Impostors

It is not often I post anymore, and many of you will be wondering why this is. Well, dear readers, the reason is because a Karl Lagerfeld imitator and his cohorts- socialists and exiled dictators of island nations- imprisoned me inside a chamber consisting of non-ironic tropical print shirts and beige shorts. The very ugliness of the clothing weakened me, eating away at the very fabric of my twelve thousand dollar suit. My high collars (I carry a spare two on me at all times, as a proper gentleman should) were a vestige of the past, and my unicorn-leather shoes simply fell off my feet and shrank like a dehydrated tomato. I have spent the last four months clawing my way out of the chamber, resewing the tropical shirts into the finest vestments of couture and the beige into sari wraps Ms. Vreeland would've been proud to wear. It has been a long journey. It has been painful. To be honest- to be perfectly honest with you, dear readers, I feared for my survival. The beige was that particular shade of beige found in cheap hotels and hospitals that is so hard to work with that it has exterminated whole nations of dessert-dwelling citizens.

Anyway. I am out of that particular quagmire, and the sari wraps and tropical shirt dresses have been sold to very wealthy women with more money than cocktail glasses (or champagne), and I have reasserted my authority as The Actual Karl Lagerfeld. The impostor is apparently trying to launch a collection of low-cost garments under a line called "Karl". I do not do low cost. I do high cost. He has convinced a fair few people, though- he has had the plastic surgery and powerful people are funding him. However, these powerful people dress badly. This is the clue that this "Karl"- one could even call him "Fake Karl", if one wanted- is a fraud. His powerful funders wear shoulder pads. They own a lot of polyester. They own whole closets made out of polyester. What was my solution? Well, it was to string up this Karl impostor in black silk, while I imitated a spider and then put the Karl impostor inside a large dehydrator we obtained from El Bulli, and then- here is the brilliant part- we raised the prices of the "Karl" line. Then everything was OK. I had solved the problem, and I sat back in my Karl Lagerfeld designed chair and read my Karl Lagerfeld designed book of Karl Lagerfeld-taken photographs.

Nobody Ever Called Pablo Picasso an Asshole

Often I sit in restaurants by myself with my ponytail down. You expected me to say something zany and witty like- "I was disguised as a lampshade" or "the lobster soup" or something along those lines. But the simple truth is that my costume is so well-made that if I remove an element of it, nobody thinks it is me. I look more like a German writer or intellectual, well-educated and read but like a million others who sit in restaurants by themselves, but perhaps with a better jacket. On other occassions I have disguised myself as the lobster soup that's neither here nor there, on this ocassion I was simply sitting there ignored by the waitstaff, listening to the conversation going on.

-What I've come up with is a butterfly tattooed on her cunt! said Damien Hirst

-That's so radical and zany! said the woman sitting near him. -Who would've even thought of putting a butterfly on a woman's vagina? I mean, a flower, now that'd just be unoriginal. But a butterfly? Think of the metaphors! It's just...it's just so deep. She put her hands up in the air.

-Think, Damien. A woman's vagina is a beautiful butterfly.

-And, said Damien, and I've come up with an idea for the cover. There could be a butterfly on the cover, another butterfly, one that you can peel off! He put his hands together on his lap and looked rather proud of himself. The woman fawned at him, looking rather a beaming streetlight that'd had too much lemonade. -Brilliant! she said.

-I thought so, said Damien. You see, I'm referencing Andy Warhol. Do you know The Velvet Underground?

-Oh, I love their artwork. It's so po-mo, so real. I love that one painting, "Heroin".

Damien clutched his hands together a little tighter. -Yeah, he said. Well, on one of their...artworks, choosing his words carefully, because this woman spent many millions on art, his artwork, and the customer is always right, even when they possess all the brilliance of the price of their shoes (Prada, of course).

-Well, on one of their artworks, he said, they had a sticker of a banana that said "peel it and see". Really brilliant, he said.

-That's so true said the woman. You are so ART.

-I am art, darling, said Damien.

The woman still could not get over the idea of a butterfly on a woman's vagina and the metaphorical implications it involved.

-I mean, nobody has ever thought of that before! It's just so original! so INSPIRED! Every woman and her dog will want to get her vagina tattooed after that. The SYMBOLISM. You truly are the greatest living artist said the woman. Whatever will you come up with next?

I stopped listening. There is only so much of High Art that one can take. Whatever was Damien's next idea probably would've made my poor little Franco-Germanic head explode. I couldn't even think of what it could be- couldn't begin to imagine. I went back to my meal of air prepared by Thomas Keller and went back to my petty fashion world concerns- nothing as groundbreaking as a butterfly on somebody's vagina, I assure you. Simply another collection. I am but only a humble dressmaker, hm? A man came up to me, asking for an autograph. Mr. Süskind? he said.

MASTERS.

My Dearest Borrowed Constituency,

I have spent several weeks walled in the lining of Karl's libraries. His libraries, you see, are mere facades created largely to conceal the books that he has behind them. Karl himself has no interest of the particular matter that has intrigued me but has occasionally a wisp of Chanel No. 5 would mist under the door and materialise into his form.

We acknowledging each other only with the gentlest movement of our noses. I put the kettle on, which was leant to me by my dear friend Cecil, brew tea from the colour Umber and speak in utters.

you can hear him think

ing, it sounds like an old house in a high wind or a crotchet

y clock that refuses to strike 12 - making Cinderella dance forever and never turn back to rags.)

I have discovered such a thing called University. There are many of them, almost like a franchise that specialises in selling Very Little. Some more than others, I'll admit. It is the perfect farce.

I myself never particularly had the need for University. I was approached about working and I thought I might try it for a lark. Apparently there are even entire places that specialise in teaching one how to create. Not just garments and the like, which I could understand as they have some sort of technical know-how that I imagine would be harder to absorb by diffusion. One can garner a Master of Writing from such a place, as though the accreditation is an actual thing.

Part of my perusing of said places I stumbled across one of these supposed writers. She was half a lay-about, catatonic apathy had passed over her and she described it as "musing". She waved a limp hand at a pile of scrap paper, covered in half thoughts.
- Writing is easy - she said - Mondays and Wednesdays I work on my novel, Tuesdays I tutor, Thursdays... -

- Goldfish - I muttered under my breath as I ran my scatter claws through her scraps. I found one piece of writing that had been created by cellotape and half thought thoughts.

If I still had a functioning oesophagus or tearducts then I... I don't know what would have happened, but it wouldn't have been FASHION. I am lucky I had them removed at a young age.

Masters.

The lord giveth

Question: Is Karl's new novel ready yet?

Answer: Yes, it it. Part one is ready to be purchased, for two dollars- the price of bourgeois person's soul, if I believed in such things. When part two is ready, the novel will be updated and you will find yourself with part two glaring at you on your ipad or kindle or whatever you read with, if you are one of those heathens who use digital. A better idea is to have your book binder bind a copy for you. And bind a new book for "part two", and "part three" and so on.

Question: Where can I purchase this fine book?

Answer: here.

Art, I suppose

One must remember that to be in the art world is to be pretty (gorgeous is even better- but not too gorgeous, otherwise you are regulated to the zoo of models). I made this observation when I was looking at photos my agents in Venice dredged up, from this Venice art fair that goes on there. Everybody looked exactly the same- as if they were transplants from the hair of the fashion world, and everybody knows that fashion has no heir, so everything is particularly stark and boring. There is a reason Anna only attends fashion world parties for 15 minutes- they are simply insufferably boring events filled with so many patting each other on the back that one begins to suspect one is in some sort of modern dance instillation (the most terrifying aspect of this being that you're surrounded by all these modern dancers, slapping each other on the back- not too hard as to damage their finely-sculpted skin, and that getting out means moving around them and through them).

I said to my assistant, "you know, the problem with art today is that there's too many pretty people, and they all look so similar, so the art they produce is so similar and everything's boring. Andy Warhol was never pretty. It's his mistake, though, probably- the Edie mistake. Now everyone wants to be an Edie and nobody wants to be an Andy".

"Oh."

"And that's the problem- nobody wants to be ugly anymore. Too many good looking people. Make a note of that. I only want to hire conjoined twins and circus freaks from now on- hire the entire Diane Arbus range of people. Is there a place that sells them? Buy them in bulk. Staff them in the stores. Give a few stickers that they can stick on themselves and say "artist".

"Is that what makes an artist?"

"Of course. I have a label sewn into this suit that says "dressmaker".

A bit later, when the assistant was gone, I started talking to myself.

"The collectors used to be odd looking too, you know- bulbous New York men in Italian suits and women wearing colours that'd make Matisse blush. The collectors are boring looking as well, now. Is it because of boring looking art? Does boring looking art breed boring looking people?" I started throwing some Picassos out the window, in the hope that some women would look at the painting and give birth to an interesting-looking, interesting-thinking child. I put the Jeff Koons I was sent as a gift into the deepest darkest depths of my closest, hoping nobody would be able to see it ever- dull art is a dangerous thing, you know. I threw several Cartier-Bressons out the window beside the first window, and out the third window I threw several volumes of a Lee Friedlander book, in the hope that somebody would give birth to a child who doesn't follow the terrors of the Düsseldorf school of photography, and those hideous Becher people- I met them once and they made their cups of tea exactly the same way, every time. I asked them if they ever got bored and they smiled tightly.

And While None Of You Were Paying Attention

Loyal Readers,

By now you will think that I have grown bored of this blog thing, that I have perhaps obtained a tumblr where I post pictures of macaroons with my portrait on them, or that I have decided to leave the world of the world wide interweb entirely and sculpt men I find beautiful and desirable out of materials such as chocolate or coffee. This has all been a rouse, as the more onto it of you will have realized. You who saw the symbols I wrote in the sky, and the smoke signals I made at the Vermont property, and the little encoded bits of information I've placed in the last few Chanel collections. Your savior has not left you, your savior has just reached the stage where he prefers to be perverse and cryptic to wheedle out all the chaff and find out who my True Followers are. This is important. I do not believe in a democratic system of any sort, and nor do I for these web-blogs. True Believers would've noticed the way I wrinkled my nose last Saturday at the Charity Function For Rich People With Too Much Money And Who Cares What The Cause Is Anyway? and they would've went to their special-edition Karl Lagerfeld decoder books, and matched up the nose wrinkle with their deluxe-edition Karl Lagerfeld mood ring, and then consulted the length of the grass outside, and known "ah! it is coming!"

And what is coming, dear readers? What is coming is a novel which I have written. It is in digital form, because digital is more in the moment than print anyway, and it will come out in installments. It will be like playing Waiting For Godot, the book. Or it will be like living in Victorian England and waiting for a new installment of Dickens' latest novel about social injustice and all that rubbish. Or it will be like waiting for one stone tablet at a time. Except this is essentially the greatest novel since Ulysses, and will be more influential than The Bible.

Look out for further signals. Pray often (and don't even think about praying if you're not well dressed).

A-R-T

Contemplating the word lackadaisical - I have decided is the drunk on the footpath of words - I, quite appropriately, stumbled into a little art gallery.

I say art gallery, when really those two words need capitals. Art Gallery. Capitals imply intent, which is why all countries have them. Art. Gallery. There was a Photography Showing on. The place was filled with those types of people who Look Down Upon Fashion and simultaneously Aspire To Be Fashionable. Have you seen them? I suppose you have. They have a long lost love affair with bowler hats, men and women, almost as though they are reconnecting with someone else’s roots. Bowler hats were in fashion when I was a chit.

Can one even do that? By the by, Mr. Steinmann, could I possibly reconnect with you? I do so like those curly sideburns you flaunt. They are very Fashion.

My word, I spun, or rather, my assistants turned the pedestal I happened to be standing on at the time, Who are You?

Me?! He said, brandishing his arms in a manner that implied my question was not worth answering. Who are You! He answered

My dear –

I don’t want any patrons of the arts! – he cut me off – I don’t want your approval! Go and buy your Hirst’s and Tillman’s, I don’t want any of your type there. You… you are too shiny!

That would be the gold I dust myself with each morning.

It is shiny!

I turned, or rather, my assistants turned me.
It is shiny - I conceded – but that was my intent.

Intent, PAH! – he threw his arms up in the air once more – you are just like every other burgeoning excuse for a photographer with your digital cameras and your photoshopping images to make them look as if they’re not digital and the way that you look at your camera after every shot. PAH! You don’t know ART. You don’t know what ART is!

My dear – I raised an eyebrow and began making icicles form mid-air – I was alive when Art was INVENTED. I have followed Art with Great Interest! What is this picture? It is a cloud.

It is MORE THAN JUST A CLOUD.

It is a cloud. In a sky.

IT IS ART. IT IS AN ABSTRACT PAINTING. LOOK AT THE COLOUR BLUE.

That is precisely the colour blue from the cover of my first editorial.

IT IS AN ORIGINAL COLOUR BLUE.

I believe it was then stolen from me by Chanel herself.

LOOK AT THE COLOUR. IT IS AN ABSTRACT PAINTING.

Yes, I conceded, growing tired. It is an abstract painting. Of a cloud. I can tell what is going to happen now - I said to this person, turning on my pedestal, looking for any lying lackadaisicals - The end is going to just arrive like someone unwanted at a small party.

I IMAGINE IT WILL.