“All the other designers hate

me...” Karl Lagerfeld gets ready

to tell all
FASHION A truly free spirit, Karl has no taboos
and doesnʼt stonewall. The immense couturier
has lost none of the verve thatʼs made him a cult
figure in the fashion world and a veritable pop
icon. In a meandering interview, he delivers his
reflections on a variety of subjects from First
Ladies and Johnny Hallydayʼs inheritance issues
to the so-called overworking of fashion
designers.
12 April

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 Numéro: So, in good shape?

Karl Lagerfeld: Yes, as long as itʼs not in the plural. That said I donʼt
get fat anymore. I was on a diet for 15 years, but now I can eat all I
want without ever gaining a gram. Itʼs very strange.

Age has no hold over you!

It all depends on the conditions in which you age. If you do it by

avoiding excess, and in great luxury, it is effectively quite bearable.

Doesnʼt getting old have its fair share of inconveniences?

For the time being, Iʼm not suffering terribly. Iʼve had every test
under the sun and they canʼt find anything wrong. Call me back in
ten years and weʼll talk about it again.

At your age though, isnʼt it exhausting juggling three brands –

Chanel, Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld – and not forgetting all your
other extra-curricular activities?

No, au contraire, itʼs stimulating. All these designers who design

exclusively for brands end up finding themselves completely
sterilised. By dint of revisiting their own classics, they end up going
around in circles, biting their own tails. As far as Iʼm concerned, I am
obliged to constantly reinvent myself by going from one house to
the next, which is what also allows me to see whatʼs happening next
door. Iʼm constantly moving, which stops me from navel-gazing all
day and becoming fossilised. Which suits me just fine, because
otherwise I get bored. At Chanel I have a contract to do four
collections a year – two ready-to-wear and two haute couture – but
in fact I do ten, between the ready-to-wear and the couture, the
pre-collections, the cruise collection and the Métiers dʼArt, not to

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 mention Coco Snow– which isnʼt, I assure you, a capsule collection
for cokeheads, but a winter sports line – and Coco Beach, for
beachwear…

When Raf Simons left Dior, lots was said about how designers
are overworked. What do you think about that?

Personally, Iʼve never complained. And that is exactly why all the
other designers hate me. They are only interested in their damn
“inspirations”, they can spend an hour deciding where a button
should go, or choosing sketches done by their assistants, which
riles me to distraction. I am a machine. The worst thing about all of
this, is that they try and blame me for their problems with working
overtime. Azzedine [Alaïa], for example, before falling down the
stairs, claimed that the supposedly unsustainable rhythms in
fashion today were entirely my fault, which is absurd. When you are
running a billion-dollar business, you must keep up. And if is doesnʼt
suit you, then you may as well mess around in your bedroom. Iʼm
sorry but last year I lost my two best enemies Pierre Bergé and the
other one. Azzedine loathed me, go figure. And for Pierreʼs funeral,
my florist asked me, “Do you want us to send a cactus?”

“Menʼs fashion means little to me. I buy it, of course, but

drawing a menʼs collection and put up with all those stupid
models, no thanks.”

And you and your funeral, do you see it more in Sidi Bou Said
like Azzedine, or at the Madeleine?

How awful! There will be no burial. Iʼd rather die. Since those
miserable Hallyday family stories, a funeral at the Madeleine looks
like a joke. Iʼve asked to be cremated and for my ashes to dispersed
with those of my mother… and those of Choupette [Karl Lagerfeldʼs

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 cat], if she dies before me.

I donʼt know what youʼve got against Azzedine. Personally, I

loved him and you canʼt say he lacked talent…

I didnʼt say that. I never said anything, I donʼt criticise him, even if at
the end of his career all he did was make ballet slippers for
menopausal fashion victims.

How is it youʼre not blasé after sixty years of career?

Thank-you for reminding me of my seniority. Blasé? Oh no, never. In

German Blase means “bladder”. On the contrary I think Iʼm quite
lazy, that I could do better. I am never happy with myself. I have to
give myself a kick up the behind to go forward, and the day of the
show, backstage, I always say to myself, “Well my poor girls, with
this weʼll not be doing the next one.” I get no satisfaction from the
job I do. And that is what pushes me to continue, this permanent
dissatisfaction and discontentment.

“If you donʼt want to have your pants pulled about, donʼt
become a model! Join a nunnery, thereʼll always be a place for
you in the convent. Theyʼre recruiting even!

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 Self-portrait

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 Anyway, moving on, today is International Womenʼs Day…

For me Womenʼs Day is every day of the year. Menʼs fashion does
little for me. I buy it of course, and Iʼm delighted that Hedi [Slimane]
is going to Céline but drawing a menʼs collection and having to put
up with all those stupid models, no thanks. Not to mention the fact
with all their accusations of harassment they have become quite
toxic. No, no, no, donʼt leave me alone with one of those sordid
creatures.

At what age did you start to prefer men over women?

Whoever told you I preferred men to women? Where did you get
that certainty from?

If you could slip into the skin of a first lady, would you be
Brigitte, Carla or Bernadette?

I am friends with them both, so I wonʼt answer that question.

I cited three ladies…

Bernadette is a woman from another planet, a French woman of

another era. Carla, I have worked with a lot, so I consider her a
friend. As for Madame Macron, Iʼd already met her before her
husband entered politics, and I like her a lot. Anyway, these three
women are so utterly different that I think your question makes no
sense, in fact its completely stupid. Personally, I adore Mrs Obama. I
fell for her when an American journalist asked her if her leather
skirts werenʼt a little tight for a first lady, and Michelle Obama
answered, “Why, donʼt you like my big black ass?”

Come to mention it, we didnʼt see you at the grand fashion

dinner held by Bribri and Manu at the Élysée during the shows…

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 did you have a headache?

I never go out the night before a show, itʼs bad luck.

And yet I clearly remember having seen you at an Apple Watch

launch at Colette on the very morning of a show once…

It was the actual morning of the show, which is different: the dice
have been thrown and you can do nothing about it.

What do you think about #MeToo?

Iʼm fed up with it. I donʼt even eat pig [in France the movementʼs
known as #BalanceTonPorc] What shocks me most in all of this are
the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened.
Not to mention the fact there are no prosecution witnesses. That
said I cannot stand Mr Weinstein. I had a problem with him at amfAR
[the amfAR Gala is organised during the Cannes Film Festival in the
fight against AIDS] …

Did he try and drag you into his hotel room too?

No, it wasnʼt of a sexual nature, but a professional one. Iʼll spare you
the details, but he isnʼt exactly what you might call a man of his
word.

Have movements like #MeToo and #TimeʼsUp affected the way

you approach your work?

Absolutely not. I read somewhere that now you must ask a model if
she is comfortable with posing. Its simply too much, from now on,
as a designer, you canʼt do anything. As for the accusations against
the poor Karl Templar [creative director at Interview magazine], I
donʼt believe a single word of it. A girl complained he tried to pull

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 her pants down and he is instantly excommunicated from a
profession that up until then had venerated him. Its unbelievable. If
you donʼt want your pants pulled about, donʼt become a model!
Join a nunnery, thereʼll always be a place for you in the convent.
Theyʼre recruiting even!

During an interview in 2010, you told me you were thinking

about Haider Ackermann as your replacement at Chanel…

Yes, but that was a long time ago.

And today who do you seeing doing that?

I donʼt propose anything or anyone, because the house of Chanel

doesnʼt belong to me. Marc Jacobs, who I adore, also dreamed of
replacing me… When I first knew him, he was 17 years old working
as an assistant for my friend Perry Ellis. Alas when he was made
artistic director there, he got fired because of his grunge collection
which didnʼt work at all.

Between Virgil Abloh, Jacquemus and Jonathan Anderson, who

would you willingly take to a dessert island to end your days
with?
“Iʼd kill myself first.”

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 Can you rank these three designers in descending order of
talent? Simon Porte Jacquemus, Virgil Abloh and Jonathan
Anderson?

The designers I prefer, in disorder, Marine Serre – 1m50 but a will of

steel – Jacquemus, who makes me laugh… and who is rather pretty
too. He is funny, yes. And to conclude J. W. Anderson, even if his
approach is occasionally over intellectualised – undoubtedly, I
havenʼt done the required studies.

Between Virgil Abloh, Jacquemus and Jonathan Anderson, who

would you willingly take to a dessert island to end your days
with?
“Iʼd kill myself first.”

How did you get the idea of growing a goatee?

I had one in the famous portrait of me taken by Helmut Newton 40

years ago, and I wanted to rediscover the feeling of having one
again, to see if after all these years, it was still just as bothersome.
What is funny is that with all these whiskers I look a lot like
Choupette… weʼre really like an old couple. In fact, she maintains it
for me, we sleep on the same pillow and she spends her life licking
it.

I donʼt think of you as very hairy… How long did it take to grow?

Iʼve been growing it since Christmas. But you are right, the strange
thing is, so to speak, I donʼt a hair on my body.

Just the beard.

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 Well and the hair on my head too.

You have no underarm hair?

No, not much, not a bush.

Youʼre completely hair free?

Well letʼs just say I have it where it should be. But I donʼt have a
hairy chest for example, or a hairy back – thank God! – or hairy
thighs…

Talking about hair, I read somewhere that youʼve named

Choupette as the heir to your vast fortune…

Among others, yes. Donʼt worry, there is enough for everyone.

And how much is this vast fortune of yours?

Iʼm certainly not Bernard Arnault, Iʼll tell you right away. Itʼs not like I
have 72 billion euros in my current account.

But I thought it was forbidden in France to leave anything in

your will to your hamster or guinea pig?

Well itʼs lucky Iʼm not French then.

You recently launched a capsule collection for your own brand

with Sébastien Jondeau, your personal assistant for the last 20
years… What are his main qualities, apart from being built like a
Greek god and gap-toothed like Vanessa Paradis?

Sébastien corresponds with a certain kind of man aged 35 – 40 who

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 cannot find anything to wear. He embodies a male canon that is the
complete opposite of those skinny things with wonky teeth we
generally see on runways… They certainly donʼt run the risk of
getting harassed. To be honest what they really need is a good
dentist.

When oneʼs a genius like you, what do you arm yourself with on
a daily basis, an infinite patience and great indulgence for
dealing with others, often less spirited?

A genius? Itʼs you who said it. When I was young, my mother always
said to me that I was stupid, she called me “Mule”. Iʼve probably just
been overcompensating ever since. And Iʼm not surrounded by
idiots, I have fantastic teams. So, when it comes to the retarded and
other ignoramuses, I donʼt see them, I donʼt know them…

Apart from me…

You give yourself too much importance.

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