Karl Lagerfeld, fashion freelancer extraordinaire, continues to do it all and is showing no signs of slowing. The designer is profiled in The Business of Fashion‘s “Polymaths & Multitaskers” print issue, and really, there is none better to chat with about multitasking than the designer-photographer-illustrator. The piece provides plenty of insight into just how much work the 81-year-old designer actually does and — spoiler alert — it’s a lot.
For Chanel alone, Lagerfeld is producing twice as many collections as traditional houses. “We live in a world where, for this kind of business, we have to be quick and fast,” he says. “My agreement [with Chanel], which is lifelong, says four collections a year: two couture and two ready-to-wear. In fact, I’m doing eight. Not that I ask for more money. But it was my idea that there should be six ready-to-wear [collections] because every two months, everything can be changed. Nobody else has that.”
But that’s not all. Lagerfeld also chats about his more immediate work commitments, which are still quite numerous. “Tomorrow I have to do photos, with the [couture] fittings, of course, and also sketches that I’m late with that I have promised to magazines and all kinds of things,” he admits. “Then I do the dossier de presse for Chanel couture. And before that I have to photograph Frank Gehry, the architect, for Harper’s Bazaar. And there’s also the work with Marc Newson that we are doing for Vuitton.”
He also revealed that he’s been tasked to photograph the designers for Louis Vuitton’s “Iconoclasts” collection — the one for which he also recreated the French fashion house’s famous “LV” logo — along with designers like Rei Kawakubo, who opted out of photos and requested to be sketched by Lagerfeld instead.
But in spite of his ability to do it all, Lagerfeld remains humble…or at least as humble as he can be. “I’m a kind of machine in a way, but it doesn’t really take me effort. I don’t have an ego problem. Most of the designers, especially the young ones, have ego problems. I couldn’t care less. The label is the label and I try what I can do.”
[via The Business of Fashion]
