Kaiser Karl : One Minute, He's Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He's Mixing up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men's Perfume
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6/30/2020 Kaiser Karl : One Minute, He's Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He's Mixing Up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men's Perfume. Then, He's Making and… ADVERTISEMENT Kaiser Karl : One Minute, He’s Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He’s Mixing Up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men’s Perfume. Then, He’s Making and Breaking Top Models. Does Karl Lagerfeld Ever Sit Still? By RONE TEMPEST APRIL 14, 1991 | 12 AM <I> RONE TEMPEST IS THE TIMES' PARIS CORRESPONDENT. </I> It was the day after a disastrous appearance on French television, and Karl Lagerfeld, German-born superman of fashion, was still bristling, fuming with rage. “I almost walked off the set. I should have walked off the set,” he said as he talked with a visitor on the frozen grounds of the Chateau de Champs-sur-Marne, an imposing 18th-Century castle outside Paris where he was photographing a fashion spread for British Vogue. Shooting chateaux is one of Lagerfeld’s latest passions, something he does when he is not putting out 15 or more fashion collections a year for Chanel in Paris, Fendi in Rome and his own signature house, also in Paris; designing costumes for opera and theater; illustrating children’s books, or promoting his thriving American perfume business. “Beautiful--beautiful. Go forward--forward,” he instructed Elena Christensen, a stunning Danish model with cascading dark-brown hair and laser-beam eyes, the latest star of the Karl Lagerfeld fashion label. Christensen was wearing only an embroidered Ottoman jacket, yellow tights and an ostrich-feather hat. She was naked under the short open jacket. It was about 20 degrees, and a bone-chilling wind whipped up the hill to where she was standing in the middle of a frozen fountain. A terrified, shivering, nearly hairless gray whippet whimpered at her side. The dog looked like it wanted to jump into Christensen’s arms, anything to keep its paws off the ice. Lagerfeld, seemingly impervious to the cold, pushed his crew--men, women and dogs--hard. He was in what his staff calls the “Kaiser Karl” phase. His bad mood was the result of his appearance the night before on the live, late-night television talk show, “Bouillon de Culture.” He showed up at the studio with three of his top models, and just before https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-14-tm-535-story.html 1/11 6/30/2020 Kaiser Karl : One Minute, He's Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He's Mixing Up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men's Perfume. Then, He's Making and… the stylish entourage took the stage, host Bernard Pivot surprised Lagerfeld by airing a film about women’s naughty underwear. The feature showed a dozen amateur models, many jigglingly overweight, parading around in black-lace underwear, garters and stockings. “I bring three of the most beautiful, most famous models in the world,” he muttered, his full lips in a pout, “and they do this thing with hideously ugly girls. Rue Saint Denis girls.” (Rue Saint Denis is a notoriously seedy Right Bank address for prostitutes on the low end of the price scale.) It was already midafternoon at the Chateau de Champs-sur-Marne, and the crew had been working nonstop. Earlier during the shooting, one of Lagerfeld’s costume assistants fell on the ice and broke her hand. “I told her to be careful or someone would get hurt,” said Lagerfeld sternly. Despite woeful glances from his associates and the whippet, Lagerfeld showed no interest in breaking for lunch. One woman, part of the British Vogue contingent, tried to keep her mind off the cold by singing “Mr. Tambourine Man.” One of Lagerfeld’s top assistants, Eric “Mr. Right” Wright, a tall, lanky Californian, kept repeating the same anti-cold mantra, “I’m too old for this. I’m too old for this.” Lagerfeld, wearing gloves and a black trench coat, eyes hidden by his ubiquitous dark glasses (“They are tinted, so everything looks better, especially people”), kept pushing his model farther out on the ice. “Go forward, walk more toward the center,” he shouted. Christensen proceeded gamely, hesitating only to express concern for the welfare of the dog. Finally, Lagerfeld pulled back, a paternal tone in his voice. “But if you hear the ice start to crack,” he said, pausing for effect, “start running.” He smiled. For a minute, people forgot the cold and chuckled. Vintage Karl. One minute he is as humorless as a Prussian general. An instant later he is Monsieur Bonheur. “This is not really a sad business, you know,” he said with an engaging grin. SPONSORED CONTENT How can you keep a level head in a weak economy? Think longer term. By Capital Group | American Funds 5 realities of this recession. Karl Lagerfeld, 52, is probably best known as the man who saved the House of Chanel and made pony tails fashionable for middle-aged men. No other designer, with the possible exception of archrival Yves Saint Laurent, exerts as much influence over what people with lots of money wear. His impact on high fashion is as great in North America and Asia, particularly Japan, as it is in Europe. When his most recent Chanel collection was presented in March at the Louvre, the standing-room-only audience included several of the world’s leading designers, among them Oscar de la Renta, who came from New York to take note. In a demanding business that requires sinew as well as sensitivity, Lagerfeld is the rare combination of muscle and mind. His impressive intellect enables him to speak four languages fluently, track the latest trends in popular culture and maintain his passion for 17th- and 18th-Century literature and art. His physical stamina permits him to work https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-04-14-tm-535-story.html 2/11 6/30/2020 Kaiser Karl : One Minute, He's Revising the Chanel Suit. Next, He's Mixing Up a Grapefruit-Mandarin-Scented Men's Perfume. Then, He's Making and… simultaneously for three major design houses--an unprecedented feat--while constantly launching himself into new areas such as photography and furniture design. His great dream, he says, is to one day become a writer, a chronicler of his age like his hero, 17th-Century writer Saint-Simon, diarist of the court of Louis XIV. Lagerfeld is one of the few couturiers who is admired as much for his mind as his sketch pad. He is a much sought-after guest for talk shows and a dream dinner companion, although he grants that favor only to select friends. Lagerfeld is his own creation--an 18th-Century dandy, complete with hair ribbon, bee-stung lips and trademark fan in hand. These are the latest of his affectations; previously, he experimented with a monocle and a beard. But his current image is now so symbolic that he has become its slave, he says. He is under contract by one of his companies to wear the pony tail, of which he has long since tired, and he hates carrying fans so much that he continually forgets them. As he ages, Lagerfeld has begun to look more like a major league catcher than a fop--more Yogi Berra than Beau Brummell. His hair has gone gray. His chiseled cheekbones have melted into the facets of his cube-shaped head. His weight has increased to a stocky 180 to 190 pounds, packed onto a 5-foot-8 frame. “If I’m not a little overweight, I get tired,” he confided. “You have to make a choice between a very chic elegant body or being tough and fit. You either work or you don’t work.” Lagerfeld’s phenomenal success has not necessarily made him happy--some of his friends contend that his dervish- like drive is his way of keeping his mind off tragedies and disappointments in his personal life--but it has made him rich. He is probably the highest-paid designer in the history of fashion, a self-described “one-man multinational corporation” who admits to making more than $5 million a year. “My drive is for doing,” he said. “I have no end in sight. I only like the way to the end.” A handful of designers work for more than one fashion house. Gianfranco Ferre, for example, designs for his own successful Milan-based house and for Dior in Paris. Claude Montana works on his own line and does haute couture for Lanvin. But Lagerfeld designs for three. He also has a contract with a German company to design two collections a year that are produced without his name. While other designers produce four or five collections a year, Lagerfeld is responsible for at least 15. It is Lagerfeld who initiated and propelled recent fashion trends that break down the barriers between classifications of clothing. His were among the first styles to mix sportswear with haute couture , dresswear with lingerie, blue jeans with classic jackets. In an average year, said his longtime assistant and press attache, Sophie de Langlade, Lagerfeld produces at least 2,500 designs, more than seven for each day of the year. “It is nothing for me,” Lagerfeld said, “to spend 20 hours at my desk working, not moving, not answering the telephone.” This does not take into account all of his other activities. He has a huge perfume business in the United States, which is marketed by Elizabeth Arden. Arden officials said that revenue from Lagerfeld scents--Lagerfeld, KL Homme, KL and Chloe --totaled about $100 million in 1990.