Ø: Kendall, tell me about the rst time you met Karl.

KJ: Funny, legendary, I was going to say iconic, but I think

legendary and iconic pretty much go together.
KL: I have to leave the room because she has to say
something nice. I was so rude to her. KL: And she is on the way to becoming [an icon].

KJ: No, you weren't! Before I met him, well, when you think
of Karl Lagerfeld, someone that amazing, you sort of don't
think they actually exist. I met him at my rst tting for
Chanel two years ago. I was already nervous because it was
my rst season, my rst Chanel show, and I didn't really
know what I was doing. I'm also pretty shy when I rst meet
someone. But I got to know Karl when I was shooting with
him for the Karl Lagerfeld campaign. I had heard a lot from
Cara Delevingne about how funny he is, how he's normal
and just a cool guy. Now every time we get to work together,
the relationship gets better.
KL: It's very easy—it's problem-less.
KJ: I mean, Karl's a legend, so just listening to him speak …
KL: [Drily] I prefer other people to say that.
Ø: Karl, how did you rst become aware of Kendall? Have
you ever seen Keeping Up With the Kardashians?
Ø: What's something about Karl that you didn't know?
KL: Everything!
KJ: Karl, I honestly don't know how you still do it. You've
been doing it for so long, like, years, and you still have so
much energy.
KL: Everyone wants to know and hopes I retire so they can
get the jobs. But my contracts with Fendi and Chanel are
lifelong.
KJ: That's amazing, Karl. What were you like as a kid?
KL: As a kid, I was overspoiled, with a head like this [Gestures
widely]. My mother would say to me, "You look okay but not
as good as me." I could speak three languages when I was
six, and when I went to school I only liked to read and sketch.
At ve, I could write and everything.

KJ: What languages could you speak at six?

KJ: My family's show.

KL: English, French, and German. I have a French accent, but

KL: No, we don't have it here. I didn't even know she was in
in German I have a French accent too. It's more my way of
it. I saw it when it was only her sisters and she was, like, a
talking.
baby.

Ø: What different childhoods the two of you had! Kendall's

KJ: I love that. That's so refreshing to me.
was so relentlessly visual.

Ø: So Kendall had no history; she came like a blank?

KL: When I was a child, there was no visual world.

KL: Yes, no past, but a good future. There was a good feeling
KJ: For me, I don't know any other way. We were brought up
coming from her. And I don't see that with everybody! There
in this abnormal world, if that's what you want to call it. I feel
is something very warm, human, and sweet about her.
like a lot of people say that kids who grow up in that kind of
world go crazy. But it has everything to do with how your
Ø: Kendall, how would you describe Karl in three words? parents raise you. I was raised so normally, or as normally as I
could have been. It's also a generational thing. I see my six-
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 year-old nephew, and he's on an iPad. It's just what you grow Ø: What is your perfect day?
up with.
KL: Well, we work hard to make every day perfect.
KL: When I lived in the country, school was easy, and at 16 I
had nished school. I wanted to go to Paris, so my parents let
Ø: What is the rst thing you do when you get home at
me go alone at 17. It was not dangerous at all, not like today.
night?
I got very nice pocket money, and it was perfect. Then I won
this contest [the International Woolmark Prize, in 1954]. That
is how I started. KL: I go to bed and wash my face and everything before that.

Ø: So, Kendall, Karl was doing his sketching, but what did
you want to do when you grew up?
KJ: I've always loved animals. I rode horses for 10 years, so I
thought I was going to be a professional horseback rider and
then a vet. I used to play these vet video games.
KL: In my day, there were no vet video games. My father,
though, he could never say no, so I got everything I wanted. I
had a Bentley when I was 20.
KJ: It's the opposite for me. My mom was the pushover, and
my dad was the strict one.
Ø: With the success you both have, how conscious are you of
your "brands"?
KL: Unconscious. I don't wake up thinking, I am a brand, as
long as we can make-believe that we are brand-new.
KJ: I shower.
Ø: Karl, do you wear your hair up in bed?
KL: Yes, I put it a little lower. I don't take showers at night
because I take a bath when I wake up. Then I go to bed on
the most beautiful Egyptian-cotton antique sheets in the
world.
KJ: I take a shower—I live for a shower. Then I get into
comfortable clothes and go to bed.
KL: You have to be impeccable—I was always told as a child
by my mother that you always have to be impeccable, even
when you go to bed.
KJ: You know what they say, dress your best when you go to
bed because you don't know who you'll see in your dreams.
Karl, do you have someone to help you pick out your out ts
in the morning?

KJ: Same!
KL: Oh, no, I do everything. I hate that. I don't like people to
touch me. But there is no kitchen in my house. They bring
Ø: How ambitious are you?
me food, like at a hotel, for lunch and dinner. Mostly I stay at
home from the morning until 5 P.M., and I only go out for
KJ: I am very ambitious. I love what I do, I love my job, and ttings and shoots because I work at home. I like to be alone.
I'm OCD.
KJ: Most days I don't care what I wear. You'll nd me in yoga
Ø: What makes you happiest? pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers almost every day. My job is to
wear something nice when I work, so I enjoy doing it then.
But when I don't have to, I'd rather just wear something
KJ: My family and my friends.
comfortable.

KL: To be in good health.

Ø: Kendall, what do you do rst when you get home to L.A.?
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KJ: Sleep! I fall asleep at 6 P.M. with the jet lag. I hang out
with my friends, get food, and drive my car. It's the little
things I miss the most. Like I love being stuck in L.A. traf c. I
miss it! I went to Justin Bieber's concert the other night.
[Laughs.] Of course I have the fever! He's a really good friend
of the family's, so we all went to support him. Kanye went
two nights in a row. He's a huge fan—I was shocked. He was
dancing around the whole night, having so much fun.
Ø: Who are you a fan of, music-wise?
KJ: Beyoncé. Oh, my God, are you kidding? I am 100
percent a huge fan of Beyoncé. If I see her, I will faint. I've
met her before. I just get really nervous and quiet—I just shut
up and bow down.
Ø: You and Queen Bey are both in L.A. now. Do you get
followed by paparazzi all the time?
KJ: Yes, they wait outside my house every single day. It's so
crazy to me because it's stalking at this point. When I say
every day, I'm not kidding. I don't understand how that is
legal. There should be some kind of Sunday off or
something.
Ø: How do you both deal with your fans?
KL: I'm not very nice to them. Sometimes they can be very
aggressive.
KJ: I'd rather someone around me be mean to them.
[Laughs.] I'm always trying to be nice to them, but
sometimes it's hard because you're human, and sometimes
you have a bad day. Like if you're getting into your car and
you don't say hi, all of a sudden you're so mean. There is a
balance, for sure.
Ø: Karl, if you had to give Kendall advice on what sort of boy
she should go out with, what would it be?
KL: I cannot give her any advice because she doesn't know
who she will meet.
Ø: Kendall, do you meet people easily in this world?
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KJ: Yes, especially since I started really modeling two years
ago and going to all the parties. You meet a lot of people,
and my life has changed so much since then.
KL: But don't they have a kind of distance with you because
they're afraid of how you will be?
KJ: Yeah. [Sighs.] Some people are. I'm not super open to
new people. I have a small group of people I trust. I'm very
intuitive, so I'm good at feeling out how people are, like if
they have bad intentions. Sometimes I'm very closed off,
which annoys me, but I think it's for the best.
KL: It's safer.
Ø: Well, you're only 20, so you've got lots of growing to do.
KJ: I know.
KL: When I was 24, my mother called me and said, "It's only
downhill from now."
Q: Hello, Karl Lagerfeld.
KL: Hello, nice to be here.
Q: So, we are delighted that you are here and we are
listening to a band that is dear to you, the band Metronomy.
I even believe that you collaborated together.
KL: Yes, yes, I did a cover for them and then they did things
and shows. I love this band.
Q: How did you know them, Karl Lagerfeld?You know, I have
a connection with this world by Michel Gobert, the famous
sound stylist, as we call him, because DJs don't have very
nice names and they have nothing to say. It's this gentleman,
well, gentleman, he's a funny, nice man, who does all the
music for all the shows. Anyway, for many, not only Chanel,
he also does Lagerfeld, he does Fendi, he does Saint Laurent,
he does Balenciaga, he does a lot of people. But he's great,
he's an extraordinary person who has a connection with the
world of music as a person, because everyone wants that he
has music bands that have just been released in his bands,
 so we send him everything in front of everyone. And, for and, well, white hair, it happens to everyone. So where's the
example, one of my favorite gifts is to ll the iPods with him difference?
and give them to people, because no one has all these
things, no one knows that, and that's obviously a gift that
Q: Why the black glasses, for example?
people like a lot, because an iPod is nice, but empty, it's
horrible and who wants to ll it?
KL: Because I don't really like the projectors we have in the
gure.For example, at your place, with the little cameras,
Q: So, you have, it seems, between 70 and 100 iPods
we're fully lit, I don't mind, but it's more pleasant like that
according to the estimates.
and then it gives a mystery to the extent that I can observe
without being too observed. The states of mind that are
KL: I'm afraid it's going to exceed that, because I don't ll expressed by the eyes, it's not something that I want on the
them at rst because in this case, it's too long, we don't go market.
through them anymore. So, in fact, it's by theme, by CD stack,
but I still buy CDs, I'm absolutely against taking them like
Q: And the fact that you've become a global icon, because, in
that, because all the music that I like, after, I put them in a
the end, Michael Jackson is no longer there, but there are
separate box, the other CDs, I put them away, and what I
few individuals who are.
really like, because sometimes I don't want to go through the
iPods to look for things, it takes hours, so I have a storage
with my favorite CDs, in classical music and in pop, KL: The other thing, I think, in the point, Michael Jackson,
everything you want, call it what you want. Charlie Chaplin and me who were the easiest to recognize, I
nd it very attering, because, well, it's funny, but I didn't do
it on purpose and besides, I don't do it for the scene. It's the
Q: So, what do you listen to at the moment, Karl Lagerfeld?
scene of everyday life. But for me, it's a total normality. I nd
myself as normal as you, if you have an idea of normality as
KL: Well, it depends on what level, because I listen to both far as you're concerned.
classical music and non-classical music, so it's very dif cult.
At the moment, I listen to Lily Allen a lot, because today I
Q: So you have a singularity that comes to you from the
have to photograph her so last night and this morning, I
environment in which you were born, which is a bourgeois,
listened to Lily Allen to put myself in the music of this lady
enlightened environment, with a mother whose singular
that I like a lot as a person and who has a lot of personality.
personality you insist on.

KL: I don't insist, it was like that, and we are still vaguely the
product of our parents.
KL: My voice is quite strange, and it is strange in all
languages, it's not because I have an accent. My German is
Q: And so, your mother, you say, was particularly well-
as strange as my English, so I have a way of speaking that is
dressed,fantastic.
particular, that people recognize, because when my alarm,
for example, goes off I don't need to give the codes people
recognize my voice. KL: Yes, but above all, she knew how to do the worst things,
but she had a way of entwining people at the same time. She
would make a mistake, but it was by smiling. It was brilliantly
Q: In the end, your rst work, it's your character, Karl
done.
Lagerfeld, you built it gradually.

Q: Did you have a particularly well-rounded childhood?

KL: No, I didn't build it, it's a succession of evolutions and
chance that gave it that. It's not thought. Look at me what do
I have, a black jacket, a shirt with a white collar, a black tie,
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 KL: Yes, but less than we think, because it was not the most
fabulous time in the history of Europe. But it was very good
for the time that was running and everything, and it was ne.
You know, children don't compare. I didn't know anything
before, and I didn't know what would come next. I had a
vague idea, but my job, the way I did it, I'm going to say
something pretentious, the way I invented it, in a sense,
didn't exist. So, in fact, I couldn't make very far-reaching
projections. I wanted to become an illustrator, a caricaturist,
because I was good enough for that, and not really a painter,
maybe a portraitist but my mother said, no, too late for that,
it's not worth it. But I didn't want to be in business. It's not
that I didn't have
Q: She encouraged you in your...
KL: Yes,by saying, it's bullshit, but as a child, I had a big
head, it's a good thing.
Q: Yes, she prevented you from playing the piano, for
example.
KL: No,she didn't prevent me, I had no talent, she was
absolutely right. So, she told me, draw, it makes less noise.
Look, it was still a rather positive result. No, no, she was, as it
should be, with me.
Q: But she wasn't stigmatized at all.
KL: No, she said, it's like a hair color, black or white, where is
the problem? She said, she didn't see. You know, people who
lived in Berlin in the 1920s had less bourgeois ideas than
what came afterwards.
Q: Saint-Laurent was intimidated by the interview, but he
was a very funny man, did you say?
KL: Yes,he was funny. Not at all the character that we did
afterwards because I knew him before Pierre Berger's time
and everything, he was funny like everything.That's why this
voice, almost childish, has nothing to do with what we heard
afterwards. But I haven't seen him for more than 30 years, so
it's not my subject. There were also, for a large number of
people of that time, arti cial paradises, excesses for Saint-
Laurent, for others.
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Q: Did you know the world of the night, the palace, Karl
Lagerfeld?
KL: Yes, but as a voyeur, you see my black glasses, you see
me. In fact, I have never been part of it. In fact I am a witness
of a world I was not part of. But it's quite funny because there
are people that I almost admire who have the gift to destroy
themselves and everything. I have an instinct of preservation
such that nally I survived all this beautiful world because
there is a kind of voyeurism and curiosity but I didn't want to
get involved in that because I didn't feel anything arti cial.
You know, I don't drink, I don't smoke but I am not at all
against people who drink and smoke. It doesn't bother me at
all but after, when you have price you have to pay, you
shouldn't cry anymore.
Q: So, even if you don't recognize any addiction,you
participated in many of these feasts.
KL: I even nanced some of them by making the feasts and
all.
Q: As I said in my little preface, you are still politically correct.
KL: No, and above all, being politically correct is a very very
good thing. But to make it a subject of conversation, it's not.
And if you ask mewhat killed the conversation in France, it's
three things. The defense of the smoke that comes out of half
the table is empty. The cell phones in front of people like
that, or who seem to be masturbating on the table when they
look at their e-mails. And then thirdly, the politically correct.
Many people also think that the simple fact of denouncing
things, they think they can do what they want. No, no, that
doesn't work. There are sometimes strangers in a public
place who approach me and say, you know, I wanted to talk
to you, I take care of the humanitarian. Do you know what I
answer to that? If people don't really have a name and a
credibility for that, I say, why don't you like animals?
CC: Because I am against the pants out of the countryside. In
the countryside, at home, we can do what we want, it doesn't
matter. But walking in the streets dressed as a gentleman,I
don't understand what that means. First, because they are
ugly men. Maybe I would be happy if I saw handsome men,
but a woman never makes a handsome man. He has his back
too low, he has his shoulders wide enough. And nally, I'm
 not drunk to see a man, he's ugly. It makes him look like a
desert, it gives him a vocabulary that doesn't look like him. I
think it's time to think about femininity. Women are strong
when they are feminine. As long as they are not feminine,
when they are not anymore, zero. Go do the housework.
Q: She didn't really understand her time.
KL: Consumed, I am as if I had ogres who eats.
KL: Ines,she had something that no French had before her.
Claudia Schiffer had something that no German had before
her and look how hard it is. And my latest discovery, it's not a
girl, it's a boy who in one year became the number one
mannequin in the world. Well, it's not bad.

KL: Yes, but you know, it's like this bullshit about the
miniskirt and the jeans. It put her out of fashion at that time.
Because she, from 1963-1964 until her death, it was rengar.
It was out of fashion. It's there, unfortunately, that she was
wrong because the youth wanted to wear that and she, who
had worn pants and everything,suddenly starts to wear that.
It was actually a woman who represented modernity who
didn't like modernity anymore. So it's already, it's serious.
Don't do that. Don't touch that. It's dead, etc. And it proves
that I did the biggest thing of priests to bring luxury to the
world. And, thanks to the owner who told me do what you
want. We don't have marketing. But no, it wasn't sacred. It
was rengar. They told me don't touch it. That's why I touched
it. Because they told me don't do it. But you know, it's not a
product. So we can't de ne it. There is no marketing on
femininity. It's the opposite of masculinity but every being,
both men and women, has a masculine side and a feminine
side so the dosage is more varied today and also accepted in
a more diverse way. It's not the life who wants the whore,
that's very feminine and the big macho who wants the
macho, that's masculine. Those are codes fortunately
exceeded.
Q: So what do you think of the way we are doing for example
the jean which has become essential and you have produced
a number of copies for your own brand Karl Lagerfeld.
KL: Yes. You know, I don't judge what others do. It's horrible.
The listeners are now falling back into the bullshit we just
heard. That's not very good. I made my own divisions. But I
don't criticize the people who wear, who don't wear, who are
like that or otherwise. For good and simple reasons. There are
some who wear nothing and others who don't. So I don't
criticize. I don't criticize fashion. I'm here to propose images,
ideas. Fashion is the funnel. Everyone throws ideas in and
what happens after that, the future will tell us.
Q: So you have a particular method of work. We see you
drawing in this lm, so you bring your sketches. How do the
people who work with you do to nd themselves in these
sketches, Karl Lagerfeld?
KL: I'm very pretentious, I draw very well, to the extent that
it's like technical sheets where there is the look, but also all
the technical details with the pincers and everything, with all
the cut and everything and the annotations around. I'm very
professional. I don't think that there are many people in this
job who have this power to be able to put with so many
details a thing on a piece of paper that we no longer need to
ask me a question, because the others do chic things and
then it utters, I don't utter, I'm very conceptual.
Q: So that's the modern part of Karl Lagerfeld, and then
there are your inspirations, there is Versailles, I heard you
were yesterday in Versailles to photograph Claude Lévesque.
KL: I was in Rome last week to photograph things that have
been discovered recently that no one has seen, and there we
were at the Petit Théâtre de la Reine which has just been
restored, which has never been published either, besides,
I'm going to make a book about it which is going to be sold
for the bene t of Versailles and I must say I'm happy with
what I'm doing, because my thing, I'm never going to stop.
You know, my mottoin life is an old German-Jewish proverb
that says, no credit on the past, well, I live with that.
Q: In your library, which has 300,000 books and among the
different collections you have of houses, of works of art,
etc. ,there is always a renewal process at your library.
KL: Yes, yes, yes. There are always the new collections of
books.

Q:And so you have consumed a lot of lingerie.

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Ø:What if you don't feel at home anymore?
KL:No, my secret is the fact that I feel at home in fashion as
well as in the photos. And I'm not sure that fashion would
still interest me as much as fashion interests me if I hadn't
added photography. That's the mixture, the further
development, the connection that fascinates me. I love
fashion photos, although I also do many other things. I love
advertising because advertising today is part of the time
expression.
Ø: What is the source?
KL: A source is a source, who knows where it comes from.Yes,
but it doesn't express itself in every person. I don't know the
others, I can't judge.
Ø: But where does it come from? I feel how I breathe, you
know. For me that's normal. I don't feel particularly alive. I
sometimes think that the others aren't very alive. That's
something else. There are people who say, I'm going into
retirement. Can you imagine that? As long as I want to do
what I do. No, and I hate the expression. I hope that the
people who say they're going into retirement, that they have
a good retirement. And I'm not convinced that it's a very
good thing that people have this retirement as a perspective
and goal. Basically, if you ask me, I think that's very
mediocre. Unless the people are sick or something. But
otherwise, to live with the goal, I'm going into retirement.
I'm sorry about that. Retirement is okay if you have millions
but a modest retirement is when you get bored at home and
get old and you get stuck in television and you eat too much
and then you die early due to some complications because
you basically don't pay attention to yourself anymore
because you basically don't do anything that interests
society. That's what I would imagine.
Ø: Could you imagine going down a different path of life
than one that is so creatively determined?
KL: As long as I'm me no. If I could have been someone else,
I would have been different. Obviously, I never thought
about it. What I do always came to me spontaneously and
naturally. I didn't say to myself, this, this, this. I don't think
I'm too good for fashion. I'm perfect for what I do. That's
100% true for me. Fashion, photos and books. The rest
doesn't interest me as much as these three things and the
context of the three things. You have already lived in four
places in the world.
Ø: How do you feel at home?
KL: I think it's a cliché that people think home and roots and
all that nonsense. That's from another era. Nowadays, it's not
like that anymore. I don't know. Today, you have to be at
home everywhere. My mother says, I bring myself
everywhere.And that's one of my mottos.
Ø: Thank you.
KL: You are welcome.
Q: What did your day in Paris look like?
KL: The day in Paris was very busy because I made an
advertising campaign for Chanel for the next season. We
started very early this morning with a brand new camera. I
had already started yesterday and slept badly all night
because I was afraid that nothing would happen. I ran back
and forth to my studio and looked at the pictures again in
the middle of the night.
Q: Isn't it typical that you start your day so early?
KL: I'm an early riser.
Q: Do you have an alarm clock?
KL: No, I don't have an alarm clock. I hate alarm clocks. I can
wake up whenever I want and fall asleep whenever I want.
Q: So you never come somewhere too late because you
didn't wake up?
KL: I always come too late, but that has other reasons. Q:
That's right, that's what someone told me.
KL: Yes, yes, I'm unfortunately known for that, but I mean,
there are always the circumstances. It's too fast. There are too
many things. I'm maybe too talkative, you know. If I'm
supposed to be with someone for 15 minutes, I stay for half
an hour. And then, of course, from one thing to another, at
the end of the day, it's three or four hours late.
Q: Are you a big breakfaster? How does your morning start?
KL: No, I'm not a big breakfaster. No, no, no. But I was raised
with the idea that you have to get up early. And even today I
still have the feeling that the morning has gold in its mouth
and as a child I was told, if you don't get up in the morning,
nothing will come of you. And I have to laugh about it today,
but basically I'm still thinking about it today.
Q: Yes, but is that why you go to bed early?
KL: No, you don't need that much sleep. You know, I don't
drink, I don't eat too much.I have a very healthy lifestyle, as
they say. You shouldn't have that much sleep.
Q: Are you surrounded by people all day? Sometimes too
much. That's why it's important for me, for example, to have
the weekend for myself because it's almost unbearable in
the long run. I think that's great, and I don't have any contact
problems but I imagine that a person is like a battery that
can only recharge on its own and always being together with
the environment, with the people, and to expect that they
will bring something, I think that's unhealthy and you can't
read, you can't educate yourself, and you're not alone.There
are really things and professions where it's vital to be alone
and also when it comes to one's own personality. I think
there are a lot of people who can't be alone.
Q: You go back to the weekends on your own. I would like to
ask you more about that. But you also live alone. KL: Yes,
unfortunately. It depends on how you look at it. Q: You have
always talked about a clairvoyant, about a medium that told
you very early on. Either family or partnership, whatever, or
career. But did you really have the choice? Did you stand in
front of it and say, well, I'll think about it now.
KL: No, it was my nature because I wanted that as a child. As
a child, I always knew that I wanted to be alone and the
circumstances were such that I was basically alone as a child.
Because I spent my childhood in the countryside, where I
had no great relationship with the peasant children and the
people of the country and my parents were almost never
there and there I was able to do what I wanted day and night,
carefree. It wasn't so bad at school. We were in a village
school, it wasn't so dif cult. I didn't have to make any effort
and so I already learned French as a child, because I was
alone and I wanted to know everything, to learn everything
and you can only do that when you're alone. Often it is the
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to be alone anymore. Yes, but I thought that was great. And I
always said to myself, this is somehow your way of existing. I
knew that very early on. I don't suffer from it either on the
contrary I would be hysterical if I had someone around me
day and night.
Q: But of course you have staff.
KL: Yes, but on Sundays I ask them, please don't come.
Please bring me the newspaper. I want to be alone. Finally
don't look at the clock. Have no stress. I don't answer the
phone either
Q: But someone has to bring you a small meal.
KL: Everything is prepared in a huge fridge.
Q: There is no staff there either?
KL: No, no, nothing.
Q: But that's all in the apartment?
KL: Yes, yes, yes.
Q:You don't go to the castle in Brittany?
KL: That's too far away. Sometimes I go there too. But I also
like to be alone there.
Q: But you have a week from Monday to Friday and then a
weekend?
KL: And then a battery charge from Saturday to Sunday,
which is very important. For me, this is the only way to
prepare everything professionally. I have to do a thousand
different things a week, which I like to do. But I need two
days to organize everything in my head, to prepare, to work
out the ideas, and nally don't have to look at the clock,
don't have to blame me for being late again, and so on and
so forth.
Q: Psychologists say that wanting to be alone is sometimes
coupled with a certain distrust of people. Is that the case with
you?
KL: I don't imagine that. But I mean, a little distrust is
healthy. But it's not like I say to myself, they all have bad
intentions. Such distrust often comes, say the psychologists.
But I'm not a psychologist. No, I know. I'm just very much
based on my own instinct. You notice in your case that I put
that in quotation marks that this has something to do with
bad experiences in relationships, in very close relationships.
Q: Have you ever lived in a relationship?
KL: Yes, but unfortunately that didn't go well through death
but I don't know if what you read, you have to question that.
I don't write all the articles myself.
Q:Exactly. You have repeatedly said that you can't stand such
a close proximity to people.
KL: Yes, that's true. It's not a need for me but that was always
the case.
Q: Yes, but when this relationship came to an end,or this
friendship.
Q: If you were sick, would you want to show someone your
closeness?
KL: Then I wouldn't want to show anyone. I'm like the
elephant in the jungle. I think it's horrible that when you're
sick, you put other people at risk. I think that's the worst
thing in life.
Q: Well, if you have the u, you can withdraw, but if it's a...
KL: But there are hospitals and people,thank God, and
people whose job it is. There are heroic nurses, wonderful
doctors. You'd rather see that so professionally than have
someone give you a private visit. I don't even want to have a
hospital visit.
Q: That's interesting. Friends? Do you have friends?
KL: Yes, of course. Many. And in various environments. And I
think that's very important.If you like to be alone, that
doesn't mean you don't have friends.
Q: But your friends, for example, don't come on the weekend
or something?
KL: Not necessarily. There are ve other days.
Q: And the evenings, do you always go out during the week?
KL: No, I almost never leave my house. I invite people, but I
don't leave my house myself.
Q: Don't you have social obligations?
KL: Much less than you think. For me, an excursion or an
outing is coming to you. But apart from that, you can afford...
Yes, that's the height of...Actually, that's probably a greater
luxury than these wonderful apartments and castles and cars
and all that.
Q: What is luxury for you?
KL: Luxury is doing what you want,when you want to, in
pleasant circumstances.
Q: You do that to a large extent, but you also have to do it
often, because a collection has to be nished.
KL: Yes, certainly but that's my job, I like to do that. I don't do
it because I'm forced to. I do it because I wanted to. I never
wanted anything else. And then I added photography and
those are things I love doing. So that's not an obligation for
me.
Q: Does that mean you don't have any stress?
KL: Not too much. You shouldn't exaggerate that. I'm talking
about negative stress. My father turned 90 and didn't know
the word, because it didn't exist at the time and you
shouldn't exaggerate the word stress. It's an open apology.
Q:But isn't stress...
KL: Well, negative stress, there's the positive stress, which is
quite stimulating.
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Q: Isn't stress something that makes people not like what
they do?
KL: Yes, probably. But I'm afraid that 90% of people have
jobs that are basically boring. But I'm lucky that my job is a
leisure activity that has become professional.
Q: And that is also well paid.
KL: Yes, but that's not even the most important thing. It's
easy to say that if it's well paid, that's not the most important
thing. But basically, I do more things for free than you might
think.
Q: Has your quality of life, your joy in life,changed through
increasing fame and also through increasing money? Or was
it the same at all times?
KL: It's hard to answer because you don't really know
anymore for example, you say, I'm going to write down my
memories. Then I compare that with the memories of people
I've known for ages. That's a different story so I often have
doubts about my own memories. It's just the way it is but I
can't say whether that has changed or not so I can't really
count on that because my job is to forget about it and move
on. It's not about looking at my own past in a sad way.
Q: I want to go back to this idea of living alone.Not being
alone on the weekend, but really living alone. That means
that you are the center of life.
KL: In my life, yes of course. That's maybe very sel sh but in
that relationship, I might be sel sh. But my mother always
said, you should never sacri ce yourself because then you
are worthless then you might not even be there anymore.
You can only help others if you have a certain strength. That's
what she meant.
Q: The important thing is that you are happy with it. That you
didn't do it out of necessity.
KL: No, I didn't do it out of necessity I don't have that but in
any case, you have to be careful that you don't become
indifferent to the people, to the circumstances, to what is
happening in the world. That's the only danger of such a life.
If it becomes too comfortable and too luxurious then you
have the feeling that the outside world doesn't exist
anymore or it becomes indifferent.
Q: But where does it come from if you could have settled
down a long time ago if everything is too easy for you, where
does the drive to do so much come from?
KL: My father worked until he was 83 and died of boredom
at the age of 90. So it's just an inner drive. Yes, probably. On
the contrary, I'm even more interested in it today than I was
20 years ago.
Q: You have so many business partners. Don't you miss
someone in private with whom you can talk in private?
 KL: I don't have the need to trust others.Especially not with
people of my own generation. Older or younger. But I avoid
my own age group because I know that story. I don't want to
know that. I can only con rm it but I love people who are 80
or 90. Sometimes I even feel sorry that one day they are no
longer there. Because that was a generation that was much
more cultivated, much more fun and recently one of my
housekeepers told me that if you have your old friends who
are sometimes up to 90, it's a thousand times more fun if
you have your young employees and young friends at home.
They are much more boring and don't have much fun and
don't talk so fast and don't make so much noise.
Q: So you have enough company.
KL: More than you need. Yes, more than you think. In my
case it is almost a struggle to be alone. But that is
probablyonly pleasant if you have to ght for it. If you are
old, sick and poor it is completely different then I can
understand that it is horrible. If you are alone at home, you
don't even know where you are. Then I read, I draw, I design,I
have so many letters to write. There is simply no time. I listen
to the news around midday.
Q: But you read the newspaper?In the morning.
KL: Yes, in the morning. Do you have holidays? Yes, holidays.
Recently I had a letter about holidays for people who go to
the of ce every day. I got a letter, I don't know if it was from
the Bund, that it would be unheard of for me to say that. It
wasn't like that at all. People who have to go to the same
place every day have to go out. It's not the same for people
who have to stay in the of ce for a long time and have
unpleasant bosses or employees who don't like them. You
have to get out of there. I only have an environment where I
have people I like even if I don't see them 24 hours a day.
But for me, ideal holidays are to stay in peace in my house.
This year in August I made 100 illustrations about Chanel.
Those were real holidays. I couldn't do that the rest of the
year.
Q: I can't imagine you in leisure clothes.
KL: What do you call leisure clothes?
Q: Since you say you like to be alone, have you ever felt
lonely?
Q: That's a completely different thing. Maybe sometimes
when I was very young, when I was still in Paris I didn’t really
know all the people but since I have the need for it of course
I don't have the negative feeling of sitting there.
Q: You have, of course, when you say that you withdraw for
four weeks to draw and do something, you have a kind of
creative loneliness.
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KL: But I think loneliness is only bearable when you are
creative otherwise it's probably horrible. Thank God,
whatever comes out of it, my loneliness is creative.
Q: You knew a great lady, Marlene Dietrich, who was very
lonely in the end.
KL: Yes, but that was also because she had such a bad
character and was so uncomfortable with her friends that she
was alone in the end.
Q: But that's a self-involved friendship.
KL: Yes, I mean, she only thanked herself and her own
character for everything.
Q: When you talk about loneliness, death is always near. Is
that a topic you repress?
KL: No, we don't repress it at all. Billions of people have died
before us so let's not make it so dramatic in our own case.
Death is the price of life. I'm sorry, but it's always like that.
Others have died, why don't we?You shouldn't dramatize it.
You should try to have a pleasant life, but one day it's over.
No, no, no. Disappear without a trace. I think that's terrible. I
don't go to a funeral because I don't want people to come to
my funeral. I don't want to invite anyone. I hate that.
Q: How do you stimulate yourself? By loneliness. By this
creative loneliness.
KL: Yes, of course. For example, if I were to describe an ideal
weekend, I'd have a shopping bag full of books. And I'd
know that by Monday morning I'd have the time to
read,watch and study.
Q: And no one would come to pick you up from the fridge
and your phone would be off. Right in the middle of the city.
KL: That's the great thing. When you know that life is a
hundred meters away, that's the great thing.
Q: That's also a kind of loneliness that you could interrupt at
any time.
KL: In a second. I don't even want to make a phone call
because I get the feeling that I'm coming out of my own
daydreams. There's no German or French word for that. We're
in a daydream world. Out of the atmosphere that I create in
my own head. The climate that I need to design. I don't even
want to be disturbed by a self-amusing phone conversation.
Even by people I really like. I just don't want to open my
mouth. I'm a talkative person by nature, but I can stay three
weeks without opening my mouth. Then you can't talk to
anyone. It doesn't bother me at all.
Q: Not even self-conversations?
KL: I de nitely don't speak loudly. That's how old I am. My
case is not so tragic that I speak when I'm alone. I have
nothing against that. But I don't do that. I don't sing either.
It's actually a beloved loneliness and a very creative one. I
think it's important for life and I think all people, the older
they get, should get used to the idea of a certain loneliness
and create a certain wealth from it by being able to cultivate
themselves more and bring out more.
Q: But I think it's a bit yin and yang for you too. This
incredibly busy week and this day that is full of
appointments and full of external in uences and then this
yin and yang, this withdrawal.
KL: Yes, but I tell myself that even if I don't do anything one
day, there are thousands of books in all the languages I
speak that I haven't read yet that I would like to read and that
200 years wouldn't be enough.
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