Some People Say I've Got The Blood Of The Land In My Voice

I am still trying to work out why I ended up in New York for a few days. Anna told me there would be a whole roomful of fingerless leather gloves for me if I came, and another a whole ballroom of collars. I, of course, jumped at the chance. I didn't really jump- I perched on my tip-toes, looked down condescendingly at whatever was below me, and what was below me was a fax machine and sheets of paper, so I glared condescendingly at the fax and sheets of paper then said "yes" to Anna. When I got to New York I found out that this was a set-up to get me to attend an event they call "Fashion's Night Out". I said to nobody in particular- "but every night is a night out for fashion, no?" Nobody in particular replied- "yes, but not for the proles. Think of it like this, Karl- it is fashion's V for Victory".

"Is there a war going on?" I said.

"Uh...well", said nobody in particular. "People are losing their jobs and uh.."

"They're definitely losing their jobs" said someone else.

"Definitely" said nobody in particular. I said I'd find it more interesting if say, Paris was attacking New York with giant bottles of wine and cheese, and fashion's night out was a sort of defence.

"It can be, if you want it to be" said nobody in particular.

So I went around this "fashion's night out" giving the V for Victory sign with my hands. Somebody asked if I knew Klingon.

"Klingon?" I said.

"You know, Star Trek-"

"Ah, yes. My favourite television series. If I watched television."

"Your favourite television series if you watched television?"

"Well you see, I don't. But I'm sure it would be a favourite. I'm a big fan of men in tights."

"Sir, you are thinking of Batman" said an annoying PR lackey from my office.

"No, definitely Star Trek" I said. "Do they have Star Trek here?"

"Let me ask Anna.."

I probably attended some dinner, though I attend so many dinners it's hard to keep track. Do you know that most people eat at least three times a day? That's 21 dinners a week. I don't know how some people do it, frankly. I try to attend at least one dinner a day, but often these things are so boring, you know- "oh Karl! Karl! Karl!", and hideous sycophantic people who, I believe, inject themselves with preservatives every morning. You can tell if they inject themselves with preservatives or not- if you leave them out in the kitchen for a few days and they're not growing mold, they have preservatives in them. We keep Chanel staff in the fridge over night. Actually, that's why I'm not showing the "Karl Lagerfeld" line at Paris fashion week- our fridges broke down and all the staff grew moldy and out of date. Demode, you could say.

The World's Longest Dinner (or, be careful of your waitress at the Tate Modern, she just might be an EEL)

I just came back from the World's Longest Dinner Party. It lasted for 8 days. These things do- they're either very long or very short. I try and make them about 10 minutes, people are rarely interesting after that. But this dinner party ended up being...an interesting social experiment.

The party itself was one of those social events that involve food and people and people wearing clothes. There's also "small talk" at these social events- the conversation generally goes like:
Person one: Mutter mutter OH YES mutter.
Person two: Flatter flatter flatter DON'T YOU LOOK GOOD flatter.
And so on.

If Donatella, Coco bless her plastic soul, is involved in the party it will go something like this:
Person one: Honour honour flatter flatter ITALIAN FOOD flatter
Donatella: Mutter LOOK AT MY MEDUSA LIPS mutter mutter

Meanwhile, if Anna is involved in a the party conversation with her would sound something like this:
Person one: Fear idol fear loathing fear honour-to-meet-you fear.
Anna: Hello.
20 minutes later.
Anna: BLERGddhdDSHSSIEYRDnhcsjcfscnscjscDDJDAcfbsjfbafbsjfbsoaiddhdbJCJNJNCSCA.

Which is why Anna does not go to many parties. She really can enunciate tha many letters than fast. It's something of a party trick. By 2 hours later, Anna will have mistaken most of the guests for deer and start shooting them. It's all that time she's spent at my place in Vermont.

If I were to sum up the dinner party I went to mathematically, we could say that it was 80% "You DO look good" and so on, 5% Donatella and 7.5% Anna- the rest being the people Anna shot at the party, with a tiny dash of Tom Ford attempting to direct a movie with his Sony camera.

The press clippings from the party probably would read something like this:
"Anna Wintour shot 12 people at a party recently, held by the fabulous Mr. and Mrs. So and so. When interviewed by the police about the incident, she claims that she mistook several guests of the party as deer, and proceeded to shoot them as she would do on Karl Lagerfeld's Vermont property. The people were not eaten, and are now in the good care of graveyards. Chef to the stars, Mr. Somesuch, worries about the waste of food: "Well in this resseccion, you've gotta take everything you can for food. When I was a little boy growing up in Scotland, we had to eat food out of newspapers. Nay, we had to eat it off the ground! Nay, we had to eat it at sea level!
Meanwhile, Ms. Wintour has entered into a plea bargain with the police about the unfortunate incident. She will make gun safety commericals to screen in September- "a faaaabulous tie-in to the "September Issue", Large Editor of American Vogue, Andre Leon Talley said. Ms. Wintour also said that she did not intend on shooting anyone else, although she believes guns will be a big accessory in summer 09. More on this exciting accessory story as it happens."

Of course, that story will never be published because here at Chanel, we have a certain power over the elite. It isn't good publicity to have editors going around killing people, you know. Deer or not deer. The fabulous Mr. and Mrs. So and So ended up holding everyone hostage for 8 days, where there was much chit-chat that went around the lines of "prison uniform is SO not chic," and "flatter DON'T YOU LOOK GOOD," as the fabulously well-to-do guests were not so much air heads as helium heads, unaware that Mr. So and So were holding them hostage. Eventually, everyone signed the criminal equivalent of a post-nup (a post-shoot?) and they were allowed to leave, air-kissing everyone until the only things left to kiss were themselves, which they did with remarkable dexterity. And that was dinner.