NY fashion week

So, I had Marc do a show for me from the closet, since Anna and I couldn't be bothered going to see his show. Alber was over and Alber's just too fascinating to miss. Lovely man. Good designer. Stunning work at Lanvin, hmmm? Don't tell him I said that- don't want him getting a big head now, no?

Marc's show was pretty good, delicious. Very edible, hmm? In fact, there were two good collections at NY fashion week.
Marc's and Calvin Klein. The Rodarte girls are lovely, they send me Christmas cards every year- hand made! But their show tried a little too hard, hmm? Nice girls anyway. Nice shoes.

For Calvin Klien we actually went out of the closet to see it and dressed up as a Zebra. A horse is not so fashionable, hmm? So we just marched into the show and sat in the front row. That's the explanation for the Zebra at the CK show- not that it was reported. Anna is powerful, hmm?

Anna, Alber and I have been watching "Gossip Girl". Before we had it acted out in front of us, but now that the closet's uber-exclusive, we cannot let just anybody into it. So Anna got an assistant to go out and buy a television set. Then we threw out a few because it is fun, no? So the assistant had to go back and get more.
"Gossip Girl" is very chic. Serena- she needs to visit the closet sometime.

I've been in the closet for a week now.

(note: we're having a bit of trouble with the shop- some items are coming up as others. ie. the text may say one thing, but the image is another. I've told an assistant to fix this and it should be fixed by tomorrow, hmmmm? Most of the items should be fine. But if an item says it has something to do with Alber, and it has an image of Rei, it's not right, hm?)

Pictured is a tote from the Fake Karl Lagerfeld Cafepress Collection number 1.

Thou shalt always buy Chanel.

"What is this recession?" I said to Anna this afternoon, as we hung upside down in the closet. "I don't know- some poor people complaining I think" she said. "Again?", "Yes, again". "How demode".

"So demode darling".

"We're still rich, hm?"

"I bet my Chanel logo encrusted skull that we are"

"Doesn't matter then".

In other news, I got a protege. Protege Karoline.  She is very good, hmm? Already she has provided high quality...material. Like this.

I want them at the next Chanel party. Actually I want them now. Can you arrange that, Anna?

I expect them in the closet in say....10 mins. About that. They're so hip, so me, so now.

Karoline also showed me this chic girl. Style, children. Style. If I had a daughter- she'd be it.

Wait, do I have a daughter? No- I don't. I'm gay. 

Marc Jacobs sent me an apology bag. "I'M SORRY" it says. I sent him some flowers saying "KARL" on them. The "I'M SORRY" bag is currently storing some rings on mine, no? 

We just had Yohji arrive in the closet. Someone give him some drink, quick. 

Dance of the Hanged Men

Anna isn't actually bothering going to NY fashion week this year. Instead she's got a replacement actor to act as her for the entire duration of it. (How very Andy Warhol of her, hmm?).

So we're hanging upside down in the closet, drinking our respective drinks. We might venture out to see Marc's show, but I don't know about that. He's very milk-and-cookies. I bet he has his milk and cookies every night whilst reading this blog, hmm? Thinking: how can I copy Karl today?

And then he doesn't send me tickets to his show. No matter, though. We can just walk on in, and sit down. Maybe we'll sit on the runway and I'll listen to one of my ipods if the soundtrack's not good.

I mean, I'm Karl Lagerfeld. Nobody will stop me, hm? They'll just stand back and look scared as this defrocked priest, this pope of the stylish, this god of fashion walks past. Then, of course, the groupies will occur. They always do. I cannot have a bath without groupies coming up through the drainpipes! This will slow down the show by a couple of hours as I hold court.

I think it's atrociously rude that nobody sent me tickets to this "New York Fashion Week". Although, we all know the reason, hmm?

They're all scared of what the Kaiser will think. It's like a adult's tea party- you call them "charity dinners", I believe. This is really just an extension of this- with a bunch of adults playing dress up, hmm? "Oooh, what will Karl think if he saw this? Would he even allow us to call it fashion?". 

So the goal is to keep me away from the hideous atrocities the New York kids call fashion. 

This isn't to say all New York fashion is bad. Some of it is quite good, hmm? But since I have X-ray vision behind those dark French-government engineered glasses, I can see your underwear. I see everything. 

To quote Rimbaud's poem "Dance of the Hanged Men":

"On the black gallows, one-armed friend,

The paladins are dancing, dancing
The lean, the devil's paladins
The skeletons of Saladins. "

Which is how I think about NY fashion week, or at least when Anna's laced the Coke with something a little stronger, hmm?

Someone says Fashion is ridiculous. The world doesn't gasp.

See this.
My response: So?

Isn't this stating the obvious? It's like saying the sky is blue, music is something you hear, and the journalist who wrote that is banned from Chanel from now on, hmm?

I mean, I do agree with this:
"I often find it staggering, having sat through a clearly bonkers or unoriginal fashion show - those by Gareth Pugh, Giles, Roberto Cavalli, Armani and Balenciaga spring to mind - when all the members of the fashion press are falling over themselves to rush backstage to pour praise on the designer."

But again, it's obvious. Notice she doesn't mention me. Because I am never ridiculous.

(I guess she's okay then. Someone send her a dress)

Album III

This Album business has really gone on for far too long. It only takes an hour to
design one collection, hm? I've got 2,564 collections just sitting in the back of my wardrobe. All those sheets of paper, just stacked up in shoeboxes from 1960 to 2008. I've done thousands more, but perodically I toss a bagfull of collections (a few hundred or so, you know) out the nearest window. And then the other designers somehow get ahold of them. Seriously. They have whole departments dedicated to finding "Karl's old sketches". All those "fashion design assistants"? Do you really think that's their job?

In fact, I have designed about half of the acclaimed collections for the past few decades. Make that 3/4s. The rest of the filthy hacks (AKA designers) actually use something similar to the "drawing things out of a hat" system as described in a Marc Jacobs entry somewhere back

I just do this for fun, hmmmm?

Anyway. The Album. We decided that we're actually going to have audio on it: I'm going to speak for one hour. Just me, speaking, which I think is brilliant. I could talk about a piece of dust for an hour. I could talk about it for a day. For a year. I'm brilliant.

So there will be two versions of the album. The one sold to the majority of people (read: fatties, stupid people, ugly people or all of the above) will have no audio, as originally planned. There will be one with me speaking on it given to the beautiful people.

I love myself,
Karl

So Marc Jacobs called

So Marc Jacobs called.
I don't answer the phone so I have now had "speaker phones" installed throughout my house, all with the Chanel logo and a self destruct button in place for when I get annoyed by people ringing me up.

Marc was like "Oh, Karl, how is it?" and said that he wanted "to do a collab on a Louis Vuitton project" (the man speaks in italics).

"Oh no I Karl is busy enough, hmmm?"I say.
"uhhh, you know we just put a few options into a hat, and mix them up."
"Yes, I do"
"Why won't you do it then??"
"I don't design like that"
"Hahhahaahahhaha, come on Karl....you must be kidding"
"No."
"You actually design?"
"Yes."
"I thought nobody actually designed these days."
"Hmmmm?"
"You don't use...the hat? Everybody uses the hat!"

One phone is now somewhere in New York. I threw it outside my window. If you have it, email fakekarl at gmail dot com for a fake Chanel dress.

I imagine Marc going "Karl? Karl?? Karl! Hey, I quite like talking to myself."

Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton is tacky, hmm?
I see awful fatties carrying around Louis Vuitton bags on the streets, and people who obviously can't afford Chanel trying to see fake Louis Vuitton on the sidewalks.
There goes the fatties, I think as they walk past me (and supress my vommit). There's a few fatties in the fashion industry too, you know. At least they're intelligent. But these fatties who are walking past me are stupid fatties because they think that buying a bag that says "LV" makes them fabulous. It's actually become a joke for us designers, hm? Whenever we see someone with a Vuitton bag we have to supress a snicker.

Louis Vuitton is fashion McDonalds, non?

Even Marc Jacobs- the man responsible for these bags at Vuitton laughs at his customers behind their backs. Well. When I say "responsible" I mean he draws a colour, fabric, and pattern randomly out of a hat. It's a very nice hat, mind you. This is the Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton design process at work. He calls it the "sorting hat".

So here is the lesson: Do not come in with a Louis Vuitton bag to a Chanel store (I have instructed security to bounce anyone who tries to), a Fendi store, or anywhere near me.

Love, Karl

ps. the image is by Nadia Plesner. I just told one of my assistants to set up a meeting with her. More on this as it develops.