On the real Karl Lagerfeld: “I am a cocktail.”
On the silhouettes of today: “The modern silhouette is much more inclusive and diverse. My new campaign for Chanel has Ines [de La Fressange], Stella [Tennant] and Freja [Beha Erichsen]: women from the 80’s, 90’s and now. The stick thin silhouette is over.”
On couture: “Buying couture is no worse than collecting expensive cars. People are rich enough to buy them. Others make a living from that. I have no fake guilt about couture.”
On perfectionism: “I am always in a bad mood but only with myself, not with others, so that’s okay. I am mean to myself. I always think I can do better. I like a challenge. When someone says, ‘It’s impossible,’ I like it.”
On the Chanel hierarchy: “Nobody tells me what to do at Chanel… I am there to be used. I like to be used, but only in the way I think I should be used.”
On Coco Chanel: “Coco Chanel did a lot for fashion but not as much as she said she did. She was a woman of her times and in the 30s and 40s there were only two fashion options: Chanel or Balenciaga. But she made two crucial mistakes at the end of her career. In the 1960s she tried to give lessons in elegance. She said she had asked a lot of men and not a single one said they liked the mini skirt. In my opinion, no man dared tell this old lady what he really thought. And she said jeans were horrible. So she lost her power.”
