Karl was recently interviewed by Bruce LaBruce for VICE Magazine.
I have a whole lotta love and even more respect for Mr Lagerfeld. Growing up, I knew who that big guy with the black clothes and ponytail was. Mamas and I used to watch fashion shows and that is where my love for “beauty” started. Thanks Mamas. Now I am a carbon copy of her – and proud.
Back to the VICE interview.
His sunglasses:
Vice: I like that you make it clear that you don’t want to be photographed or filmed without your sunglasses on. I don’t either. Who would?
KL: They’re my burka.
Vice: Exactly. A burka for the eyes.
KL: A burka for a man. I’m a little shortsighted, and people, when they’re shortsighted, they remove their glasses and then they look like cute little dogs who want to be adopted.
Vice: I’m actually nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other.
KL: You can’t operate at all with what you have?
Vice: No. They say I’ll never need glasses because I only use one eye for distances and one eye for close up.
KL: That’s perfect, no? I want to stay shortsighted or else I will need glasses for reading. But I don’t want them because I sketch, I do everything without glasses, except for speaking to strangers. Especially if they wear glasses, too.
Vice: I hate it when photographers are like, “Can we have one with your glasses off?” Why? You can see me just fine.
KL: I had an interview once with some German journalist – some horrible, ugly woman. It was in the early days after the communists – maybe a week after – and she wore a yellow sweater that was kind of see-through. She had huge tits and a huge black bra, and she said to me, “It’s impolite; remove your glasses.” I said, “Do I ask you to remove your bra?”
Fur:
Vice: Are you a vegetarian?
KL: Not really. I have to eat meat once a week because my doctor wants me to, but I prefer fish. I don’t like that people butcher animals, but I don’t like them to butcher humans either, which is apparently very popular in the world.
Vice: You’re sort of irreverent about fur.
KL: If you cannot afford it, just forget about it. Don’t use it as an investment piece to show people how rich you are. Use it like a cheap knitted thing. It’s like a big stone. Lucky you that you can have a big stone, but if it troubles you financially to have the stone, don’t have the stone.
Vice: This is another paradox that I like about you. There’s nothing conspicuous about the way you use things.
KL: If you can afford it, OK. But if you think it’s an investment, then forget about it.
Technology:
Vice: Your relationship to technology is kind of interesting.
KL: Well, I hate telephones. I prefer faxes because I like to write.
Vice: Who are you faxing? Nobody faxes anymore. You’re like the only person with a fax machine.
KL: People I’m really friendly with have faxes. Anna Wintour has one. We speak via fax. And in Paris I send letters to people.
Vice: That’s a lost art.
KL: I have somebody to deliver letters all over every day.
Vice: You send a note over.
KL: Yes, I send notes.
Vice: That’s very Victorian.
KL: Yes, but there’s not one bit bad about the Victorian. Civilized living for me is like this. I’m not a chambermaid whom you can ring at every moment. Today, you know, most people act like they work at a switchboard in a hotel.
Vice: The whole culture of cell phones, texting, and instant messaging is very impersonal and also very distracting.
KL: I’m not working at a switchboard. I have to concentrate on what I’m doing. The few people I have in my telephone are already too much. When I’m on the phone I talk, but I really want to be alone to sketch, to work, and to read. I am reading like a madman because I want to know everything.
Drugs:
Vice: You never experimented with drugs at all?
KL: Never.
Vice: Ever?
KL: I saw others doing it and I didn’t think it was such a success.
Vice: You didn’t even have a curiosity?
KL: No. There was a famous man who had written about flies and insects, and I’m like the one who watches the insects. I prefer to see how drugs work on others. And I cannot smoke cigarettes. I need my hands for something else. When I was 14 I wanted to smoke because my mother smoked like mad. I wanted to smoke to look grown-up. But my mother said, “You shouldn’t smoke. Your hands are not that beautiful and that shows when you smoke.”
Weight-loss:
Vice: And when you finally lost the weight, what made you do it?
KL: Well, there came this new line from Hedi Slimane at Dior, that you needed to be slim to wear. It said, “You want this? Go back to your bones.” And so I lost it all. I lost 88 pounds and never got them back.
Narry says: Love his humor.
