IN THE MAGAZINE

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Published March, 2010

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KARL LAGERFELD

(Page 4 of 7)

Since Karl likes comics of himself, we commissioned this one by Johnny Ryan.

Concerning the female form: Beth Ditto from the Gossip? What do you think of her image?
She is very good. I know her very well. She’s genius. She doesn’t end up in what we use for shows, but she has real personality.

I just saw the Gossip in Berlin and she’s amazing. There’s so much criticism about fashion and the emaciated body, but you obviously love the voluptuous as well.
Yes, totally.

Let’s talk about fur. I grew up on a farm. My father was a trapper and a hunter.
Me too. My father was not really a farmer, but I spent my time around the country so I know everything about country life.

Mine used to trap wild mink and muskrats and beavers.
There’s nothing else to trap in those areas.

It was part of his income.
That’s why I always say, when people talk about not using fur, “Are you rich enough to make an income for the people in the north who live from hunting? What do you want them to live off of when there’s nothing else to do?”

That’s why I’ve always found the anti-fur thing kind of strange. It was part of the way that my family made a living.
It is farmers who are nice to the cows and the pigs and then kill them. It’s even more hypocritical than hunters. At least the hunters don’t flatter the animals. I remember when they killed the pigs when I was a child. I still hear the noise in my ears.

Are you a vegetarian?
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.

You’re sort of irreverent about fur.
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.

This is another paradox that I like about you. There’s nothing conspicuous about the way you use things.
If you can afford it, OK. But if you think it’s an investment, then forget about it.

Your relationship to technology is kind of interesting.
Well, I hate telephones. I prefer faxes because I like to write.

Who are you faxing? Nobody faxes anymore. You’re like the only person with a fax machine.
People I’m really friendly with have faxes. Anna Wintour has one. We speak via fax. And in Paris I send letters to people.

That’s a lost art.
I have somebody to deliver letters all over every day.

You send a note over.
Yes, I send notes.

That’s very Victorian.
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.

The whole culture of cell phones, texting, and instant messaging is very impersonal and also very distracting.
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.

I think that you might have Asperger syndrome. Do you know what that is? It’s a kind of autism. It’s like an idiot savant.
That’s exactly what I am. As a child I wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to know everything—not that I like to talk about it. I hate intellectual conversation with intellectuals because I only care about my opinion, but I like to read very abstract constructions of the mind. It’s very strange.

That’s quite Asperger’s. There’s a boy who’s 20 years old; you can see him on YouTube. He’d never seen Paris from the air before and they flew him over Paris in a helicopter. Then they took him to a studio and he drew the entire city. Building by building, street by street.
I can do that with the antique Greek world.

That’s what I’ve heard.
If I had to make another choice I would have studied languages and antique civilizations.

Did you study Latin at all?
Yes, but for someone who speaks German it’s easy. It’s the same grammar and it’s pronounced the same way. For French speakers it’s much more difficult. When I was 10 or 12 years old I could speak Latin like I speak English. But I cannot speak Latin with French people. I don’t understand the way they pronounce it. For me, they don’t pronounce it right. But I love dead languages. Homer was one of the first books I read when I was starting to read. I think the Iliad is still one of the greatest books in the world.

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