Lagerfeld Confidential

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Can I come in, Karl?

Can I?

What accessories should I take

for those "creatures"?

Obviously, I can't find them.

I'll take a few rings I might need.

Let's go.

See you tomorrow, Sir.

Good to see you like that.

Our filmmaker thinks

I look like a priest!

A defrocked one perhaps.

A priest for non-believers.

A clairvoyant

told my mum I'd be a priest.

Quite rightly, she didn't want that.

They suffered a rather extreme

Catholic education.

I wasn't allowed to go to church.

I had no religious education.

My mother said,

"It's up to you."

LAGERFELD CONFIDENTIEL

Who's that singing?

Arielle Dombasle.

I've been at it for 19 years now.

Photography?

I began in January 1987.

What was the occasion?

A press kit.

Proper photographers didn't do that.

It was a job for old squares

or youngsters starting out.

Back then, a press kit was done

before the collection was finished.

They did a kit for the couture

and got it wrong three times.

Chanel's artistic director,

Eric Pfrunder, said,

"If you're going to be difficult,

do it yourself."

So I hired an assistant, rented

a camera, and we did it ourselves.

the catalogue and adverts.

I loved photography

but didn't think I could do it.

As it turned out...

I wasn't so bad.

What I like about photographs

is that they capture a moment

that's gone forever,

impossible to reproduce.

There's an almost melancholic,

ephemeral, fixed aspect to it.

It's what makes photography

so captivating.

But that's for a certain kind of photograph.

Otherwise it's a commercial image.

I like advertising.

I'm an advertising photographer

and delighted to be so.

I've always loved advertising.

If I wasn't in fashion,

that's what I'd be in.

I love the smell of building sites.

Marie-Louise de Clermont-Tonnerre

for Mr Karl Lagerfeld, please.

It's Sebastien.

I'll put Karl on.

Marie-Louise, it's me again.

We can't ensure her presence.

I can't plan 6 months ahead.

We might be dead by then.

I can't deal with everyone

on the same day.

It's a bit too early for Nicole.

People with turbulent lives

who spend their time on the phone

are sexual freelancers.

I'm being watched,

I have to be careful.

I don't want to be filmed

without my glasses.

I read without glasses

so I have to hide myself.

Aren't you tired of it all now?

Not at all.

Haven't you covered the issue?

There's no definitive answer.

It isn't an issue you can ever cover.

The question keeps changing.

That's why

I do the job.

There is no answer.

I like it to go well for all the people

who have worked so hard.

I don't spend 100 hours on a dress.

I get the idea and design it.

But making them takes lots of work,

know-how, physical effort and patience...

Something I don't have.

I have no patience.

I admire what they do,

what I have them do.

I couldn't do it myself.

I just have the ideas.

I love being in a crowd,

I love being alone.

But I need time to myself,

to recharge my batteries.

I can't be with people 24 hours a day.

I'm not cut out for conjugal life.

At some point I need to be alone,

which is fine.

I hate people who can't be alone.

We'll do two pinch marks

for the side, Christine...

That's it.

Was Karl pleased?

- Very.

That's good.

It's the skirts...

The one in the show must be done first.

The best things I've ever done

have come from dreams.

I don't know who did them.

Unfortunately, you can't rely on it.

Sometimes it's a whole show,

including the sets.

Remember the July collection,

the black coats and everything?

I dreamed it all,

including the sets.

I filled in the details

but I'd seen the basic thing.

Unfortunately, you can't rely on it.

It seldom happens.

It's rather surprising

because I don't fall asleep

thinking of dresses,

my head teeming with ideas.

I'm not that obsessive.

I love the job

but it's no more important to me

than photography, books, etc.

It's part of my life.

Two hundred percent apparently,

since my subconscious is overloaded.

But it isn't something I ponder.

They aren't jobs that fit

any criterion of social justice.

It's like cinema.

Lots of boys and girls want to do it

but very few make it.

Sadly, Nicole Kidmans are

thin on the ground.

To do this job, you must be able

to accept injustice.

Same goes for fashion.

There are other careers.

You can work for social security,

get promoted, work behind a counter...

It's a safe bet.

If you want social justice,

be a civil servant.

Fashion is ephemeral,

dangerous and unfair.

There's a German proverb that says,

"You can't borrow on your past."

Each collection is the first and so,

luckily for me, not the last.

I can make up for

my mistakes next time.

I love the futurism aspect of the job.

One thing I hate...

We saw it in the 60s

with their vision of the year 2000:

everyone dressed in white,

carefree, on the moon...

We're not, and we don't need to go there.

That's all crap.

It's every six months.

The briefness of the cycle must mean

something to me because I love change,

I'm attached to nothing.

It's just keeping the machine oiled.

Moving on is no big deal.

The other's coming.

She has to run.

The white one!

She'll go out with you...

People like to think fashion

is about being a star.

But it isn't.

It's work, not the high life.

I don't do it for the travel,

the vacations, the skiing...

It's all secondary to me.

What were you like as a child?

Quick-tempered? Capricious?

Pretty spoiled.

Good job my mother slapped me.

I thought the world revolved round me.

I lived in the country on the Danish

border, in northern Germany,

where nothing ever happened,

in the years just after the war.

The few people I know

who knew me as a child

say I was like a male Shirley Temple:

rather unbearable and spoiled.

I always felt hard done by!

I never considered it was enough.

Were you a dreamer?

A dreamer?

No, that's not the word.

I had a vision of what I wanted

to do, and how I wanted to do it.

An idea, a vision

for which I was prepared

to make any sacrifice

but not any compromise.

I was born determined.

When you were a child,

did you ever idealise your mother?

No. She was perfect:

funny, witty, with lots of front.

I've never met anyone with as much front.

She might seem nasty at first

but she used to...

get round people.

She could also be unspeakably nasty.

She made slaves of everyone:

her lovers, husbands... everyone.

She could get her way with people

and she never thanked anyone.

She must have had a gift for it!

She was comical,

no doubt about it.

Everything was taken lightly,

there was nothing to worry about.

It's a good attitude to have in life.

Deep down, she may have been anxious

and very serious

but she always exuded frivolity,

not taking anything seriously,

impervious to circumstance,

no birds of ill omen or anything.

The polar opposite

of the typical German mother.

In German literature,

a mother's role is no fun.

She'd tell me to make an effort.

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