Karl Lagerfeld’s Small World. By Marianne Mairesse. Taken from Marie Claire Dec 05.
MC: Do you like looking at people behind your glasses?
KL: I am not blind.
MC: No, but…
KL: My job is to see, not to be seen. I am scanning like a radar and I see very fast. It is easier to make a mistake when counting on others. I like to be with others, but I honestly don’t need it. I’m very fine with myself. It seems horrible to say, but that’s the truth.
MC: Do you guess who you are dealing with?
KL: Yes, I should have been an astrologer. Really, I tell you, it’s horrible. I know everything in advance. That’s the worst thing that can ever happen to you. Some people make it their job, but me, I hate astrologers. I can see people who are going to die young. It’s written on their face. Don’t worry: it’s not written on yours. (Laughs.) There is no justice. The social injustice is almost the only one that can be solved. When a girl is ugly, that she has a fat ass close to the floor, what do you want her to do? She will never be Claudia Schiffer. This is a real injustice. Same thing for boys. A man with a height of 1.5m will never forgive himself for being so short. I hate short men. They are the meanest, the most frustrated and the most grudge-bearing race that exists. I hope you don’t have a boyfriend whose height is 1.5m. Be warned.
MC: Who is your family today?
KL: I don’t have anyone. Family life has never been for me. I love others’ children but I never wanted to have one myself. First of all, I am irresponsible. Organising holidays, activities, this is not for me. I hate new fathers. I find them artificial. Women are far more gifted for this. I enjoy spending time with others’ children for a while, but then, I give them back to their parents. It’s like tidying them like trinkets. I am a very bad influence on children. I have a tendency to spoil them. But you know, what would have freaked me out the most comes from this sentence that I heard once: “The best moment of a father’s life is when he notices that his son is mediocre.” I wouldn’t have appreciated this. And what if he would have beena hundred times better than me, would I have liked it? A question to avoid. It would have been easier with a girl. But if she would have been an idiot, I wouldn’t have liked it neither. If I would have been a woman, I would have wanted lots of children.
MC: Do you have lots of friends?
KL: I don’t do any name dropping. I hate people who only quote famous people that they come into contact with once in a while. Me, I don’t know a soul.
MC: But without naming them, do you have many friends?
KL: It’s better not to have too many. It’s a very bad sign to be friends with everybody. I am not Massimo Gargia. I have some friends, boys and girls. Enough for what I need in life. Otherwise, it would awful. It’s fine to be a monster, but there are some limits.
MC: You seem to be very faithful.
KL: Yes, but it is inconvenient. If people don’t meet my expectations, my punishments are terrifying. I never attack, but I am a champion at throwing back the ball, in the right or wrong way. Mainly when they think that it’s forgotten. I didn’t have a Christian education; I don’t forgive easily.
MC: You often say that you are “self-fascist”. Is there anything that might be out of your control?
KL: No, what could it be?
MC: I am asking you…
KL: Health can be out of your control. You can control more or less the rest. When I wanted to lose weight, I had myself lose weight. I can do whatever I want with myself, whenever I want, as I want… If it’s worth it I’ll make the effort. People don’t dare to admit it but vanity is finally the best treatment to maintain good health. If you don’t fit in a Dior size 46, it’s totally depressing. But you have to be careful. People who base everything on their physical appearance are the ones suffering the most from depression. If you are pretty, it won’t last forever. But if you are an idiot, you’ll be one all your life.
MC: Something you can’t control is anguish…
KL: Yes, but you have to analyse and understand your anguish. Not all of them are real. It’s a very fashionable word. I am in a bad mood on Monday mornings. It’s not my day. There’s only abd news, and everything goes wrong. It’s not because it reminds me of Mondays at school because I didn’t go often. At the age of 5, I could read, write, speak English, French and German whereas my classmates were complete idiots. I thought I was the eighth wonder of the world. It went to my head so much that my mother slapped me on the head!
MC: How do you spend your evenings?
KL: A perfect evening for me is a dinner at a restaurant with friends or even a drink at the Flore. It depends, I am not hard to please. It can also be an evening at home, coming back, having lots of new books to look at, not too many phone calls, chilling out in the right meaning of the word, keeping myself informed, reading newspapers, drawing. An ideal evening is an evening where I don’t need to look at the time. Coming back home thinking, “I have to go out again in half an hour, so I have to get dressed” makes me feel like killing myself. Appointments made centuries in advance always end up spoiling my life. If someone calls me at 8.55pm to meet me at 9, I can get ready within five minutes. I feel horrified by preset lives: Tuesdays, it’s this, Wednesdays, it’s that… I really only can be friends with people who are able to improvise. I also don’t mind being ditched last minute! What good luck, at last a bit of tranquility.
MC: What is the last movie you liked?
KL: What I like the most in movies are the stars. Me, I need Nicole Kidman. I am very “Hollywood, 30s”. I don’t really feel like knowing about the not funny reality of 90 percent of people. Most of the time, I don’t watch a movie until the end in the cinema. I like buying tickets for all the screens and stay 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there… I don’t want to watch one whole movie, it’s too long and too talkative.
MC: Has your homosexuality once been hard to live?
KL: That’s what I chose.
MC: But others’ glance is sometimes stigmatising.
KL: These kind of things never really concerned me. When I was 11, I asked my mother what homosexuality was, she answered me: “It’s like hair colours. Some people are blond, others are brunette. Some people are like this.” It’s not a topic. It’s none of people’s business.
MC: Your perfect day?
KL: A whole day without looking at the time.
MC: There must be a lot then!
KL: Unfortunately no. It’s not obvious but I am making inhuman efforts. I am always late. This is the tragedy of my life. I am born three weeks after the due date. My mother said she went to the hospital every day because she didn’t want “the dirt” to arrive at home. I have never managed to catch-up with those three weeks.
