of course, he’s the designer who invented it, and if he prefers to float high above his own creation, on a cloud of Chanel No. 5, that’s his choice.
“I’m happy it happens, but I prefer not to ask myself why,” he says. “If you think like that, it becomes marketing. I do things by the way I feel. The job stops the minute the show does. I don’t care what happens to it after that. I never have a strategy in life. I just improvise.”
Lagerfeld has been the creative force behind Chanel since 1983 and is credited with not only bringing back a once-great fashion name but inspiring a fashion explosion far greater than the late Coco Chanel, the original name behind the label, ever envisioned.
It is Lagerfeld who gets credit for giving Madame Chanel reason to roll over several times in her grave, designing collections filled with miniskirts to reveal the knees she hated so much. He also offered neon-bright colors and prints, and street fashion-inspired T-shirts and sportswear, all under her label.
Some say he vulgarized the Chanel image. Others say he’s created an irresistible fashion addiction--the more Chanel accessories you pile on, the more it looks like Lagerfeld’s runway presentations. He takes Chanel-isms and pumps them up.
Among his most avidly collected--and certainly the most-copied--fashion gimmicks of the ‘80s have been his chain-strap purses, two-tone spectator pumps, frankly faux pearls and gold chain belts strung with leather.
But this is 1990, and 52-year-old Lagerfeld, though his trademark ponytail is now salt-and-pepper gray, insists he never looks back.
“I certainly want to forget about the ‘80s--not that they were bad, it’s just that they are over. I have been at Chanel for seven years and now we must think of the next step. The ‘90s will be different because we must do something for a new generation.”
This step may take “several seasons” to define, he says.
Night has fallen at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris (the original Chanel headquarters founded in 1912), where Lagerfeld is encamped. The last of his worshipers has long since been escorted out of the boutique.
But the upstairs rooms are still buzzing with activity in preparation for the big runway show of fall styles for the press and buyers.
The designer sits on the edge of a chair at the end of a long table, which is overflowing with paper-thin slices of cured ham and cheese and salads, as well as models, hair stylists, makeup artists, photographers’ assistants, Chanel assistants and one princess, the Princess Diane de Beauvau-Craon, who is wearing black Levi jeans.
Although he has done fittings all afternoon, Lagerfeld plans to work all night, this time as a photographer for a new Chanel press kit. His entourage seems fairly stoic about this, although it means that they, too, will not get home until 8 the next morning.
Photographing for press kits is the new Chanel routine, since Lagerfeld took up photography in 1987.
These days, he takes pictures constantly, with the help of two full-time assistants. He has documented his fashion designs and all his advertising shots for Chanel.
He also shoots friends, fashion editors, employers and underlings. He has shot assignments for magazines, done three gallery shows and plans to produce a book.
“Work? I never work,” he says, speaking English at machine-gun speed with a crisp Germanic accent. “Work is when you go to a factory for eight hours. Me? I have the chance to be occupied with all sorts of interesting things! You must remember, I don’t have a family. I am not required to take a vacation. Stops are healthy for some people, but not for others. My doctor is against it for me.”
He is the fashion world’s most famous nom de plume--a designer who has enjoyed his greatest successes designing under other names. The Chanel explosion has, in fact, overshadowed his own Karl Lagerfeld label, which was launched six years ago.
But when he whips up fur collections for the Fendi Sisters in Rome, or waves his Chanel scepter in Paris, he earns his nickname, “Kaiser Karl,” along with the undisclosed fees that are thought to make him the highest-paid free-lance designer in the world.
“To possess luxury objects is not luxury,” he once wrote in an essay. “It’s only the way we live with these objects that defines luxury.”
For Lagerfeld, who dreams about and creates luxury, daily life actually is austere, almost monkish.
Born rich, an heir to his industrialist father’s condensed-milk empire, Lagerfeld never really had to work. Yet he has not stopped since he was 16 and won a Paris design contest sponsored by couturier Pierre Balmain in 1954. (The other teen-age winner in that contest was Yves St. Laurent.)
After working for Balmain, he designed for Patou, Charles Jourdan and Mario Valentino, among others.
Finally, during the ‘70s, he achieved fashion star status as the talent behind the popular Chloe line. (He still collects royalties on the best-selling Chloe fragrance, which he developed and helped launch in 1975. Since then, he has also created several fragrance lines under his own logo, with more on the way.)
Lagerfeld maintains residences in Paris, the French countryside, Rome, Hamburg, New York and two in Monte Carlo.
In every house, a full-time staff keeps fresh linens on his bed because they never know when he will pop in.
When he buys clothes, he favors Matsuda shirts and suits by Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons; he buys in multiples for every closet.
Yet every house is a kind of local branch office for his various work chores, and he says he never travels unless there is a reason. Last year, he spent only one day at his favorite pink granite country chateau in Brittany, which he has spent 10 years restoring. He says he never goes out to public places like night clubs or restaurants.
“I work for working,” he says.
He doesn’t save any of his dresses, although they are collected by others. And last year, he fired his longtime Chanel muse and model Ines de la Fressange.
There was a huge scandal in the press, with name-calling on both sides, but the outcome confirmed that he can be a brutally efficient administrator of his own kingdom. It is said that he is kind and generous to the loyal people who have worked with him for years, but there is room for only one star in Lagerfeld’s constellation.
Tonight, as the photographer’s lighting equipment goes into place and models drift by to get his approval on a hair style, Lagerfeld doesn’t betray a hint of his steel edge.
He cheerfully takes on visitors, always keeping an eye on the troops around him.
Although he says he doesn’t play favorites, there are particular pressures with each collection. This season, he must deal with a luxury fur line for Fendi at a time of intense anti-fur public sentiment. He also must labor to define his personality and signature look in his own label.
And then there’s Chanel.
Will the cult of the ‘80s follow him to the ‘90s?
Chanel, a privately owned empire controlled by the Wertheimer family of Switzerland, does not release sales or salary figures.
But it is widely known that before Lagerfeld whirled in, there were only seven Chanel boutiques; now there are more than 50 worldwide and a whole spectrum of new products, from the recent Coco perfume to deluxe watches.
Such business concerns seem far away, however, here in the beige-carpeted inner chambers of haute couture.
Lagerfeld sips a Diet Coke serenely, although it is not served the way he likes it. How does he like it? McDonald’s way.
“I like the way they present the Diet Cokes--in a large paper cup with all that ice,” he says with a laugh and a wave of a hand bearing many rings. “And I also like double cheeseburgers. I take the bread off and just eat the meat. I don’t normally like meat, but they do it so you can’t even tell what it is.”
He wanders back to a changing room and emerges with a new Chanel handbag--to be worn on the head. He demonstrates on a model.
“It’s funny, no?” he asks his audience, who blink back adoringly toward the large pair of tinted eyeglasses he always wears to protect his eyes from view.
By 11 p.m., Lagerfeld and his court have finally moved into the grand upstairs salon.
He sits casually on the lower steps of the mirror-paneled staircase, which was the background for so many glamorous fashion shots of the ‘20s and ‘30s. His concentration is intense.
The first model who appears is a male, wearing only a pair of black tights. This is a special photo Lagerfeld is shooting for a “Man of the ‘90s” spread in the May issue of German Esquire.
The man of the ‘90s is Cameron, a sculpted long-haired brunet who is one of Lagerfeld’s favorite models. He has appeared in many Chanel ads and is easy to recognize--he’s the one who looks exactly like a young Karl Lagerfeld.
“Can you jump please?” Lagerfeld asks him politely. The man of the ‘90s jumps like a puppet on a string. But Lagerfeld is not quite satisfied.
“And again, please.”
Now Karl Lagerfeld smiles faintly.
The night is young, there’s lots of work ahead and, as he once told an interviewer, “I have so much to do. One life is not enough. I don’t have a moment to lose.”
