Karl Lagerfeld's Guide to Life

Impostors

2012-01-26T14:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-08-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2011-08-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

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

2011-05-19T21:01:00.001-07:00

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

2011-04-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

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.

In which I deem you worthy of hearing my thoughts

2011-03-21T21:26:00.001-07:00

You know, I've been busy. I've been busy filming things like Magnum commercials, commercials for detergents, and commercials for washing machines. It is all quite a serious business! I designed the last few collections in my sleep, whilst planning out the Magnum commercial (why is she eating the Magnum? Who is she eating the Magnum? What is Magnum, when I fondle my jackets and observe the world for the imported room of no-decaying ice I had imported from Antartica?) I've come to the conclusion that Magnum is possibly more important that fashion in the world, right at this very moment. It is of the moment, hm? This clothing business is so- well, it is so overexposed, as the Californians say.

-Why do you bother wearing clothes? I asked my assistant

-How would I be fashionable without clothing? he said

-How would you be fashion without clothing? I corrected

-How would I be fashion without clothing? he said

-Fashion is inside where your heart used to be, I told him. Do you still have your heart?

He tried to look shocked at the mere suggestion that he still had his heart and hadn't sold it for a piece of couture, or a drink at a hip bar in Paris.

-Of course not! he said. How could I store fashion (he pointed to his heart) there, if I still had a heart?

-How would you still be alive, my dear boy? I said

-With...with the power of fashion? he said.

-Fashion does not power you, I said. Power fashions you.

-You are so wise! he said. I could hear his little heart ticking away at an accelerated pace. I could smell the blood pumping through it.

-Poland fashions you! I said

-Poland fashions me?

-Fashion you Poland! I said

The assistant looked confused. I had another assistant cut his heart out, with a silver pair of scissors designed by Tadao Ando. His little heart continued to beat as it sat on a silver platter with "Chanel" engraved on it.

-Oh, dear, I said

-Oh dearie me, said the other assistant

-His heart is far too red

-Far too fleshy, said the other assistant

-Far too...meaty said Cathy Horyn.

-Lost cause, said nobody in particular.

This is the thing with the Magnum. It is an object of beauty. It must not be consumed, of course. Does one consume a Van Gogh or a plate of caviar? Of course not. Both the painting and plate of caviar sit there to be admired, as a challenge.

"I must not eat the Van Gogh", a lady in her nightgown might say to herself, as she wanders off to be- tempted as she is to eat it.

The Magnum functions on the same level. It is to be place with the Van Gogh and the caviar, as a kind of democratic challenge to every person who passes it. The fattie will eat it right away, as will anybody who is uneducated. I do not mean in the sense of someone who has not been to university. I did not go to university, and I am the greatest person on this planet at the moment. I have met plenty of sniveling little youths who come to my door and plead for an internship.

-Oh, please Karl! This is the job a million girls would kill for! I have a degree in ethnoeuropean social sciences involving the chronology of western counterpoint, specifically in relation to how Russian composers effect Russia's economy!

What I mean by educated is dressing well. If one does not dress well, nobody will bother hiring you. Nobody will want to look at you, because you are an eyesore. And how can one deal with people if they are dressing terribly? Here is a good thesis, for all the students who read this web-blog: How does bad dressing effect a nation's economy? The answer, of course, is 42.

Melbourne, My Word!

2011-02-20T21:48:00.000-08:00

K darling.

I was out on my nightly stroll just now and found myself the subject of birds. Not in an entirely Hitchcock way as they weren't attacking so much as nestling in my hair. I had paused to contemplate the colour red (and came up with Brimstone) but by the time my thoughts had settled, I had become the subject of several crows.

My word, I thought, as my assistants avidly scrubbed the nearest shop window so I could admire myself in it - THIS is couture. Just as this realisation passed me, a girl in a polyester floral top and the suggestion of shorts (I would repeat the word "short" to illustrate the style of the item in question but I have a contract with Vogue that disallows me to speak or acknowledge that which is not Style.) It was disenchanting enough that someone who is not invisible decided to interrupt my musing, but to her discredit, she snorted in laughter as her thighs (designed by Ed Hardy in the style of Roast Hams) rubbed across my vision. Do not pretend to hide behind your hands. Those claws cannot hide your unworthy disdain.

This is not the first instance of the unlooked judging those in power. As I have been in the vaults so long, it did take me by surprise. Does this city of Melbourne, in which I visit, sincerely exist outside the realms of couture? Surely not all of these people are so uncultured?

I am almost certain that somewhere close there will be a tattoo parlour here that only tattoo stars and butterflies. I can see it now, the person behind the counter is tall with jet black hair. Perhaps scattered with sailor tattoos. If one wanted to get a tattoo of a butterfly, why not live in a museum and pin one's wings to oneself every day? Or hire assistants to collect the coloured butterfly dust and use that to make dye in which to stain a silk patch in which you sew to yourself? This is fashion. This is Style.

I may have to make arrangements so that I wont be here much longer. In the meantime I will speak to the authorities about keeping the general constituency locked in discount marts where they can spend their hard earned money on excess floral and perfume so heavy in chemicals it burns slightly on the skin.

Warmest,

x D

Affairs

2011-01-30T03:09:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Roaring 30s.

You know what was chic in the 30s? Not dying was chic, although with World Wars flying all over the place, sometimes it was difficult to avoid this. It is still chic to be not dead, although while I was well known to be dead it briefly came into fashion. People would turn up at parties all the time looking like death. But what was really chic was affairs. Torrid, vapid, rampant affairs right across groups in your social strata*.

I imagine a lot of you down there exist in small towns so there really only are three or four people that you could have an affair with whose ancestry was far enough away from yours not to be considered incest.

Even then you would run into the problem of people always knowing your business, or being related to too many people. Or even worse, being forced to become a swinger - which was only coined, popularised and desecrated much later.

You say swinger to a Danish person and they'll think it's someone who dances well. I remember the scandal erupting in Copenhagen where someone walked in on passionate the love making of a man and his wife.

- HOW ODD! - People sent by silent morse code to each other, wondering what their own wives would be like in bed.

The Danes are so beautiful they can get away with this, though. Someone with my nose needs to be more careful with how they perceive the world.

No, it has always been chic to have affairs. I had one in the 30s that lasted 3 years. Just the one affair, one tryst that just never ceased. 3 years to the day I decided that red heads would not be chic again for another 70 years.

How glorious it was in those days. You would see your husband or respective partner with hislover and have a great big row - despite the fact you were on your way to see yours and your lover had just come from seeing theirs. Alcohol and torrid affairs - champagne for breakfast and lovers for lunch.

I guess what I am saying, my dearest readers, is that the imminency of life and the departing of this world has been taken from us and as a result we are forced to live dull, unexciting, quiet lives. To add insult to injury, with the abundance of education on offer, we can be acutely perceptive of this dullness to the point of articulating it perfectly.

I say "we" but I assume you understand I mean "we" excluding myself. The vaults of the museum I had purposely perfectly preserved a party from the 1930s so as I never get un-lived. Every museum has one, although the Natural History museum preserved a dinner party from the 1950s and that one is a gods-honest bore.

I say, might I ask, if one doesn't live in my perpetual party, what is it that one does these days to live up there?

*So long, of course, as you kept to your social strata. Scandals are so unabashedly un-chic.

D's Arc

2011-01-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

Dearest Readers,

I am creating an Arc. I say Arc because it will be far more akin to a Corbusier chair than the monstrosity Noah created. It occurred to me that with the imminent and exponential expansion of populations across the world (people do insist on breeding so voraciously, don't they?), the increase of unlookers may, too, exponentially increase.

More to the fact, with this large expansion in population, clothes from Chanel, LV, Commes de Garcons, will all rise sharply in price. Good clothing is like any precious stone or metal, there is only a set amount of it and the higher the demand, the more the price. This means that more and more the unlookers (sometimes confused with the Unwashed - though I fear for the inter-breeding of the two) will become more and more Unlooked. But also there will be a greater margin of them.

Those who can afford to float like the cream of the ever expanding population - and our numbers will dwindle slightly, too, for not everyone has the stamina to maintain such wealth - will be the only ones who can afford such style.

Eventually the waves of unlookers will become a sea of unwashed hair and dowdy blouses that will rise up against their Fashion Gods with a vengeance to rival that of a Napoleonic sneeze (I'm told, they too, are voracious). Their attacks on their beloved Fashion Gods have already commenced with the susurrous around Model weight (which is ridiculous, because a good model don't have a weight) and body image (which is also ridiculous as everyone knows that ones body image exists only in photographs and thus can be altered).

I am collecting Worthy People to join my arc. K will be first on board, he will be blessing everyone after who boards with a Chanel logo in No. 5 upon their forehead. Anna Wintour will be next, who will thusly judge everyone, silently, on what they wear. She will whisper to me the rumours or sightings that anyone has seen of those who wear Track Pants or clothing made from mixed blends. These people are spies for the unlookers. Only an unlooker could be fooled into buying something so cheaply made and highly priced as Juicy Couture.

Once inside, they will be met with collections from all the designers onboard. They will be provided with internet so as to be still in touch with the world at large, if only to remind unlookers of how much less privileged they are and to erase the trails of how they became so privileged.

Then, not unlike cream on the top of fresh milk, we will float away on this sea of unlookers in search for the Promised Land. Once arrived, K will place a single flag made entirely from silk so fine you can only see it when the sunshine hits it at 9am. It will be declared New New York.

I do hope you can make it.

neo-Trenta

2011-01-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately for myself, I am acutely aware of the un-chic.

If I were more civilised, like my good friend, K, I would neglect to even recognise the existence of the demode - except to post about them. Even this, I believe, is a theoretical dismissal because he has swarms of models and PR wolves around him like body guards to prevent the attempted assassination by demode. Can you imagine what would happen if there were a picture snapped of him in the immediate vicinity of, say, little Terry Richardson? Not that this would happen easily as I understand little Terry spends most of his time outside high schools where he frightens small children with the size of his glasses and salivates on the shoes of school girls as they go past.

It appears to me, more and more as the days go by, that this swarm of people that K has (and often lends to me when I emerge from the vaults of the Museum) cannot protect me from the un-chic that exist outside the world of fashion.

Let me give an example.

A girl with entirely too much stomach for her jeans kindly informed me in the street recently of what Starburkes is soon to be releasing.

For one curious but horrific moment, I suspected they had blended an entire town - Houses, Town hall and inhabitants alike - which would make sense in that they were only serving them on ice. For you see Trenta is a town in Italy (or Slovenia, depending on your expenditure).

Secondly, I was out with my good friend Mr Colbert and after a pot of green tea and miniature cupcakes decorated and sculpted solely from Eggleston photographs I was informed that trenta is also Italian for kidney failure. How parfait. I simply cannot envision a world where something like this were to happen by accident. It is clear to me that there is some sort of usurper in the P.R. company of Starburkes. He/she is working undercover for all that represents sanity in this world.

This is not the most delightful component of this whole affair. Not that I would hastily call it an affair per se, as it is as gormless as a hagfish. The most delightful component of this situation is the comments that you might notice at the bottom of the post on the neo-Trenta. Their logic is clear on the matter. Let me set aside my intellect and paraphrase

- The stomach EXPANDS, duh. Don't you know ENYTHING. How ELSE do you eat all that turkey at thanks giving or drink one uf thoz 2L buttles of cok?

It seems that the proles are actively trying to out-macho each other in the limits of their stomach stretching. Needless to say this is delightful. Why on earth would Terrorists attempt to attack our way of life when our way of life is institutionally self destructive.

Oh! Before I forget, if you happen to be a terrorist, try not to attack New York again. We are most definitely not who you are looking for. We are, in all honestly, slightly mortified to be a part of the United States. Picture us as the cerebral and aloof cousins of a very po-dunk obnoxious family.

Much obliged,

2010-12-31T22:37:00.000-08:00

To silence the incessant non-believers.

Anna D

2010-12-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Anna dello Russo the other day, who has recently become one of those "internet people" who have more images on the blogs than Andy Warhol has paintings. Consequently, she has her photograph taken a lot. She was wearing a golden garment which resembled a sheep upturned.

"Anna, is this really a golden sheep?" I asked.

"No, no, it is imitation golden sheep" she whispered back, as if ashamed of this fact. I wondered where one would obtain an actual golden sheep. I supposed that one had probably been caught by D on one of her safaris- surely the Africans would have one, what with all the exotic creatures in Africa. Zebras and such. The western world has to make do with LA- a veritable hunting ground if you're that way inclined.

Anyway, Anna said that she had been standing there for two days because the photographers won't go away and isn't it rude to leave them?

"So you were just standing there?" I said.

"Oui", she said. "I was once in the middle of the first world war- you know the one?"

"I know the one. Quite well known."

She preened at me. "I'd expect so, if I were in it! Anyway- I stopped this world war one for a whole five days because the photographers wanted to take pictures of me. Pin up, was the phrase they used", she said, pronouncing it "peen up".

"Didn't you get bored?"

"Being bored isn't something people with lower shoulders on their jackets do, Karl."

"This is why I'm glad nobody knows who I am. I am a complete nobody" I said, as two hundred and fifty seven flashes went off.

Note: Readers, you may have notice that I have been quite...apathetic with posts this year. This is because, well, I can do as I please, but also because I am writing a novel. You will be able to purchase it at some point within the next year. I am thinking of titling it "KARL LAGERELD: MEMOIRS OF A DRESSMAKING PROSTITUTE", though I am in no way writing a memoir. But it's a lovely word, isn't it? It sounds like a silk slip. Perhaps I will call it "KARL LAGERFELD: SILK SLIP DRESSMAKING", but then everybody will think I am a company selling silk slips. I have no desire to clothe you in silk slips, I assure you.

End Of The World, etc

2010-12-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Bryan,

My apologies about that ipad you were given for free not being 3g. What is the world coming to, hm? Why- the other day when I was on the back of my elephant riding to see Anna's new coat at her place in Paris, I saw people riding in those horrid automobiles. Since I saw An Inconvenient Truth I have been very eco-conscious, and it's considered most demode to ride around in an automobiles now- we all use elephants or our assistants. Only the proles use them.

Well, an ipad- which I recall you simply loved when it came out- without 3g? Simply another sign of the death of civilization, I fear. We are going back to the dark ages, brethren. At least Hermès still makes scarves which the weaker of you can weep into.

Love,

Karl

Yves in winter

2010-12-10T17:34:00.000-08:00

Bonjour, it's Yves, over here, you can see my nose perhaps, the glint of the light on my glasses. I do like to bundle up in this weather. Oh, the fur lap robe came with an old touring car we bought, isn't it lovely? Driving was such an event in the old days!
Where are my manners - let's ring for tea! MERRIWETHER! Oh, here he is, lovely boy! Oh, we have green tea, ginger cookies, and a very special bottle of Irish Creme Liqueur, made specially by a local distillery to honor the chef's 100 days of sobriety, or a collection of tartans. I love that the taste of the cream hits your tongue, then the brandy sneaks up, like a little child putting her hand in yours. Oh, and we had glassware made for the occasion, whatever it was!
OOooh, ooh, look! I can see my breath! Oh, I forgot! It's my cigarette!
So, you look wonderful, it's so nice to see you. I must tell you where we went - to a remote part of Canada, where the patriarch of Swaworski Crystals opened an aabsolute fantasy of a hotel, on an Okanagan lake, it made of millions of crytals, so you can always see yourself, and you are alwys in good company. Oh, and a special reverse sauna, it is 162 below - one only stays in it for three minutes, but it says it reverses aging. Oh, and schnitzel and wild boar for dinner -so Austrian!
So yes, winter must come, but we can make it lovely, can't we? Here, a bit more of the brandy - the local honey makes it good for you!

Man of my word

2010-12-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

Well, people DO forget that there is a third sex. A woman in a mans world.

I do hate to name drop, especially when it's an entire country. If one name drops in conversation it smacks of a certain desperation. However what I'm about to say won't make a lick of sense if I don't start with what I despise most.

When I first arrived in Thailand, I was struck by how prehistoric the place was. I summoned some assistants with the turn of a slender hand - fingers are such POWERFUL things, aren't they? Better than money, that's why they call them digits - and two or three appeared before me.

- See those cliffs?

My lengthy digit arched like a skeletal model towards the skyline. The face on the assistants - because sometimes they must share - sighed a tender spot as they realised that physical exertion may be needed.

- I wish for you to find me a pterodactyl for Cecil's shoot.

They looked slightly bewildered

- A pterodactyl! You must know what I am talking about, am I speaking Thai? I sometimes do that without noticing.

They tottered off.

I must say, back to the sky line, I do SO enjoy the rocks here and how they are such physics dissidents. Gravity is so demode, unless one has it ones self, in which case it is D-mode*.

My contribution to counteracting global warming was an assistant-powered boat to the island. (I feel that there is a business in assistant-powered technologies. Would you buy an assistant-powered car, my readers? Perhaps we could quilt it like a Chanel bag - I will speak to K on the matter.) I know what you're thinking

- But D! Dearest! It will simply be SWARMING with too-rysts.

I am one step ahead of you, my readers. I bought the island for the shoot -- fabulous tax deductions. Poor Cecil was sweating profusely.

Unfortunately I was unaware that the lack of cloud cover and oxygen ménage à trois meant that I managed to scorch myself somewhat spectacularly. Usually I just glare at the sun and it turns away, mortified. However, it is apparent that the Thai sun doesn't speak English and completely out-glared me. Normally this wouldn't stand, but for a foreign celestial being, I will make a concession.

Most people sunburnish, you understand, but I, however, do not have the luxury. That is right, there are somethings money cannot buy. As a result I appear to look as though I have been stung by a jellyfish. We even met a jelly fish who offered to "even it up" but I politely declined.

The shoot was fantastic, the pictures are so tiny that they fit on the back of your finger nail. But by golly they were good -- then, in an elaborate ceremony, we sent them on a diaspora via a big gust of wind to better inform the rest of the population on how to take photographs.

Oh! And the assistants have returned with something that is definitely not a pterodactyl. A cassowary? Well it does look quite prehistoric. It is quite a pity that the photo shoot was days ago. I am afraid your lack of timing will mean you have no choice but to take the assistant powered boat home. Yes, to New York. Why -- is that too far?

Oh, please excuse me. Fracas abound.

Adieu

*I mentioned this in reply to a comment on the previous post. D-mode is anti-demode, or de-demode, as it is a process where someone is so D-mode that they make people less demode by proximity. Technical term, DO keep up.

I will write again soon

2010-12-07T03:46:00.000-08:00

Dearest Readers,

As I speak I am in the process of transit which means a large amount of my thoughts are appearing from the ethos in the old fashioned way. I have several assistants painting them on stone walls in decorative figures. At present they are a general slurry, as opposed to a succinct spiders web, as my assistants aren't very apt at translating. Or painting.

Please, stop your weeping. I will do my best to sit down and piece together the words that I've written. This may take some time as it appears to me that my impulse to write has come in one word bursts.

Naturally, I understand that you are impatient.

Sincerely,

Coat Watching Today

2010-11-11T14:12:00.000-08:00

As I leave the house in the upper west on this slightly crisp morning, my gloves lie eagerly on the counter in the hall, yipping for a walk. They happily snug over my hands and dance around the door handle. I do not go people watching in the mornings, as people are largely wallpaper and more predictable than a hedgehog. I, MY readers, go coat watching.

Today Mrs Kernel's coat greets the letterbox begrudgingly. It shrugs under the shoulders and lopsidedly grimaces at the neck. Further down the street, two close friends greet each other, then tangle when stepping back from embrace. This is slightly mortifying for each. One tries to tuck away it's fraying hem, the other silently vows to have its buttons removed. Ms Rothesteinchildsson's coat follows behind her like a happy puppy, nuzzling in all the right places. Her coats always Do What They're Told.

My good friend Karl is in town and is staying in his apartment uptown. He has had assistance paint all the windows black so that the sunlight doesn't get cheeky. I have a gift for him under my left arm, wrapped unassumingly in burburry wrapping paper - excellent for a cold day. Someone with a thousand little stars painted on their face and entirely few clothes yells out to my parcel in a quaint accent. I freeze her with my eyes and keep walking.

Karl's bow needs rehairing today. Poor, little bow. It's frizzy like a frump. I know what you are thinking, readers. You think that Karl is playing the Cello - au contraire. He quite liked the idea of playing an instrument, so he went to the store and bought what appealed. Upon realizing you cannot make music with just a bow, he now uses it to whip assistants when he wants things done.

It gets rehaired every two weeks.

- Just because I do not know the meaning of my paintings when I paint them, does not mean they have no meaning.
The man at the coffee shop's coat tells me this. Was that Dali? It does not reply.

I stop at Tiffanies.
- Are these blood diamonds?
The attendant looks horrified.
- I only like blood diamonds. They have a certain edge.
The assistant's lip curls - We do not sell blood diamonds
- AND why not?
- Because they are the result of human slave trafficking and the money goes to tyrants who abuse their workers -
- Oh! I hadn't realized De Beers had taken over the blood diamond market!
A single, thin, gloved finger, hovers over my lip like a stray branch. - I guess one should have assumed that would happen.
The assistant presses a button under the counter. I depart leading neck first. I do love an early morning assistant sashing.

I reach Karl's apartment and knock out a death knell. An assistant answers the door with a red stripe running the length of his face.
- I have bought Karl a new bow. - I say - So that he needent be without whilst his favourite is getting rehaired.
The assistant's expression is hard to discern.
- Run along, now, and find me some champagne. I am very thirsty after a good walk.

Praying To Myself

2010-11-07T12:21:00.000-08:00

Titles are so bourgeois, don't you think? It is what it is.

2010-10-31T17:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find it excruciating to write. It’s not so much elaborate Emu quill plume to paper so much as writing that doesn’t make my skin try to escape off my bones. When I get the feeling of a hag fish nestling in the cavity of my chest, I know that what I am about to write will not be good. It will not have pizzazz, as they say. Then when I pause to think, the only genius that springs to my tongue is that of other peoples. My word, I think, surely there must be some left of my own somewhere int here.

The prospect of writing often daunts me. I suppose that these days it might be called stress. Once upon a time it may even have been called hysteria and diagnosed as wandering body parts – this has always been my favourite Victorian diagnosis as it makes me think that my insides are like a dark forest and my body parts some small girl in a cloak.

I dislike the word stress. Stress is not elegant. Stress is always frizzy hair. Lopsided (lopsided is my current favourite word) glasses and frantic hand gestures. Move slowly, readers, always. In your car, pull out like it weighs nothing and is carried like a skein of silk on the breeze – you will never have a crash because everyone will stop in your presence. Use your hands slowly, like you are moving through molasses. Elegance is slowness, patience and eyes that could shoot a whole room dead if they wanted to. Go slow, speak quieter and hold longer, then people will listen.
Have you ever tried speaking quieter in a chatty group? Everyone gabs louder and louder and as soon as you open your mouth their silence and rapture.

Oh – I must mention. I saw something recently that discussed the word Rapture. It seems that it has been misappropriated to an odd cause. The Second Coming, that of Mr. Christ and his cronies, will come down and take away (vanish, evaporate) those worthy to heaven – Leaving their clothes behind. My word, I thought, the only reason this might be possible is because there would be new wardrobes up there waiting – which almost made me convert but the fine print mentioned nothing of it. Even then, though, to leave behind my museum, my clothes, my photographs – surely I can pack a little overnight bag, Mr Christ? I shan’t take any of the champagne as I’m sure you are well stocked. Or perhaps I should, as you are better prepared for the middle class with your water to wine party trick.

What I mean to say, without diversions, is that elegance is knowing you have freckles, ginger hair and buck teeth, but knowing full well that these are precisely the reason you are not tanned and working for InStyle. I was never a face woman, but that doesn’t mean it’s not exactly what worked in my favour. You’d be able to pick me out of a line up blindfolded in the thickest wool.

There, D, that wasn’t so hard to do, now was it.

K, Darling, it’s asking me if we link Amazon to the site. Does this mean I can purchase a new species? I would quite like a petite, highly poisonous and brimstone red frog to be called the D frog, would you like one too? Perhaps we can order in a jaguar to use as a throw rug in my studio. Shall I talk to one of the assistants?

Marie Claire Preaches Against The Fatties

2010-10-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Maura,

I was alerted to this piece of fine journalism by one of my assistants, and wish to congratulate your courageous efforts against the hordes of fatties that plague the world in These Dark Days of Walmart and McDonald's. I only have one suggestion: instead of exercising to lose weight, why not simply not eat? A friendly tip from your be-gloved uncle, you understand.

Love,

Karl

Magical Fashion Island

2010-10-19T01:27:00.000-07:00

A lot of people have been asking me why The Magical Fashion Island in Dubai isn't going ahead. "Lack of funds", I said. "People aren't made of money these days."

"They were before?" said the people.

"Some of them. The Rothschilds were- that's why that had umbrellas, to stop themselves getting soggy. They always had umbrellas, those Rothschilds. Now they use plastic money."

"Does Bill Gates use plastic money?"

"Ah, well, he's not the sort to have a melting cesspool of credit cards all over him- he uses imaginary money. It works just the same, if everybody believes in it. It's like that Tinkerbell person, you know."

"-Off Peter Pan."

"Quite. If you believe in anything enough it'll be true. That's why I'm still alive- because I don't believe in death."

"Oh?"

"I don't "do" death. It is not for me. Other people, maybe- if they're into that sort of thing. The problem with death is that it's very hard to undo once one has done it, and what if death goes out of fashion?"
"..."

"Well, then one would be demode. You can't reinvent yourself either. Elvis did- he lost weight. I didn't have to die to lose weight. In any case, why The Magical Fashion Island didn't work is because people didn't believe in it hard enough."

At this point the people were escorted outside by my butler, and I sat down to read the newspapers. In The Guardian there was an article with the words "Are women hard-wired to enjoy cupcakes?"

"Stunning journalism", I muttered to myself. I called Anna. "Do you like cupcakes?"

"No," she replied. I called Diana. She did not like cupcakes. I called Carine and she vomited on the mere premise of cupcakes. Finally, I talked to my friend Gertrude Stein, who pointed out that the article was as ridiculous as saying "are men hard-wired to enjoy meat?"

"The article asks that probing question too", I said. Gertrude rolled her eyes. I wondered how on earth anybody would come up with the assumption that Women Enjoy Cupcakes. What about staplers, hm? Are office-workers hard-wired to enjoy staplers? Are pizza-makers hard-wired to enjoy pizza-slicers? Why is there so much wiring, anyway?

I threw The Guardian on the floor and stomped on it with my one-size-too-small shoes. Hard hitting journalism indeed. I asked Helmut if he wanted to take a photo, and I asked him how death was working out. He mentioned an orgy.

Above: Artist's rendering of Magical Fashion Island.

I do so enjoy it when people take me to heart

2010-10-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

The Guardian- The fussy eater: Why eating in public is a no no

If you would handkerchief F the word "nonplussed" in the article above, you might notice that the lovely Ariel Leve seems to have read my post.

I find this delightful.

Karl, where do you keep your recliners?

2010-10-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

I was speaking to Karl recently when he mentioned that he would send me [Helmut] Newtons remains. I was of the understanding that he would be sending me a book he had on the topic of Newton (as that was what the discussion was on), but when a package arrived in the post last night, it turned out to be his actual remains.

I am not entirely sure what to think of that, but it will make a darling centrepiece on my mantle - a turbulent conversation starter - like a small plane in high winds.

That got me thinking - why do we bother with such beautiful coffins? Ever since Iggy Pop and Keith Richards, dying has been so out of vogue. No body does it anymore. I know what you are thinking, some people don't know who they are and coffins are supposed to be your eternal resting place. But after the likes of Palin and Beck are having an unprecedented growth in atheists-- these things compound you see, eternal resting places have far less importance. I imagine that if heaven were all white, then it would smell like crisp sheets. However, if there was a heaven, I doubt that it would be white. It would be champagne coloured.

On this particular immortalisation bent, why don't we bring back death masks in the fashion of Ancient Rome? How glorious. Perhaps there should be a resurgence in urns - I wonder if Lalique is available for a chat and a champagne. I do so adore his brooches.

Of course people would still continue to use coffins, as not everyone is privy to the style of the times. We would need to start some sort of trend against them.

We could throw a party!

At a tennis club -- or a funeral parlour.

A funeral parlour could be fun, we could all dress up like we were going to a wake then climb into the coffins when we needed a little Champagne Nap. One might suggest that this wouldn't help our cause, but I'm not for putting people out of business and I think that if Funeral Parlours got into the Bed Business, then they would be happy and far more profitable.

I never use my bed, personally, I find the whole exercise tiresome. Changing out of your clothes and into clothes that not even you see - because you sleep in them. The poor clothes! Bed clothes must be the most lonely of clothes as they don't even get to go out and meet others. Whenever I get tired and have to take a Chapagne Nap, I lie on one of my sofas, put my eye mask on and nod off for a while.

But Diana! You might say - when do you change? When do you shower? To which I might say - don't be silly. I always change before an event and shower after. All those socialites, they leave powder on my cheeks from their air kisses. I wouldn’t need to put make up on myself if I weren’t such a stickler for hygiene.

Anyway, if I get tired at an event – I suppose I just pop off, have my little naps on a recliner sofa, then back to the event. My beds are only really there for bedspreads, which you may know I have a particular fondness of.

O! and to give some people something to do -- so they don't go rob some other people, which I understand happens when people get bored.

Isn't it grand what you learn over breakfast!

A Victory For Edith Head

2010-10-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

I should shoot down those tiresome rumors about me retiring, again- they seem to crop up every six months or so- the same rate as Cher farewell tours and Neil Young albums. This time the rumors seem to be being dispensed by anonymous news sources, as opposed to Ms. Pernet, who I actually like. It is a lot less interesting when the rumor is being whispered by greasy bits and blobs. Do the bits and blobs have a vendetta against me? I asked my butler, who was sewing up the back of my head- it needs to be tightened daily to keep me looking as I do (I almost wrote "young and fresh" there, but I am under no illusions- I do not pretend to be the fresh lamb of the day).

Anyway- I am not retiring, and I intend to design Chanel until the end of time. Even then I will carry on, because time doesn't affect me. Time is relative, and I have no relatives. Well- all my relatives that I'll admit to liking are dead. Anyway, this means I am free of time itself. You can ask Einstein if you don't believe me. Of course, Albert ended up marrying and thus died. If you want to live forever have no relatives. Everybody these days is too concerned with starting a family or getting married. I see men and women carrying engagement rings down the street on their open palms, running in that fashion that you only see in black and white movies. Colour movies don't do it, because colour changes how people move. This was the main idea for the last Chanel show- to change how everybody walks by using a black and white set. I once had a whole house in black and white, too- even the butler was in black and white. Edith Head designed it. Skin tones look a lot better in black and white. Ms. Head once told me that she wore her special-black-and-white glasses (which made everything black and white) all the time, especially when heading out into the general public. "Otherwise, darling, it is hideous!", she would say. This is my tip of the day, in the style of children's television programs.

Karl's Tip Of The Day:

Why don't you wear black and white glasses all the time?

I realize I'm stealing from Diana here- my apologies, D. I couldn't help myself. I urge all my readers to go out and try it- if everyone did it, everybody would look at least 50% more chic than they do (or don't). I imagine this situation would work in a way similar to the emerald glasses in The Wizard of Oz. Except, of course, black and white is a lot more interesting than emerald. When you go to see your lawyer, or your private detective, it will be as if one is in film noir, or a Raymond Chandler novel. Streets will be like a Cartier-Bresson photograph, or something out of Breathless. Everybody would look far more attractive, and the Wal Mart Generation would be neutralized.

This internet thing, Karl

2010-10-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

Attachments, that is-- attachments to emails, are so chic. Attachments are like lace envelopes. Heaven forbid one would just throw an image or some writing into the body of an email, how awfully common - lumping it on in there.

There is nothing like a physical letter (some day I would like to get a letter in a lace envelope). I love how tactile they are, how you can see the person slaving for hours over every letter. It’s like blood, ink. Letters are love labourers.

Emails lack this tactility. You just whizz one off and one whizzes back. It makes the world one big spiderweb. And if there is one thing that this spiderweb has spawned, it’s an awful use of language. Where have these youths put all their vowels? How can they not love their vowels? Have they not had enough alphabet soup? The whole business makes them sound so awkward and haphazard, which I suppose is rather fitting -- considering.

Dear Readers,

I think the letter O should be used more. E is highly overrated. O is the most beautiful letter in the entirety of the English language. All that space in the centre means you can put so much into it – O, Diana! In a greek tragedy, or a champagne accident. O. Disappointment. O. Revelation. O. Loss. O. Lust. We could all speak only in O’s, swimming around like gold fish.

I have never learnt Finnish but despite the apparent similarities in the lack of vowel use, I strongly suspect that the Fins just hide their vowels. Like dragons. All their vowels will be hidden in mountains across the country. Clever, the Fins.

The French are clever, too. And they like their vowels. They like them well enough to give them couture to wear when they sound different. Everyone sounds different with a couture hat on. Perhaps I will talk to Treacy about making hats Acute, Grave and Circumflex. Acute will be rose pink (the Canadians will buy them up, aye?). Grave will be grey and Circumflex – well, I will talk to Phillip.

The Brits have always had this class-related love of the French language. I say love, but it has probably just been bore into them since boarding school. It’s a status thing. I am of the impression that the Brits – the British, “Brits” sounds like smut – have this secretly widespread belief that by learning the French language they are somehow Conquering it, like it is a Colony. Like its vowels will be somehow Enslaved to the British – which I guess they are, most of the time, with the accents that are produced.

Secretly, though, the French are pleased to have tricked the British into speaking their language. They are clever, see, and this is all they ever really wanted in the first place.

I do so admire the French.

My word my thoughts are all over the place today.

Notes from the Gilded Chairs

2010-09-30T02:37:00.000-07:00

D: Darling, isn't this ... internet-thing fabulous?

K: Diana, dear- It's beyond, isn't it? Do you know that you are on The Google? My assistants tell me that being on The Google is all the rage- some sort of new hip studio space, I expect. That or a nightclub. K

D: You know, I went to a night club once, in the 80s. It was full of light in the most unexpected places. The youth in the room was palpable. I find youths gamey these days, their musk is occasionally so physically overwhelming I topple in the street. They were not always like that, not in my day, at any rate.

D: I almost got run over today and I thought - of course cars stop for me. They wouldn't dare run me over, I would burst their tires.

K: The 70s are made of orange, no? But not oranges- fruits are far more exotic- the colonies. Aren't the colonies divine? I wonder who ever thought up the idea. Here is a new idea- a Chanel Colony, like a giant boutique- a whole island of goods. After all, isn't shopping what the rich and bored like best? Buy a Chanel hut! A Chanel missionary's bible! A Chanel igloo! It would get my heart pounding, if I hadn't sold it to the fellow made out of tin. Russian oligarch, I believe.

The Karl Lagerfeld Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Nominations

2010-09-28T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hello, people-

I trust you have all met Diana. Turning up dead to a party can sometimes be too convincing- I have done so many times myself, although since I tend to dress like a dead German aristocrat, nobody actually notices. When I first started sporting this look, people did presume I was dead. They gathered around me like swans (the most vicious of creatures, let me tell you) and said "The Kaiser is dead! Long live the Kaiser!" I would blink behind my sunglasses and say "no, this is simply my new Hedi Slimane suit. Divine, isn't it?" They would all look rather embarrassed.

Once somebody called in an ambulance, and I decided that if the ambulance was there in the first place, I might as well take a ride in the ambulance anyway. At the hospital I met Alber, who wasn't sick or dead either- he just likes the atmosphere. Frankly, I found the atmosphere too reminiscent of Warhol's factory. The group of young people I keep in my pocket said "oh darling, I'm so over hospitals." I patted my pocket reassuringly, letting the young people in my pocket know that we would be out of the hospital soon.

The group of young people in my pocket has since been...disposed of. Do not worry (though I trust if you are a True Reader Of Karl, you will not be worrying anyway)- they have gotten work in television. Nobody can tell the difference in size.

Where was I? Well, fashion month is not interesting yet. That's partially why I've asked Diana to write here- fashion is not about clothes as so much as ideas, fantasy, all that sort of carry on- Diana is good at that. A lot of the young people these days don't understand that- I'm not sure what they're interested in. The 70s, apparently. You know, the 70s have been and gone. They are in the past- and the 1770s are more interesting, anyway. Do you know what the problem is? Things are not ridiculous enough. Clothes are not ridiculous enough, objects are not ridiculous enough, and the only ridiculous things we do have are people like young Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and the lady who doesn't approve of sex. Everything else is far too rational. And when things are rational, things get rather dry, and people do not dress up- one must always dress up in order to buy something ridiculous. What happens when people do not dress up is that they become bored- their eyes become bored- and hence we have people like Palin and The Chaste Lady, who exist solely to entertain us. Who knows if they're real? I am sure if everybody dressed up in their finest outfit Palin, et al would disappear into a puff of illogic.

Anyway, I am going to dress up the New Young People I have. They will be wearing couture. I expect nothing less. It is like having dolls, apart from they have these "feelings" and so on. But you know, if you throw down enough pairs of skinny jeans (pocket-sized, of course) the people in your pocket will be quiet. I think that is the solution to People With Feelings.

I suppose you are those who went to my Museum shows?

2010-09-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

Dearest Readers,

Just a brief foreword before I tell you of my story today. My name is Diana, although some refer to me as Mrs Vreeland. I have done a great many things in my life time, lived an extensive period of years, and now have agreed to write for my good friend Karl at his behest.

Now, I have never been a great believer in libraries - public libraries, that is. My good friend, Karl, keeps libraries that are the precise reason one should not bother with the things. Just buy the book, that way it will only be an arms length away.

Contrary to my opinion, however, I discovered the process of libraries is... somewhat simple. I walked into my nearest library almost by accident - I saw a friend stroll in and after some humming and glitter, I decided to stroll about and see what the fuss was.

The lady behind the "membership" counter asked me for photo identification. "My dear", I said "When I started out, photos were starting out. You could say we've known each other a while."

She seemed non-plussed - which I have always used as a conflation of not caring-- a belligerent disinterest. This is opposed to confusion, which is it's 'true' meaning, one might say. In this case, I use it in terms of both.

"Darling..." I continued, letting my words hang like water on a spider web "I am Diana" to which she decided I needed no more proof of existence - and rightly so. This library could follow me around, for all it mattered.

Strolling the ailes, I discovered one of my books. Needless to say, this was delicious. I have often debated with Karl on whether or not people who are... not of means, can read. I am a firm believer that anyone with a desire can achieve, but Karl is in two minds... by which I mean he believes that I am talking nonsense. But... to see my book! People to be reading it! It is battle enough to convince Karl that they can read, let alone read what one of us may write.

A lady asked me what I wanted, after exploring the extend of the answer in my head, I realised she was watching my eyebrows and expecting an answer book-related. She gave me numbers and I went in search of more books. For the life of me, one of them remained elusive. I was a hummingbird in the 700s, so much so I practically tripped over a dowdy woman sprawled on the floor. At first I thought she had tripped, but she had books around her. Not just that my book - in front of her, open.

She smiled up at me through her gossamer hair

"Excuse me," I said "That is my book."

Gossamer, in her turtle sack, looked down

"I do not own it, I wrote it - and so it is mine."

"Oh" her dull little beetles shined up "Mrs Vreeland! I thought you were dead?"

"Vicious lies. I appear dead once at a party and suddenly gossip becomes reputation. The fashion industry is ruthless, my dear, never venture into it." I say this for her benefit, and ours.

"I love your work" Her eyes are wet with admiration

"I think we have misunderstood each other. That is my book."

She hugged the book close to her, which was not the desired outcome. I set my hooded hounds on her until she handed it over. As I held it I thought of the fleas that will now be nestling into my words. I wrote it - therefore it is mine. Some people just cannot understand the concept of ownership.

"I will take these ones" I said

The boy behind the counter with an excess of fringe scanned them and handed them to me.

"I don't think you understand," I continued "I'll take these ones."

"That is what they're there for." He had apathy

"I wish to purchase them from you - with the guarantee -" I also added, so I did not have to repeat this venture "that you will not replace them"

The boy looked non-plussed.

"My dear," I grew tired "clearly you are not who I should be speaking to."

The balding woman from the next room approached. I must make a note to tell Karl that Libraries exist for the Less Fortunate - by which I mean, those who are Unlooking*.

"I wish to buy these."

"We are a library"

"Yes, but people are reading them, you understand?"

"Isn't this why you wrote it?"

"Yes, but not for these people, per se. I write to educate, and it seems the lessons are being misinterpreted. Something is awry. It is very distressing. Do you know who I am?"

It was then, after the second time I had to say this sentence, that I could imagine what it would be line not to be me. It would be awful -- no one would know it was me.

Needless to say after a sit down, a cigarette and a glass of champagne, the whole thing was settled. Now I must ask Anna how to dispose of things.

I sincerely hope that this needn't be experienced again. I crave a cigarette just recounting it. Beware them, readers, Libraries and their Unlookers.

*Unlooking is the perfect balance of dowdy and unimpressive, with a touch of grotesque. For to be ugly or repulsive, there must be some element of beauty for one is compelled to look -- and look again.

Disciples

2010-09-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

I would like to wish one of my most devoted followers, Fury, happy birthday. Now- I do not do this very often. Part of why is because I find age demode, and birthdays even more demode- a pastime of the middle class. You will note that nobody in the upper classes or the working classes ever has a birthday- the upper class is too busy eating cake and the working class is too busy making the cake! However, I will make an exception for Fury. It would be impossible to find a more wonderful woman, unless one looked to my dear mother, who is currently dead. I presume she will stay in this state for a while- but it's hard to tell with her.

Anyway- happy birthday, Fury Rothtelstien. While I cannot condone the practice of birthdays, I can nod my head to you in some degree, while sketching next season's Chanel collection and eating food from Nobu. Liquified Nobu in the form of Pepsi Black (the great joke with my participating in the Coca Cola bottle thing being I actually drink Pepsi Black, whilst claiming on this web blog that I drink diet Coke- it has more of a ring, no?)

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

2010-09-15T04:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Heart Of Gold

2010-08-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I suppose I should apologize for the long wait for details of my Heartbreaking Romantic Affairs. I’m not going to, of course- you all already knew that punchline. Instead, I’m going to tell you about what I’ve been doing lately, then I’m going to address that pesky pencil- who now calls itself “Le Crayon”, believe it or not. I’m not a complicated kind of man, hm? I call a Faberge egg a Faberge egg. There’s no pretentions about it, hm? It’s plain, unadorned, and simple. It is not hard to understand. I don’t understand people who pretend to be something else- it’s a bore. You know, I’m over this whole “relationship” business anyway- I don’t need a pencil. I can just project drawings onto the paper. I simply have to look at the paper, and beautifully drawn lines will appear on the paper. Then I glare at the paper some more and the lines are filled in and everybody says “brava!” when I show them the sketches at dinner that night.

I find this to be a much more elegant solution- the pencil thing was a mere formality, something I did for the cameras, really. It is like the queen wearing her crown, or Hitler carrying a gun. Darth Vader using a light saber. Madonna using her voice during concert (everybody knows that Madonna can just think what she wants to sing, and it comes out of the speakers.) But we are in a new era, here- we are in the two thousand and tens. From now on, I shall merely glare. The oppressive pencil-owner relationship is a thing of the past. Really, readers- how many times have you heard someone say “I love it when my pencil gives me cuddles”, or “I want to live with my pencil”. It sickens me. It makes me want to pull out the collars that I’ve swallowed over the years from my throat and toss them at the homeless people on the street- the disgusting homeless people- and then proceed to the parks where people clasp their pencils in their hands and throw my Faberge eggs at them (well, that’s how Russian royalty does an egging). From now on I am not even a one-pencil-man. I abstain. I am a one-man man. I date Karl Lagerfeld, and only Karl Lagerfeld. Even my mirror image is not authentic enough- sure, he’s as good looking as I am, but does he have the quick wit? And I am currently auditioning my shadow on being part of myself. I am very, very serious about this one-man man business, you see. If my shadow is not good enough, I will chop it off with a pair of scissors from the atelier.

In any case- here is the letter from the so-called “Le Crayon”. I screw my nose up to it. In fact, I screw my nose up to all this “couples” nonsense. Pencils and their owners disgust me. Rei Kawakubo does not have a pencil. Nor do I.

Dearest K,

My thoughts of our Oompa Loompa massacres brought a tear to my metallic embellishments. you know this is not personal. You have always been the one pushing me to the side of your pocket, away from your heart. Do you remember when you snapped three pencils in front of me, to show me what would happen if I didn't perform? Do you remember the week I spent in the bottom of a Vuitton bag in punishment for a less than perfect collection?

You threatened to leave me after you lost all your weight. You told me you were now fit enough to carry around a million of me, that you didn't need me anymore. I put up with a lot from you, K. I stuck with you through fat and thin - it... it almost hurts that you wish me to be ground down to a stub.

It was you who left me at the Four Seasons after cola with Anna. I waited for hours for you. Then, Vivienne found me. I was a mess, I tell you. I had rolled under a table and I was covered with dust and stray hairs. I was almost down the drain before I caught her eye.

Anyway, I'm over that now. Vivienne, she just cares for me. She wraps me in her hair when she's not using me. I can get lost in there for hours. She chews on me when she's thinking - she even writes letters with me, letters. When was the last time you wrote a letter, K?

It is early here, I can hear Vivienne calling. She must have woken up.

Salut K,

Le Crayon

[August 10]: One-night stand

2010-08-09T22:11:00.000-07:00

My Faber-Castell pencil, Gramercy Park, New York. Photo Karl Lagerfeld.

Wanted, Wanted, A Pencil in a Daze

2010-08-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

My spies made a significant discovery as they were doing their regular once-over of my blog (to check for counter-spies, supervillians other than myself, and tourists). They found a note, hidden in the "comments" section, purported to be written by my beloved pencil, which went missing awhile ago. I did not believe it at first, yet the handwriting was unmistakable. It was indeed my P. Plain old P when it was clutched in my hand, Persnickety when I held it tentatively in between my fingers, and Penelope when I visited the offices of M. The note reads as follows:

Look, Karl, I know you have your minions out looking for me, but I am a pencil in Paris who doesn't want to be found.

I am in the hands of someone else now. You were always too generous with lending me - now I am gone.

Please do not look for me, I will remember you fondly

P.

What can I say? P, you know that's not where you belong- My clothes are never dirty and my hands are always clean, aside from the blood of countless Oompa Loompas. Don't you remember the good times we had? We went to the beach where I took photographs of Claudia- we spent many nights in bed, sketching couture- do you remember our outing to Vermont? Don't let Anna fool you for a second- you're my number one, aside from myself.

Frankly, I am not going to search for you anymore. I am calling the hounds off. There are a lot more pencils in the jar. Your new owner could grind you down to a mere point with one of those new mechanical pencil-shavers. How would you like that? Could you wear Philip Treacy if you were a stub? Could you dress in fur and ivory from pianos? Think about that, young pencil.

Letter

2010-08-04T04:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

I have to tell you that I have been in a lot of pain lately. I have lost my favourite pencil, again. Many of you may recall that I lost my favourite pencil a year or two ago, and the chaos that ensured around Paris while I searched for said pencil. I looked for my pencil, and the silence told me it was not there. I asked it to come back two times and there was silence for two times. As you know if you follow Karl Lagerfeld's Guide To Life, I try to promote an alternative lifestyle (that I used to call in French La Lagerfeld Diet), based on sensible tenets such as repetitive wearing of collars. My pencil's decision to disappear will be clearly be seen by conservative, pen-wielding types as a lead-based revenge against the sketches my pencil and I used to share. Right now- well- I can't even pretend to be a mess. I'm quite perfect. But, it is still distressing. I have hundreds of agents on the lookout for it, throughout Paris, right now. Perhaps I will go and take pictures of naked young men- that always cheers me up. Brad? No- wait- what's your name? You know, the new one. Italian, I think.

(Note to self: name all young male models the same name, as Yves did with bulldogs. Hard to remember names. Call them all concubine or something similar).

(sans) love,

Karl Lagerfeld

Hansel and Gretel

2010-07-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a couple of hideous bourgeois children by the names of Hansel and Gretel. They were very fat. Their parents, who were hip German architects, said- "Hansel und Gretel! If you don't get in line with the minimalist aesthetics of our houses, we will kick you into the forest!", so they only have five slices of salami for breakfast, as opposed to 10, and so on.

But they had a servant (all families in fairy tales have servants, who barely ever get acknowledged- let me tell you, fairy tales are essentially a slave trade. Who cleans the glass slippers? Not le Cinderella, anyway), who gave them extra slices of salami under their door. So the children got very fat and their Helmut Lang suits popped and Helmut Newton, when he saw them, put his fingers over his eyes and shuddered. So the parents said: "Look! You are too fat! You do not go with the Miles van der Rohe chair! You are bending it!"

"But Mama, Papa!" they said. "Are we not your children? Do you not love us like so?", to which the parents said:"No- we're afraid not. We had our art dealer do a valuation on you two, and well- I mean- you're just not that it anymore. And if you don't want Damien to put you in formaldehyde- well."

So the children were sent to the forest, where they ambled up the path like rocking eggs. Hansel said: "why don't we put some bread crumbs on the path to find our way back?", but they didn't have any bread crumbs- they only had pieces of formaldehyde Damien Hirst gave them, as in incentive to be placed in a giant tank titled "The Impossibility Of Living With Children In A World Of Magazine Architecture." So they scattered pieces of formaldehyde everywhere, which cute little Disney-esque creatures ate and subsequently died from. Oh ho ho, it is hard to be Disney-esque in death, unless you are a Helpless Princess who Needs A Man To Save Her! And nobody wants to save the animals, except for the horrible PETA people- who frankly make my job easier. I considered making a coat out of the squirrels and birds, but I recalled my mother doing the same thing, one cold winter, and thought better of it.

Anyway- the children continued walking, until they got to a little cottage made out of candy. Inside, there was an old witch who wanted to eat them. "Come in, little children!" said the old witch. "You can eat some of my house!" But the children said: "Your house is terribly ugly! How can we eat ugliness?", and the witch said: "well, if you eat it, there will be no ugliness!" "however-" the children said, "we could be consuming ugliness, which could make us ugly in turn!", and the witch looked very troubled for a second.

"Look- I just want to eat you," she said. "I'll level with you. That's all I want to do- the candy is give or take. All I really want to do is put you in a cage and gobble you up. I will cook you in a fire first."

The children looked at each other, and said "no, thank you. We don't wish to participate in cannibalism" and the witch said "okay, fair enough. Like that song: you caaaan't always get what you waaaant", you know the one? The children knew the one.

"But sometimes you can get what you want", I said. "Sometimes you have to steal it. You could steal these children, but they are in front of me, and heard me- in any case, I suppose you've read my web-log, and know about the dangers of consuming people? Calories, my dear woman."

The old woman looked very indecisive, as did the children. Then they all turned into cats named Fluffy, and Herr Schrödinger came and took them back to his house. I ascended to the skies once more, with Mahler playing in the background.

Wind-Up Woody

2010-07-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

As I was having my face sewn up this morning (I have it sewn up every day, from behind- if you were to cut off my ponytail, you'd see stitches) I started sketching the new collection. Couture was a success, as per usual- Cathy "Ma" Horyn adores me, as do the rest of the creatures. That is how I think of them, really- as these little creatures at the bottom of a dark well. And they crawl around like a pack of spiders and worms and so on, many eyed and limbed- sometimes emerging to shout out "BRAVA!" But for most of the time, they live in this little well- like in Hannibal, no? And I think of myself as living in a little house near the well- sometimes making a cup of diet Coke, sometimes reading the newspaper, filled with exploits of the BP people and their oil spill (why not block the oil spill with the new Valentino collection?) and all the murders and so on. Then, sometimes, I will go to the well in my tights and high collars, and call into the well, muttering little blessings in German.

Anyway. I was contemplating this, when a young man knocked on my door. I am fond of young men (gentlemen of the jury), so I opened the door.

"Hello young boy", I said. He said: "HELLO!!!", and I said "why are you using so many exclamation marks? Don't you know only crazy people use that many exclamation marks?", and he said- "OMG! KARL LAGERFELD! I'M, LIKE, YOU'RE BIGGEST FAN".

-"No, I'm my biggest fan, young boy", "WELL OH MY GOD! I'M A PRETTY BIG FAN! MAYBE LIKE SECOND BIGGEST FAN! OMG CAN WE GET A PHOTO FOR MY TWITTAH?"- he then took out a horrible, bejewelled phone and said "SMILEEEE FOR THE CAMERA UNCLE!!!"

"Excuse me", I said. "What...use are you?" "USE!?" he said, "I AM THE WORLD'S NUMABAH ONE BLOGGER." "And what do you blog about?", to which he said- "UH, WELL, I WRITE HAPPY THINGS! ABOUT MY FABULOUS LIFE! I NEVER WRITE ANYTHING NEGATIVE! ANNA WINTOUR LOVES ME BECAUSE OF THIS!!! FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY! FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY!"

I frowned. "You know, I am also a homosexual and I am not this cliched person who is clearly only interested in whoring themselves out socially. I can understand whoring- I whore myself out to various companies, including Coca Cola- but social whoring is vulgar, no?"

"BUT OH MY GAHD! THAT'S WHAT I DO! FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY! FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY! DO I LOOK FAT IN THIS?!?!?!"

It was then I realized that I was watching Toy Story 19, a bastardized version directed by a paunchy Justin whatshisname- Justin Patterson or something, in which Woody is replaced with a 2D socialite with three phrases, one of which is "FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY!"

I pulled the string on the back of his back. "FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY!" he said. I pulled it again. "FASHION'S LITTLE GAY BOY!" he said. I turned off the projector and he was there no longer.

"Not a fan," I said to Roger Ebert. "Neither", said Pauline Kael.

Childrens

2010-07-03T03:45:00.000-07:00

The poor have a problem which a lot of the socialites I know- you know, the ones who do ''philanthropy'' and so on- aren't actually aware of. It is children. Childrens, you see, are what happen when a poor person has sexual intercourse with another poor person and they produce what doctors now call a 'baby'. Now, wealthy people have this problem also- sometimes they make love (only the poor have sexual intercourse; the rich make love) and a variation of a childrens is formed- a 'trust fund childrens'. This phenomenon has been going on for years, of course- in the days of the aristocracy, a child would inherit the kingdom and he and his brothers and sisters would fight about it. Today, a child is dolled out money (similar to social security checks) from what is know as a 'trust fund'. The Geldof sisters- Peaches, Strawberry and Cream, are a good example of this. Trust fund childrens are remarkably similar to actual childrens, but in school they are taught a different set of physics- call it 'The Physics Of Egocentric Vanities'. They're taught that the sun actually revolves around their head, that gravity is a sort of butler to them, and that air is a substance found in Africa in mines owned by their dear father. Needless to say, these people grow up slightly different to the childrens of poor people.

There's another factor to take into account here, too: when a rich person has a child, the accountants of said rich person assign a value to the child (putting it as a long term liability, of course) and it is looked after by bodyguards, maids, and so on. This is a cruical difference- when the poor have childrens, they have to look after it themselves!

-I imagine a lot of you are gasping now, with expressions like '!' and '?!' and '!!!', depending on your level of botox. Perhaps, if you're from the Hollywood-Scientology circle, your face simply looks like this: '...', because your botox has turned your face into a barren marble statue. You are possibly holding your well-manicured hands over your well-lipsticked mouths, wondering how on earth one is supposed to look after a childrens.

Let me tell you, it took me a long time to work out too. I have worked out some essentials, though, in case you ever find yourself poor and with a baby. (This is quite different to the "accessory baby", in vogue a couple of years ago- especially babies from Africa. That moment has passed.)

HOW TO LOOK AFTER A BABY

By Karl Lagerfeld, Field Marshall

1). A baby is a human being, I'm told, and must be fed accordingly. Diet Coke generally will suffice, but if they are particularly hungry something from El Buli or The Fat Duck can't go wrong.

2.) A baby cannot be naked. When my friend Paloma Picasso had her baby, it came out clothed in Lacroix with a Stephen Jones hat.

3.) A baby must be washed, or else it will grow mold. Sponges, which can be obtained from supermarkets (see post on how to use those), work well.

Eventually a baby will turn into a childrens, and then into an adult (or as a child disguised as an adult). If you are lucky, they will not be terrible and will not turn into a social climber who asks for money to write about parties. That's a fine job, but one for a copy writer- the sort of who writes the captions on the back of cereal boxes.

-Which isn't such a terrible thing either, no? I have a fine collection of vintage German expressionist cereal boxes, with captions like "THE RICE PUFFS TURNED INTO A COCKROACH" and "ONE MORNING, WHEN LITTLE YVES AWOKE.."- and so on. They're wonderful, and in a kind of shiny black and white nobody does anymore. But I digress. Did somebody mention tea?

Interview

2010-06-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

This was an interview I recently did for Scanlan's Monthly, reprinted here.

1. What would you call yourself, a poet or a singer, or do you think that you write poems and then you put music to it?

Of course everything is erotic to me; if it isn't erotic, it isn't interesting.

2. Do you know any Swedes?

How should I know? In any case, one must not be serious. Not only is it absurd, but a serious person cannot have sex.

3. Does the large amount of money you get now mean much to you?

Certainly not! I think that any artistic product must stand or fall on what's there. A chimpanzee can do an abstract painting, if it's good, that's great.

4. How are your friends?

Very religious. Very. But now she is crazy. She lay on top of me when I was tied to the bed. She writes me all the time begging me to return. Why must we speak of my mother?

5. You've said you think message songs are vulgar. Why?

Make love to the police. We need highly trained squads of lovemakers to go everywhere and make love.

6. Do you think Lincoln wore his hair long to keep his head warm?

Many dirty hands have fondled beauty, made it their banner; I'd like to chop off those hands, because I do believe in that banner . . . the difference is that art is beauty, which the Beatniks naturally lack, hm?

7. do you find that people who call you a genius have any influence on your writing?
No, I don't, but that's not my wish. That's Merce's wish because he's involved with a large company of dancers and a school, so if his name were in the phone book, it would be awful. Anyway, people find out what your number is whether it's in the book or not.

8. If a young man considering a career in the arts wanted to meet a lot of women, would he be better off learning to paint or to play guitar?

That's the trouble, of course, for any individual. There is the rest of society and the rest of history. I think we have to take that circumstance as the means upon which we work to help us discover the nature of the next step, rather than taking it as something to lament. That's what my father would have done.

9. Can't dreams also mean hopes about the future?

Now, it's those two things: the cockroaches on the one hand, and the mosquitoes on the other that brought about, didn't they? The DDT?

10. Who's that playing with you here?

He was a student of Bonnie Bird. Yes. And he was absolutely remarkable. In fact when Martha Graham saw him, she took him immediately in her company. He was a creature of the air. And no one knew it at the time that he would come down to earth as he has in recent years. (laughs) He's been forced down to the earth, but he refuses to stop dancing. I'm sure he'll dance the day he dies.

11. What's your take on politics?

Well, I think this is why Buddhism is so important to so many people now, is that the -- One of the principles of Buddhist philosophy is that everything causes everything else, and that there is nothing that is not caused by everything else, and that each thing is at the center of the universe, and these centers are in interpenetration and non-obstruction

12. Like a locomotive, a pair of boots, a kiss or the rain?

People ask what the avant-garde is and whether it's finished. It isn't. There will always be one. The avantgarde is flexibility of mind. And it follows like day, the night from not falling prey to government and education. Without the avant-garde nothing would get invented. If your head is in the clouds, keep your feet on the ground. If your feet are on the ground, keep your head in the clouds.

Maude and Fish

2010-05-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

Golly, as my my Vermont neighbor Maude often says. I like Maude. She's a good hunter, and she's taught Anna how Not To Shoot people (a relief for the Vogue PR dept, let me tell you. How many more excuses could they come up with- "it was just a Government weather balloon that fell on the poor dear, so sorry!", "Terry Richardson's massive lack of talent and taste fell upon Mrs. Salome, she died instantly. There was no pain, but we do send our commiserations to her husband. Enclosed is a free DVD of Sex And The City 2: Uncut. We do hope you enjoy!")

Another phrase of Maude's: "I have fish to fry!" Well, I have fish to fry too, Maude. Slimy fish. The kind that sit on the bottom of the ocean feeding on their own filth (and the filth of others). The kind of fish who get fake tans. I am, of course (you hadn't guessed?), talking about "InStyle" magazine, who contacted me some months ago wanting to feature me in a "best blogs of all time"-type feature. I laughed about it with certain associates- "haw haw haw", we went, because this "InStyle" magazine is- how do you say- for the tanned ones and girls who watch that JuicyStar person on you-tube. It is not very chic. However, I thought about it some more and thought, well, maybe this could be charity work. After all, Bono is doing Africa and the Geldof person is doing Ethipopia and Neil Young is doing the farms. I thought: ah, I will help the needy, the unfortunates, the tanned-and-sprayed ones. I must admit though, I did this for selfish means. Sometimes I look outside Rue Cambon and I see these awful orange girls with terrible leggings that make them look like German sausages. They say things like (in a heavy American accent): "THIS IS WHERE COCO CHANEL LIVES!" "DO YOU THINK SHE'LL INVITE US IN FOR TEA AND CRUMPETS?", and then someone else, from behind a street lamp (they are very thin) says: "That's the queen of England, you superficial twats." And then the American girls say: "OH! IS THAT WHAT COCO CHANEL DOES?", to which the person behind the street lamp sighs and mopes off to a cafe.

Now, these "InStyle" people required a t-shirt. A demode shirt. I discussed this with the seamstresses who make these, thread by thread, and they said "verra well, if you must." I thanked them and emailed "InStyle" back with "If you return it by sundown." They replied with "Oh! But there is a boy in the office who says your t-shirt would be the jewel in his collection!" I was feeling a tad generous, and said "Mmmph" or something of the sort. I found it funny (as did the associates), because we were joking that this is all "InStyle" wanted from us- that it was an elaborate hoax rouse to obtain a t-shirt. (By the way, those hacks claimed they couldn't afford to spend the money on buying a shirt- apparently it costs too much to shoot Miley Cyrus or Rand Paul or whoever they have on their covers.)

Of course, a day later or so, I received an email from the assistant who was in charge of "picture finding" or something similarly ridiculous. She said the editor pulled the piece. The editor, who I looked up, is one of those demode and unfortunate tanned ones. More's the pity. My associates agreed with me that this was their plan from the start: to obtain a t-shirt, with no intention of doing the story (for this fabled "boy", whoever he is. I like my boys visable, and preferably naked.)

So to use another phrase of Maude's: "Nuts to them!"- she does have good phrases. I can think of more explicit ones, but I'd feel like I was making fun of those starving Africans, such is the plight of the tanned ones. I thought about this for a whole minute, and I thought- well, maybe I should help them even more. And this is my plan- I am going to start a trust. I call it the "SAVE THE TANNED DEMODE", or STD for short. Please donate generously (checks can be written to Mr Howard Ques, 56 Rue Saint Colette, Paris.) With your help we can give them a better life, and provide white makeup for them to cover up their tans.

How to Use Traffic Lights and Other Stories

2010-05-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

I trust you all have mastered the art of supermarket shopping by now. It's very difficult, of course, and some of the slower (and more inbred) of you may still be struggling with the finer aspects- using a credit card is particularly bothersome. As a reminder, you use a credit card by passing it through a small slit on a machine with numbers. If you have enough "money" on your "card", one will be able to press "OK" and purchase what one wants.

Anyway. I wanted to talk about a couple of other things today. First of all, appreciation of photography. Many of you have been writing me letters telling me how much of an artist Terry Richardson is, and what a swell fellow he is, really. It's often the practice of the rich to determine the tastes of the rest of the world in art. The Medici's were particularly good at this. We now have people like that advertising fellow- the one who was married to Nigella Lawson (the food pornography actress). Saatchi. There's also that awful investment banker- the one who bought Damien's shark. What an investment banker knows about art, well, I don't know- the general consensus is that money equals art, and the more money something costs, the more art it is. Here's a system for you to use, which is what all the big art buyers use. It is called "Is it Art (By Awful Investment Bankers International)". If something costs between $50,000 to $100,000 it is minor art. The leeches- I mean, the art dealers, will term it "work by an interesting up and comer". If something is between $100,000 to $250,000, it is major minor art, to which the art dealers will declare "A very strong work by an unappreciated artist". And on it goes, until we get until the millions, where the work will be undoubtedly a Work of Genius.

This is all very well and good, except that from you newly bourgeois, formerly wealthy people to whom I'm addressing this post don't have millions to spend on Art with a capital A anymore. Meaning, by your system, you can't declare Terry Richardson's work art. It never was art anyway, you dull-witted Armani-suit-wearing morons. What is it? Well, it's misogynist porn that doesn't turn me on. Do you know what turns me on, hm? Dishwashers. I love the sound they make as they churn around and around. But that's not the point- my point is that Richardson's work is half the problem, because it's inherently misogynist, made by a creep who enjoys taking photographs of women on the toilet. It's an absolute indictment upon the fashion industry that magazines like Vice, Vogue, Purple, etc continue to publish this predator's work. Here's Vice magazine proving it's run by people who probably make rape jokes all day long and have the taste of a insurance salesman turned tax collector turned realtor who has been doused in the sweat produced by executives rubbing their hands together in glee as they go to murder a batch of kittens. My Coco, haven't you done well, Vice. (Also, here I'll point out that Vice published an interview with me a couple of months ago by a sycophantic...creature who asked incredibly boring questions).

What I am doing is giving a good spanking to all those in the fashion industry who have encouraged this charlatan and given him work. How pro-women of you, hm? How responsible of you, placing Mr. Richardson in power, hm? And that's not to mention the photographers "inspired" by him. How original- having a penis in a woman's mouth, no? That hasn't been done before!

In case you didn't read the above because you're illiterate and only read twitter: If you support Terry Richardson, you are anti-women. If you publish his work, you are anti-women. If you think him using his position of power to rape women is chic, you are anti-women. For an industry that makes an awful lot of money from women, it's not exactly a profitable stance, hmm?

That is the first thing I wanted to talk to you about. Secondly, I would like to give you a guide on how to use traffic lights, as you'll surely encounter these when you attempt "walking".

Now, "walking" is support the ordinary prole participates in daily, often with other proles. They do this on "streets". A street is a place which has buildings and a road. You will be familiar with these, as you probably had to climb out of your luxury automobiles and cross a "street" in order to get to the Chanel store, or something similar. (Of course, you won't be going into Chanel stores anymore, but you needn't worry for me. We have plenty more clients where you came from.) A traffic light governs the space between the cars and the people. They are very tall and have three lights on them. The colours are yellow, green and red. Yellow is a useless light and nobody knows what it means, so it's best to ignore that light if you see it. If you see green you can walk across the road. All the cars will stop and if they keep going you will be okay, because the green light will protect you (or so I'm informed). If it is red, you must wait for it to go green, because crossing the "street" on a red light will result in immediate vaporization.

Finally, to use a traffic light one must press a large metal button. This "activates" the traffic light and it knows you are alive and so on. The large metal button is the most important part, because if you don't press that the traffic light will never know you are there.

Once the traffic light turns green, do the "walking" we have practiced and you will get to the other side. There is an old German joke that my nanny used to tell me:

Q: Why did the formerly rich bourgeois person cross the road?

A: Because TIME magazine did an article on it, and the New Yorker also did an article on it, and their neighbors were doing it, so they wanted to see what it was all about and they heard it'd won an Oscar too...and one of those Nobel prizes, whatever they are. It seemed pretty reputable and they have a greatest hits album coming out.

An Email

2010-05-15T16:52:00.001-07:00

Hi,

I’m about to launch my website and I was hoping perhaps you might consider very briefly mentioning my site? I would very gladly send $55 via paypal. I’m starting a fashion store with guides on comfortable fashion and ugg boots. I was hoping to get support of fashion bloggers like yourself to help me get things off the ground. I could also create a $30 gift certificate for 100 of your readers as well?

Hope I haven’t wasted your time..

Best Wishes,

Naomi Sanders

Hello,

Comfort is always secondary. Style should not be sacrificed by wearing such atrocities as "ugg boots".

Regards,
Karl

This Post Has An Awful Lot Of BlackAdder References

2010-05-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything about the Terry Richardson thing ("thing", meaning "raping young models using his position of power"), because Jenna over at Jezebel was doing a fantastic job with it. She still is, and an assistant actually pointed this quote out to me while he was reading Jezebel. As well as that, it's not the sort of material that I normally put on this "web-blog"- obviously, rape isn't a thing that one should do in life- if one is desperate for sex, one can always hire a prostitute. There's no shame in that. One of my favourite movies is "Belle de Jour"- a gloriously erotic film if there ever was one. But I digress. The subject at hand is Terry Richardson: A terrible photographer and sexual predator. I loathe this man's photography, because it has all the intelligence of a four year old and the sexual sophistication of a donkey. It is as thick as a whole omelette, and it's as dirty as a dungbeatle who has lost interest in his career and really let itself go. I also loathe the actions of this man, for more or less the same reasons. Several models (and I love models, especially on Tuesdays) have come forward, accusing him of essentially taking advantage of his position of great power (that of photographer well-respected in fashion, for Coco knows what reasons) to force young girls, some underage to have sex with him. This is known as "rape" in many countries around the world. Rape is illegal.

I'm inclined to believe these accusations, especially since Mr. Richardson's well known for sexually-charged shoots (that is, the shoots themselves are sexual. "Uncle Terry" has admitted so himself. I wouldn't go as far to say his photos are- they're merely vulgar. Helmut Newton he's not). Some people have used this as a means of justification- to quote one blogger, Jen "Gnarltude"- "Has no one seen his photos before? What’d they think was gonna happen? All good clean fun and maybe some prayer circle after?" (the full quote is here). I'm afraid this doesn't justify it at all- just because this is common practice in Mr. Richardson's world doesn't mean it's right. In fact, it terrifies even me that this is considered "normal" by some people. Normal is, you know, buying some couture in the morning and perhaps having some champagne for lunch and burning one's old clothes in a bombfire in the afternoon. That's normal. Rape is not.

Here's a quote from Olivier Zahm: "It's totally ridiculous and embarrassing for them. The women who attacked Richardson, it's really sad...I can't understand how people can be so mean. I don't even see their point."

The point, Mr. Zahm, is that Richardson most likely had non-consensual sex with these girls. That's rather a big deal, no? With my models, I'm very protective of them- they're like my children, but very tall and sometimes mistaken for trees. I have a lot of affection for trees. Some of my favourite conversations have been with trees. Anyway- the quote made me lose a lot of respect for Mr. Zahm, who I didn't always agree with before, but I didn't dislike either. He will not be coming to any more tea parties.

Coping in A Recession, A How-To Guide For The Rich

2010-04-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Although many fabulously well-to-do economists are claiming the recession is over, I've noticed many of my wealthy friends have fallen on hard times. Fortunes have been chopped in half: what was 6 billion dollars is now a mere 3 billion dollars. Many of my friends can only afford 5 yachts a year, rather then 10 or so. Dire straits indeed.

Yet, there is no need to worry- I have a solution. I was thinking of this as I was shooting Lara, Abby Lee, et al today, and I was thinking that this "blog" originally intended to be a guide to life. Then I thought: who do I care about the most? Who is most in need? Why, the rich of course. The wealthy. Those with a silver spoon in their mouth, born or purchased. Without the rich there'd be no poor- the poor would simply cease to exist. They would vanish in a "poof!" of air. There would be no middle class, either- because without the rich, the middle class would have no job (ie. serve the rich), and therefore they'd turn into the poor and then vanish in a "poof!" of air also. Without underling classes, there would be no rich, and therefore there'd be no humans at all. Without humans, animals would cease to exist also because their job, naturally, is to provide food and furs and such for humans. In essence: the universe would collapse.

Then I thought: how can I best the rich who are not as fortunate as I? Well, I thought about this for a while, and then I realized the best way would be to write a Guide To Doing Things For The Rich. We'll start with supermarket shopping. I personally went to a supermarket and discovered how they work, so you can be assured that this is all correct.

How To Shop At Supermarkets (For The Rich), by Karl Lagerfeld.

The first thing to remember about supermarkets is that they don't have a doorman. However, most of them do seem to have "auto-matic doors", which open when you step close to them. You can experiment with different techniques for doing this: the most common is simply to walk near the door, stop, wait for the doors to open and then walk through. It's also possible to hold your hands in front of the door, say "OPEN, PROLETARIAN DOOR!" and it will open. In fact, one can say as many things as one wants to say, and the doors will open. I think they're a wonderful invention.

Once you've accomplished Walking Through The Door, you can move onto the next step: moving through "The Gates". You'll discover once you pass through the door, there is another set of doors- generally metal barriers, although they're sometimes plastic. These are to stop thieves from getting away too quickly, I think. There is one set of "gates" for you to walk through, and another to walk out of. Once you've been to the supermarket a few times, you'll get the hang of it. (TIP: Don't wear couture to the supermarket, it could get damaged, and often won't fit through the "gates". I went to the supermarket with my friend Daphne Guinness the other day- she wore the Yohji Yamamoto "wedding dress" which requires several people to hold it up. It was a challenge getting it into the store, as you can imagine.)

You'll also notice that there are things which the supermarket staff will call "trollies". These are large metal baskets which I believe are for putting the goods which you obtain in "the store" (supermarket slang) in. Models also fit in there nicely, but it's generally accepted that you give the trolly back after using it. One works the trolly by pushing it from the front- you'll notice that there's a sort of bar with which one can do this. They're wonderful machines, and quite useful when one doesn't have a bevy of assistants to carry things.

The supermarket is divided into sections, similar to how a boutique is divided, except for "perfume", "clothes", "luggage" etc is replaced with more mundane titles like "vegetables and fruit", "meat", "beverages". Do not be fooled: they function more or less the same way, though there are no fitting rooms to try a carrot on, or see if a toothbrush fits. Normal people don't have these luxuries. You can make your selections by wheeling the trolly around the store and placing the selection in your trolly. Once you've finished that, there is one final step. This is the most important step.

This most important step is to maneuver your trolly into a narrow space know as a "counter", manned by a pimply youth. They will say "Hello, sir/madame". The normal response is "Greetings, Supermarket Worker". Then they will give you the price of all your purchases, and you will be expected to pay for them. One should never say "Darling, charge it to my account" because supermarkets do not do this. Instead, one should offer the money- normally in the form of "cash" or "card". Finally, the youth will say "have a nice day!" half heartedly, and you will be expected to say "thank you" in reply. This is the etiquette.

Once one has done that, one can unload one's purchases into the rolls, take the trolly back to where you obtained it, and drive away. Congratulations: you've completed a successful trip to the supermarket.

Any questions on this how-to, please send them to fakekarl@gmail.com. I am always there to help those in need that blow their noses on Hermès scarves.

Oh Gee

2010-04-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading this morning's New York Times when I stumbled across an article about our favourite pint-sized blogging wonderkid, Scott Schuman. Young Schuman has a number of interesting things to say about the internet, the medium which has made him famous in some circles. “Now everyone feels the Internet is a free-for-all,” he said, while presumably munching on his bag of candy whilst taking a break from riding the Brand New Red Bike he received for Christmas. What Master Schuman doesn't understand is that the internet, well, is a free for all. I'm well over the age of youngsters such as him and even I understand that. Besides that- I find his lack of humor disturbing. The article refers to a site called the "Fake Sartorialist" which parodies the outfits- mostly old men- shown on young Scott's blog. He is upset with this, because his photos are high art and are not to be parodied, satirized, or anything like that. The internet is not a free for all! It is a venue for Scott Schuman to show his high art! And perhaps photos of his Brand New Bike. My butler told me that if you hurry, you can catch Scott and some of his pals playing basketball at the local court (beside Mrs. Brown's house). Afterwards they intend on watching Star Wars and talking about girls they have crushes on.

This was an involuntary facial reaction, it's not actually a smile as some of you may think.

2010-03-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

Clothes in a Cold Climate

2010-03-09T02:51:00.000-08:00

I suppose you all enjoyed the Chanel show. But many of you- including the journalists who I'm fielding now whilst telepathically writing this entry and transferring my thoughts to Enrnest in Ohio who'll write these down and post them on the blog- many of you are wondering why I did this collection.

I travelled to Antarctica last year, and the North Pole a few months before that. Anna quite enjoys clubbing all the animals there- not to mention the people who looked like animals. But nevermind that. The main thing that struck me was how demode everyone was dressing. It was impossible. And in the North Pole there's a man who calls himself "Santa Claus"- he wears red and is very overweight and has a beard. Frankly, he strikes me as some sort of pervert or homeless man. He lives there in his sleigh because the bank kicked him out because he couldn't pay his mortgage- poor guy. Beside him lives an executive from the 80s who carries around one of those giant mobile telephone devices- he lives in his Mercedes. These places exist out of time and space somewhat. But that's no excuse for demode dressing, hm? You must understand- I don't mean the normal sort of demode dressing- the kind one finds and Walmart and such. It's a special sort of demode.

The people in the picture above are a typical example of the bad dressing that goes on in these places. Just because one is in a very cold climate doesn't mean that one should dress like the Antartic equivilent of ex-Woodstock now-henchmen-for-a-bad-James-Bond-villian.

So, quite simply I thought something must be done. I consider it a favor to these poor people. The Chanel show was an instruction manual for dressing in a cold climate. It's not often I'm this charitable, but you know, I quite like the penguins- I get along well with them- and if I'm going to visit them again I'd hate for the humans to be dressed as in the picture above. It's unpleasant. People wonder why more people don't go on holiday to places like Antarctica. Yet when the inhabitants are dressing like that, who would want to visit Antarctica! Every day I get emails from people like Slim John Popeye and Dr. Faustus Pound- head of the Antarctica Tourism Board, asking why magazines I work with aren't shooting in Antarctica. And I always reply with "Because your people are dressed abhorrently. It is impossible."

Now- onto the next thing. A few of you commenters need to "step up your A-game" and start writing essays in my comments section longer than the posts themselves. Ideally you'll have names like "A.Cat.Lady" and "FDR De La Truffle". I am going to be conducting a search for these commenters, because it is not good enough simply to leave a comment like "LOVE YOUR BLOG! XO" and then link to your blog. Please email me your CVs at fakekarl@gmail.com.

Ideally, you'll either be an aging British aristocrat a or costume designer, an old lady who likes to garden and wears floral dresses, or something like that. I will revise your CVs and the qualified ones will make it into "Karl's Gang" (TM).

Interview

2010-03-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

Whilst I've been elsewhere lately, I have done one interview over at Bonnie and Clyde. You can read it here.

We Will Return Shortly

2010-02-27T08:12:00.001-08:00

D is for Dresses

2010-02-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

The dress is like a woman's chambermaid- it is the closet confidante a woman can have, aside from herself. A dress knows all the secrets- you cannot hide anything from a dress; it sees all your flaws in technicolour. More importantly, it feels all your flaws. Yet a good dress does not reveal secrets. When selecting a dress, one should keep this in mind. How trustworthy is this dress? Of course, one cannot submit this dress to a lie-detector test- dresses cannot talk, they can only show. So I find in cases like these that it is best to hire an old fashioned private investigator to investigate the dress. You can do this by going to a private investigator's door, knocking on it and hiring him with cash handed in a manilla enevelope. In extreme cases, I'd suggest getting the police involved- but really, if you're getting the police involved the dress probably isn't very trustworth in the first place! The private eye will do some background work on the dress first- even an old Chanel dress may not be totally trustworthy, about one in a thousand tends to go rogue. Like the FBI or CIA or RIAA or something, no? Anyway- the background work, then if it passes that the P.I will start investigating the dress in person. He'll walk into the room, feel the dress, talk to the dress, feel it again- frankly, some of these private eyes are perverts. But they do their job, and it's absoultuly paramount that your dress is trustworthy.

I'm reminded of a case where a woman did not have her dress properly investigated before she went and purchased it. As you can imagine, the consequences were quite disastorous. She wore the dress to a rather "important" social function and her photo ended up in all the social pages the next day. Several magazines, I know, took pictures of her in the dress because it was so unflattering. This was before these internet memes- those internet-pictures that go around everywhere. People had to make their own memes, back then. So this stupid woman became a meme in the world of fashion- people would look at the picture of her in the dress, laugh, and take it as a warning. The woman in question- I won't name her, but you probably know her name; she's very well know. Well, that woman in question's social life was destoryed, and she now mopes about her house by herself.

A Dior dress is very untrustworthy. I don't think anyone should buy a dress made by a man with a finiticky moustache anyway. Dior dresses tend to tell the other dresses about their owner, so when the wearer of the dress is in a room with other people wearing other dresses, she looks very demode indeed. Be very wary of the couture. Whilst it may look like a lady, it does not behave like a lady!
Lanvin dresses are generally good. Alber, you know, the designer of Lanvin- he has a heart of gold. Real gold. Melting gold. Pure, melting gold. It must get very hot in there sometimes. They can be quite haughty, so treat them with respect.
I'm fond of Rodarte dresses. The Rodarte sisters are sweet, in the genuine way that one imagines Sylvia Plath to be when she wasn't being depressed. The dresses themselves are sweet. Sweet in an organic way- very natural.
I suppose I'd better include the Japanese in here. Dresses by Rei Kawakubo- Comme des Garcons, tend to be incredibly mysterious. Other dresses are a bit scared of them. It really depends if you intend on socializing at a party or not. I don't, so if I was a woman I'd wear Comme des Garcons all the time. I used to wear a lot of Yohji Yamamoto in the 90s- it scared away a lot of people. Alas, I cannot wear Yohji these days. It is not in "the now." Dresses by Yohji are wonderful- elegant, but spinsters or never married. Mostly the latter.

Attention: Perez Hilton

2010-02-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Sorry Karl, must interrupt this alphabet business of yours for a moment.

Dear readers, I apologize for uttering the demode name of Per- Perez-

GET ME A WASTEBASKET, I FEEL NAUSEOUS

Hilton. But he has slighted our darling little Tavi.

Mr. Hilton -

One more word and you'll find yourself in Bulgaria blogging about new hallway carpeting trends. If I'm that nice.

I AM ANNA AND I HAVE SPOKEN.

All right, Karl - you may continue. I believe the next letter is H? H is for Hermès. Which reminds me...

ORDER MORE SCARVES.

Ciao lovelies,

Anna

G is for Gadgets

2010-02-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

In today’s modern times, gadgets seem to take the role of mother, daughter, father and son. I have colleagues- ex-colleagues, anyway, who are secretly engaged to their Blackberry or iphone. They refer to their fax machine as their “mistress” and their laptop (a Mac, no doubt) as their “lover”. Gadget people are most definitely not monogamous- except for me- I think I must be the only monogamous gadget user in the world. The only gadget I use is the ipod. I have hundreds of them- thousands. I’ve actually designed a special ipod wheelbarrow to wheel them around in. I go out into the garden and I wheel them around, pretending I’m doing some sort of garden-type work. Sometimes I even wear a safari hat, which is the most chic sort of gardening hat in the world. Of course, I don’t actually garden. It’s true that I draw flowers and they come to life, just as some sort of fairy tale. Yet those flowers need to be watered, as do the rest of the plants I have in my garden. They’re not going to survive on their own! But being drawn flowers, they require drawn rain, drawn suns, and so on. It’s all a lot of work if you think about it, which I don’t imagine you have. So I simply have Dries van Noten do the gardening. He’s much better at that sort of thing, you know. That’s why he has so many floral prints. (I think floral prints are for middle aged ladies with weight problems, but that’s another matter.)

Anyway, gadgets are fine, if one acknowledges that they are a gadget rather than a person. I’ve been at funerals- actually, recently I was at the funeral of a Very Famous and Fabulously Wealthy Person, and people answer phonecalls on their Blackberry or Boysenberry or somesuch during the funeral.

“And we will remember..”

Gadget obsessed man: “Hello? Yeah, I’m in a funeral right now. Yeah, it’s a really good one. They have cupcakes and everything..”

“Was a good man, and was loved..”

G.O.M: “Oh really? Did she really? Yeah, I haven’t had sex with her in- oh god- I don’t know, a week. Jesus. I know.”

“..By all that knew him. He was born on..”

G.O.M: “Oh god, there’s this guy in front of me who just can’t stop talking. God. Jesus. Buddha. So rude!”

And on it goes- people get annoyed with the G.O.M, the G.O.M gets annoyed with them and ends up twittering about how he is annoyed in one hundred and forty characters or less. This is not chic.

New Things

2010-02-15T02:21:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, a website called "ASOS" wrote to the producers of the t-shirts you see to your right (I feel like a tourist guide), expressing interest in selling said t-shirts on their website, along with t-shirts designed by other collaborators in the Borders and Frontiers "blogger" collaboration (of course, I don't consider myself a blogger per se, just a dressmaker). Anyway, I was feeling generous at the time and decided to spread fashion to the masses, etc etc- a la H&M. One may purchase them here. I recommend buying all 8, because there's sometimes 8 days a week. (As that chic covers band, The Beatles knows. They also do children's parties.)

F is for Figures

2010-02-14T14:59:00.000-08:00

Throughout the press lately, I've been adorned with a reputation that makes me sound like I like the models, and indeed women, to look like they come from Belsen or one of those fictional 3rd world countries (we'll get to those in a bit). I do not. I like models to be skinny. Models are not fat. You're living in a dream-world if you think models should be fat, and what a horrible dream-world that must be. Fashion itself is a dream-world, built on decadence and fantasy and depraved people. Models are part of that fantasy. When a child buys sweets, do they expect vomit coloured wrapper-and-sweet? Of course not- this would be ridiculous. We don't get many ugly people in movies because most movies are a fantasty, too. You don't sell a dress by placing it on an unattractive lady, hm? Just as one doesn't sell cigerettes by showing pictures of people dying of lung cancer. Of course a designer is free to do this- it's their perogitive. But most likely they don't understand how important a part fantasty plays in fashion.

And as for these models that one hears about going down the runways; the ones who look like they've just come out of a prision camp- well, they're not going to sell dresses either. Nobody wants to buy a dress off a skeleton. Where's the asperation in that? I realize we're a morbid culture- but not that morbid, I hope. So I don't use the prison camp models (no matter what PETA says). I use attractive girls who can convey whatever I want them to convey- I use girls who can wear my clothes well.

Yet I'm leaving out two very important things here- the figures of the women who are not models, and the figures in a bank account.

You know, women don't care what men think they look like- they're more worried about what the female population thinks they look like. Especially the chic woman. I recall a conversation I had with a dear female friend, who idealized- probably still does- the body of the model. I said to her: "but this is incredibly unattractive to men," and she said "I know, but I don't care what they think- they have no taste anyway. Have you seen those men's magazines?" I asked her what these men's magazines are, and she replied- "oh, Playboy, FHM, Maxim- that sort of thing." I told her I had read a Playboy once or twice; there was a good Bob Dylan interview in it, but I didn't understand what those vulgar women were doing on the pages. "Vulgar. That's the sort of women most men like" she replied, to which I replied that the women weren't very sexy looking, even for someone as perverse as I- why doesn't Playboy use people like Kate(Moss)?

She told me most men don't actually find Kate attractive, which I found very strange. I pointed out a few other models- Lara Stone and so on. "Nope," was her answer. So I tend to agree that woman, if they must care about anybody's opinion, should care about that of other chic females (every so often I find a straight guy with taste, but most of them have girlfriends, so please don't mail me asking for their details.)

From this, we can ask the question: "what is the perfect figure?" which I actually almost impossible to answer- if a woman is tall and has an hourglass shape, she may very well look like a hooker unless the figures in her bank account are very healthy indeed. A short woman who is exceedingly skinny may be mistaken for a tree. A very thin woman, who is likewise very skinny, may also be mistaken for a tree. In fact, she risks becoming one. There are oddles and oddles of models who were too tall and too skinny, so skinny that one day they put their arms up one day, and the universe mistook them for a tree. So they became a tree. It's most unfortunante, although I believe the modelling agencies these days have insurance policies against this sort of thing.

The perfect figure depends on every facet of you- from your nose to your asophegus. A rich woman can get away with being plumb- a "dumpling" we call them- although she'll have trouble fitting her piggy little legs into couture! A woman who has not-so-much money will want to look less like a dumpling and more like the stick on a kebab (though not a toothpick.) In the end, it comes down to personal taste. There's no need to look like a strand of my lucious hair, and there is no need to look like you're tomorrow's roast.

Figures in bank accounts are somewhat less vague. The bigger the better. The fatter the better. In fashion, everybody wants smaller, smaller. Many "fashionistas" make the mistake of thinking their bank account should reflect their slim figure. It really shouldn't. It should resemble the obese duchess you'll have to shake hands with at a charity auction if you haven't already. Warts and all.

The Rich/Mrs. R G Razia

2010-02-09T02:48:00.000-08:00

Carine and I were having a non-lunch the other day, at one of our favourite places to not eat- Quintette du Hot Club de France (they do a divine diet Coke). We were discussing the usual- J.D's death, Nabokov being dead for quite a bit longer and Lester Bangs continuing to write me stalkeresque letters from beyond the grave. Oh, and beheading people. It works quite well- it even works for the peasants! A kind of universal way of doing things, free of class- like Coca Cola. All beheadings are the same. The president of the United States of America can behead somebody, Elizabeth Taylor can behead somebody, a bum can behead somebody.

Anyway, about half an hour into our conversation, a woman named Regina G Razia came up to Carine. She's an old sort of socialite, the kind who looks like they're going to fall leopard skin pillbox hat-first into their grave. Every pore of her is filled with botox.

"OH MY GOD CARINE. ARE YOU WEARING PINK ON A TUESDAY?"

"..Excuse me?"

"I SAID: ARE YOU WEARING PINK ON A TUESDAY? IT'S PINK ON WEDNESDAYS, GOSH." "Well. I'm actually wearing black, but anyway.."

"I'M GOING TO WRITE ABOUT THIS IN MY MAGAZINE! THERE'LL BE A SCANDAL. A SCANDAL, I TELL YOU."

"Mrs. Razia, I don't believe you have a magazine."

"WELL...A BLOG" "A blog, hm?" I said.

"I JUST GOT ONE ON BLOGSPOT. IT'S ALREADY GOT TWENTY HITS. YOU'LL ALL SEE! YOU'LL RUE THE DAY YOU WORE PINK ON A TUESDAY! IT'S JUST SIMPLE ETIQUETTE."

"The rich. They're not like us" I said to Carine, as I blew my nose on my Hermès handkerchief.

The Press

2010-02-05T02:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received in the mail, via a series of tubes and butlers, a copy of "Elle Collections" magazine, in which an article by myself is featured (along with an article by the wonderful Robin Givhan, et al). The article in question is my 10 commandments of style. I thought delivering the 10 commandments on a mountain was a bit inefficient- a bit old fashioned, really. Who really gathers around mountains these days, hm? And stone tablets- frankly, it's not very modern. So I thought delivering my commandments via a magazine would be more accessible to the public, more in the now.

A few of you may be thinking- "hang on Karl, wouldn't it be more modern to tweet it?"

To this I argue that tweets are disposable, 140 character objects of frivolity. They're fine for talking about Alpacas and the like, but a set of commandments needs to someone one can hold, can lick, can feel. So the magazine format suited me perfectly for deploying the basis of the religion of fashion. I feel a little late in doing this- fashion's already been around for a thousand years or more- but it's really no different to certain designers starting their shows late, hm?

Anyway, you should all ring the bell for your butler to go an obtain a copy for you of this magazine. Otherwise you could be sinning and you won't even know it!

Felix Hoenikker: What is sin?

Karl: I don't know either, Felix. But human beings seem to require it.

Babies

2010-01-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

Since the last couture show- in which I showed not a single black piece. I was quite proud of myself, you know. Anyway, it's proved to be quite a hit with the public, and I've been inundated with requests for the silver tights I showed. Yesterday morning I woke up to find 35 babies, all dressed in quilted white jumpsuits at my doorstep. On each of them was a note: "In payment for one pair of silver tights" (or something similar). In essence, these babies were being sacrificed for Chanel. Understandable. People have tried to do this before- I've had beautiful young virgins delivered upon my desk, unicorns, first borns- that sort of thing. Who wouldn't want to sacrifice their child upon the alter of Chanel?

Yet what am I to do with 35 babies? I have no use for your children, mothers. What am I going to do? Eat them? Please- that would be cannibalism, which I believe is illegal in France and frowned upon by society. Anyway, what's more important than that is that eating a child would mean eating quite a few calories- they're very fattening, I'm told.

It's the same problem with the young beautiful virgins- they're very nice to look at, but they can't model, can't sew, and obviously eating them is rather fattening too. They're useless! I ended up throwing them back into the cliched fantasy world from which they came.

So. I suppose this is a personal appeal from I, Karl Lagerfeld: Please do not send me your babies, sacrificing humans is very last century- actually, it's even before that. It's simply not within the now. It's not modern. Nor is your first born (too Jesus Christ Superstar- fashion is not a musical!), your unicorn, your cat, your beautiful young virgin, et al. Your wallets will do just fine. Money never goes out of style. Last week I passed by a student communist party- from one of the universities, I suppose. They were selling food to fundraise for their revolution. The anarchists next door were doing the same. There was even a line for the anarchist's food-stand.

The Fate Of The World

2010-01-12T02:06:00.000-08:00

“The fate of the world relies on several things”, I said to the man standing beside my bed this morning. I believe he was my butler giving me the newspaper (ironed with couture irons), but often men who look very much like my butler stand beside my bed in the mornings as well. I don’t know why this is. Something quantum, no doubt. These Other Men who stand beside my bed often look like my butler, even down to the type of bowtie he wears- but once they say “Good Morning, Monsieur Lagerfeld” it’s immediately obvious that they’re not my butler. In some cases they’re the ghosts of Christmas past, future, and so on- the Dickens method of guilt tripping wretched creatures like myself who sold their soul long ago into feeling bad about spraying wine at the choirs who attempt to sing chorals on Christmas eve, and feeling bad about the fact that I sold my soul in the first place. Mr. Dickens was very into this manipulation of heart-strings. It’s just a pity I have no heart either, hm?

Other mornings I’ll find a tax collector beside my bed, a taxman. The old saying about death and taxes rings true- sometimes death visits me too. Of course, I tell death that I died a long time ago, before they used computer systems to track who’d died in the underworld, and I present a lawyer to the tax collector who promptly turns into a pile of dust (like editors are terrifying to books, certain lawyers are terrifying to tax collectors).

Anyway, “The fate of the world relies on several things”, I said. “And what’re they?” said my butler. “Chanel jackets, sunglasses, and mystery” I said.

“Ahh, but you’ve told the Chanel jacket joke before!” my butler said- “I can remember you humanizing the jacket, personifying it, a few months ago in an entry. And you’ve also talked about how they taste delicious, how lovely they are to lick.”
“What on Earth are you talking to about entries?” I said. “This is life we’re talking about. Life is not a series of witty entries. Life is a series of appointments and invitations.”

“Oh- they know what I’m talking about”, he said looking outside, as if talking to an audience. “Can’t you see them? Their eyes glued to their little computer screens reading what’s happening right now. Mon Dieu- some of them look like they need to sleep! Look at the bags under that one! And this one, this one right here- the one who put on makeup just to read us. Yes! I see you!”

“Albert. Dear Albert. There’s nobody there. We’re simply in my bedroom, discussing Important Things in life. Nobody can be reading this, as if we’re characters in a novel or short story or somesuch.”
“Don’t you feel….as if you’re being watched half the time? Or rather, read?” he said.

“Well. Sometimes I feel like things we say are being translated into French, put into a movie and then people- teenage girls with an inclination toward kittens, naked models, and the like- post a screenshot from this theoretical movie with a French subtitle underneath. Probably something faux-deep, you know- “I always knew it would come to this.”, and so on. And when taken out of context said teenage girls feel very intellectual and self satisfied with themselves, and proceed to post ten million pictures of kittens and cupcakes and naked girls, with the occasional Woody Allen quote- I can’t fault that.”

“Tumblr” said my butler.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Umblr?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sometimes Albert, I get the feeling that you know more than you let on.”

“Oh, no, I just take too much LSD in the morning.”

“I can think of worse things to take. You don’t have the hands to smoke cigarettes. Neither do I.”

“My mother did.”

“I think that sentence was for me, actually”, I said to my butler.

“Oh- my apologies. Sometimes I forget these things.”

“My mother did. Mm, that’s better.”
“I think we’ve probably lost the more simple readers.”
“Well, if we had these “readers” that you speak of, I’m sure some would “get it” and others would be shaking their heads and waiting for a ritual joke about fatties or drinking diet Coke or somesuch.”

“Diet Coke’s no laughing matter.”

“You’re quite right.”

“Gosh, look at that one! I can see she’s already posting a quote from us in French on some sort of website.”

“I’ll take your word for it. You know, I often think these teenagers should be doing something with their lives.”
“Like Bud Cort?”

“Yeah. Like Bud Cort. Isn’t he 16 by now?”

MERRY GODDAMN CHRISTMAS.

2009-12-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THE CASES OF VEUVE DOWN TO THE S55 WAITING OUT FRONT. I'M GOING TO THE HAMPTONS AND IF ANYONE CALLS ME BEFORE TWO DAYS AFTER NEW YEARS DAY, I WILL DISEMBOWEL THEM IN THE CLOSET AND DEEM THE RESULTING BLOOD-SPATTERED PRADA "AN IMPROVEMENT, AND TERRIBLY CHIC."

Hello adoring public,

I am going on vacation, and I said this earlier. Lara Stone blah blah blah. Whatever. Everyone is fat in my eyes. Except me and Karl. We are fabulous.

Adieu,

Anna

Christmas

2009-12-19T17:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a friend of mine called around (by this time the book crisis had been averted, and I'd sent all the editors away with cakes and bacon), and said "Karl, do you know that it's Christmas soon?"
"Oh really", I said. "Christmas has become this tradition- it's boring. The same thing every year- gifts, food, people, getting drunk, family. It has become old hat. If one is going to do the same thing every year, one might as well commit suicide immediately. It's not conducive to creativity. You see these fat mummies and daddies giving their fat children these presents, and them opening them up with vigour and excitement. And what is inside these presents? Not a painting, like the Monet I received for my 5th Christmas. These children are being given hideous multi-coloured Hannah Cyrus and Montana Jonas cds! These toys and things with bells on them! They are disgusting. I loathe them. I loathe the fact that Christmas is the same every year, for a good majority of the world. And I loathe the fact that Christmas is a holiday- holidays are for people who work 9-5 days; they are a sort of concession for selling your soul to meaningless work. Even my telephone cleaners don't work 9-5- my telephone cleaners are masters of their craft, and at night they go ballroom dancing with kings and queens- princes and paupers (chic, of course) and so on. The janitors at Chanel have masters degrees in biochemistry- their cleaning is so incredibly scientific that a couple have been nominated for Nobel prizes ("is that what you call it? A No-bell prize?"). These are not 9-5 people. They are Tom Waits people, in a Tom Ford suit.

So you see, I see Christmas as a hideous festival of decadent and depraved boredom. It makes me want to vomit- and I would, if I had eaten something in the past 47 years. Instead, I will draw you a picture of a tramp vomiting. Do you understand my point?"

Black Books

2009-12-14T19:53:00.000-08:00

I found myself blockaded this morning- a deluge of books that I haven't had a librarian catalogue yet had fallen down, blocking both entrances to the chateau. I was "booked in", to play on the American phrase "snowed in". Thus, I couldn't actually get out of the chateau today- I've been reading through each book that blocks the main entrance and discarding it when read- "digging through" the books, so to speak.

By noon I had my first visitor- I never have visitors before noon, so I occupied the morning by reading War and Peace, A Spot Of Bother, Pale Fire and so on- just a few books, no more than 50 in total. An Artist Of The Floating World caught my attention in particular- the whole "Floating World" allusion gave me an idea: to escape from my deluge of books faster, I could build a boat.

Obviously, a boat to move through the books- by now more had gathered, from where I don't know (once one surpasses a certain amount of books, one finds that they start to appear by themselves- like a bank account with a high interest rate), would not be a normal sort of boat. (That was a long sentence! I felt like Joyce for a bit there). This boat would obviously have to be built of editors, who happen to make books cower in their covers. When an editor is near a book, the text starts running into one another- an "a" runs into a "b", "z" runs into "!", "!" runs into "?" forming a "?!", ?!" goes into a pub and the proprietor asks "What sort of beer would you like?" and "?!", quite surprised by it's newly personified state, promptly becomes an alcoholic and ends up as a prostitute before writing a bestselling autobiography. Meanwhile, the proprietor of said pub runs into an entire sentence and everything gets very messy- they realize that they're old friends who haven't seen each other for years and stay fixedly in the center of the book, whilst pandemonium takes place before them. Eventually, logic simply gives up and the book vanishes in a puff of absurdity, all thanks to the editor.

So I place an ad in the newspaper for editors. I rang up the man and said "Hello"- "Hello Karl" he said, and I said- "How do you know it is me?", to which he replied "your Franco-German-Swedish accent is rather distinct", to which I agreed. Eventually I placed an ad for editors- specifically, ones who are legally blind without wearing glasses, and ones who have several critically-regarded authors under their Prada belts. Eventually these editors knocked at my door- I could see them arrive, flying through the air and landing on my doorstep with umbrellas a la Merry Poppins. The books cowered back. I fashion a microphone out of one of my high collars, and ordered them to form a boat.

"You are going to form a boat in an orderly fashion and then you will cruise through my front door"
"What's the angle you're going for, Karl?" one said.
"Research shows that if you paint your door purple it'll be more appealing to children" said another.
"If we change the colour of your grass to a logo of some sort- how about the Chanel logo- that'll be more appealing to the crucial 18-30 year old market" said yet another one.

Eventually they did form a boat- two hours later, after I had finally convinced them that my abode is chic and perfect and all I hired them to do is form a boat. They burst through the front door, as the books rearranged themselves into orderly piles- somewhat orderly, and attempted to disguise themselves as different things in order to avoid editing. One became a lamp. It has not yet changed back from a lamp- so I think I'm stuck with it! It's a very chic lamp, anyway, so I can't complain. The only Ayn Rand book I own (I was sent it by a perverse stalker who knows how much I loath Ms. Rand) turned into a pile of rubbish, and I had an assistant sweep it out. The rubbish-man came an hour later.

2009-12-14T18:43:00.000-08:00

MAYBE THIS IS SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE YOUNG LIKE YOU TO WORK OUT.

There Is No Time (B is for Budgets)

2009-12-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

This year, I have cut back from having four butlers to only two. I got rid of everything gold that I own, and replaced it with silver. I’ve only bought three hundred and sixty two suits, almost half of what I’d purchased in the same time period last year. I have been cutting back! This is what I do in a so-called recession: I budget. All this bling is vulgar- modesty is the new chic. Can you imagine what it’s like to only have two butlers? It’s simply horrible- I can’t have four separate drinks of diet Coke at the exact same time (I don’t trust assistants with my drinks of diet Coke, they’re a different breed of creature entirely.) Yet I am cutting back in order to survive in these difficult times.

An economist would tell you that a “budget” is a plan in which you lay out how you are going to spend your money. In my opinion, economists have less value when it comes to economics than a drunk in a bar. They’re paid liars. Actors are also paid liars, but with actors even the dimmest dullard from the public knows that the actor is simply acting- it appears that many people don’t know that the economist is acting. I suppose if you’re going to put your trust in these economics, one might as well put their trust into actors. Extend that to celebrities and one ends up with what half the celebrities of the world are doing: asking people to put their trust into them. This Bono and his concerts for the people in Africa, for example. And all these other charities with celebrity spokespeople. The only thing vaguely related to charity I support is road safety in France, and that’s because it’s very unattractive when someone is splashed all over the road.
Anyway, I define budget as something rather wider- I include socialising and whatnot, too. For instance I didn’t bother to go to the Met Ball this year (in New York), because I am budgeting my company- my charm- my social life. I don’t like talking to bores anyway, so it’s an excuse to get out of things one does not like:
“Hello Karl, would you like to come to our social event?”
“No. I am limiting my socialising this year because of the recession.”
“Oh! The recession, the recession…so awful…imagine how poor old Louis Vuitton feels about this recession! Can’t be good for his back pocket…”
“Louis Vuitton is a brand. The person is dead.”
“Oh. Fab!”

A Fairy Tale

2009-12-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a frog:

One day, a Princess kissed the frog:
And turned the frog into a ninteen year old dropout who enrolled into the military Pea:
The readers of the frog were not very impressed!

Karl's Little Rule Book

2009-12-10T01:28:00.000-08:00

There's fashion journalism and then there's fashion journalism. Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan and Suzy Menkes fall into the latter camp. Amy Odell et al fall into the former. The problem with fashion becoming a "popular mass culture" thing, with the advent of shows such as America's Top Model, Project Runway, etc, means that fashion "journalists" such as Amy Odell have a job. This isn't fashion journalism- it's writing about celebrity culture (see: The Hills) disguised as fashion journalism. What disappoints me is that she writes for New York magazine, albeit in the online arm of it- New York magazine is where Tom Wolfe started writing a lot of "New Journalism"- quality writing. And of course, Mr. Wolfe can wear a white suit and still look incredibly chic and not look like a waiter.

We've known for a long time that the New York fashion blog has been the equivalent of a half-finished meal of McDonald's given to a homeless man who Scott Schuman then photographs.
What I mean is, there's no surprise with Ms. Odell's latest travesty of an article, with comments from Eccentric and Grumpy Old Woman Ann Slowey, who is convinced that my niece Tavi has a secret team of elves writing her posts. I kid you not- Tavi, of style rookie fame, has a secret team of elves writing her posts! She's got a whole room of them- if you stand outside it you can hear the click-clack of typewriters, and Tavi yelling "GET TO WORK CATHY HORYN! GET TO WORK WOODY ALLEN! THOSE JOKES DON'T WRITE THEMSELVES! GET TO WORK NABOKOV! I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE DEAD!".
To quote Ms. Slowey, "You look at her video, and the writing doesn’t sync up with the way she talks about fashion."
Why? Because Tavi has the magical writing elves in a room, clacking out her posts! Those magical writing elves, busily writing everything out! I hope they get paid enough, hm?

That solves that question. A video, which is a few minutes long, proves that Tavi has these magical elves writing for her! Ann Slowey said so! And she's a magazine editor- she even knows what a magazine editor does: "...How does that help me distill the collections? What am I supposed to be buying? That’s what an editor’s job at a magazine is."
According to Ann Slowey, Magazine Editor, an editor- nevermind Tavi is a writer, not an editor- is supposed to "distill the collections" and tell people what they should buy. Nevermind publishing interesting photographers and fantastic writing (a la New Yorker re writing, and even Vogue had an interesting article about Comme des Garcons- in the 80s). No, the editor of a magazine has to distill collections for the idiot consumer who can't do this themselves. They're too stupid! And then the editor has to tell them what to buy. The reader, who just spent money on your magazine is too stupid to make their own choices!
And on this subject, I'll quote Roger Ebert, the great film critic: "Advise the readers well. This does not involve informing them, "You'll love this!" If I approached some guy in a restaurant and told him what he would love, I might get a breadbasket in the face. No, we must tell the readers what we ourselves love or hate. If we work for employers who think we should "like more movies like ordinary people like," we should make a donation in his name to the Anti-Cruelty Society."

Hmm. You mean that the reader of your magazine isn't stupid?! Whatever next. Maybe if you started taking this viewpoint, people would start reading writing in magazines again- especially fashion magazines, and not simply skip to pictures of the pretty models (to post them on their tumblr.)

Odell writes "It would be easy for people like us to feel a little insulted by magazines hiring 13-year-olds to do the job of a serious fashion critic, a person with years of experience who has probably toiled for newspapers to print their words or even care about what they have to say"
There's several problems here- Odell isn't a serious fashion critic, for example. Cathy Horyn, despite her love of bacon is. Odell writes a celebrity fashion blog, with emphasis of the "celebrity". Horyn writes sometimes scathing reviews, but always insightful- always placing things in context, always considering that the clothes are more than simply pretty frocks. Tavi's doing a fine job as a serious fashion critic, comparing dresses at Calvin Klein to being stained with tears. Just because she's thirteen years old- as Odell never fails to point out, doesn't invalidate what she writes.

Throughout the piece it's both said and implied that Tavi gives fashion advice. It's perhaps to grasp for some people that Tavi is in fact not doing what the fashion industry's been doing for years- telling people what to wear. This is obviously a very difficult concept for Ms. Slowley. I suspect she hasn't read Tavi's blog. Even the title implies that Tavi is giving fashion advice- "Editors Like Tavi But Don't Take Her Fashion Advice Seriously". Nevermind that Tavi doesn't give fashion advice- her blog is not kind of "ASK AUNT OHIO!" enterprise.

Yet as my niece Belle was saying to me earlier- this is typical New York Fashion Blog- the sort of publication that sees fit to devote an entire article to the relationship of my daughter (Jane) and her boyfriend (Amit). Because that's as important as Lacroix going bankrupt, of course.

This post isn't simply about the post about Tavi, or even about "The Cut". It's about the decline of fashion journalism. Long actual fashion critics such as Tavi and Horyn. Long live bacon muffins. But nevermind the "bollocks" (as the kids say)- the faux fashion journalists who attempt to pass themselves off as something more. They're demode.

A History Lesson

2009-12-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

The "house of concrete money", Margiela, will not have a creative director/designer replacing Mr. Margiela after his departure several months ago. Writes the wonderful Suzy Menkes in the IHT: "Ever since Karl Lagerfeld was tapped by Chanel in 1983, followed by John Galliano at Christian Dior in 1997, other storied houses have tried to fill the shoes of a deceased or departed creator. But as the design appointments become a revolving door at houses like Nina Ricci or Emanuel Ungaro, the replacement mechanism seems to have broken down."

This would be all very well and good if Margiela was producing collections worth looking at since Mr. Margiela's departure. Instead, the collections produced have been haphazard, amateurish, and resemble a 5 year old's science project. The "replacement mechanism" has worked many times, hm? Lanvin, Dior (I suppose), Dior homme, Jil Sander, Issey Miyake, Burberry, and so on. This replacement mechanism Mrs. Menkes speaks of is only broken because sub-par "designers" (a certain Ms. Lohan) and designers ill-suited for the house in question have been hired. This is a fault on the part of management.

I urge you, readers, to think back to a time before I was at Chanel. Yes, dear reader, there was a time! I was once only designing 275 collections a year, as opposed to the 300 when I started with Chanel. Anyway- Chanel was a snoring troll. It wasn't even a sleeping beauty- it was incredibly ugly. It had warts and it hadn't had a haircut in a decade and the dress it wore wasn't even couture. People has dismissed Chanel as something "of the past"- I kid you not! And how did this happen? Why, because Chanel was designed by a team. A committee.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, committees are for communists and democracies. Not for a dictatorship! Not for an auteur, such as myself, or such as Mr. Hitchcock.
I agree- collaboration is important, and I wouldn't be anywhere without my little old French seamstresses. But even they (of course they) would balk at the idea of this...democracy idea, or worse, this communism idea. It simply doesn't work. There's too many forms to fill, to many people to agree with. Do you know what's more effective than democracy? A guillotine. I have one sitting in my office, actually. It's very good for making deals. The French kings had the right idea, no?

Letters to the Editor

2009-12-06T03:44:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well. I've had rather a lot of comments on this blog as of late- it seems my post about dear Mr. Kane provoked some readers! I'm totally bemused as to why, especially given the nature of some of the comments.

"David" writes: "Somebody please tell him to check lookbook.nu every once in a while.", before adding in his "tumblr" address at the end, because everybone wants to "check out" his "tumblr", I'm sure- this is nothing against you, David, I just think this "tumblr" is incredibly disgusting and filthy. People should read a book instead- I just finished Never Let Me Go, recomended to me by the most wonderful person in the world apart from myself. It's fantastic.
Anyway- why should Mr. Kane "check" lookbook.nu? Is this bizzare, twisted form of punishment you have devised for him, David? Mr. Kane may be a mediocre designer and say stupid things, but even I don't think he deserves to be subjected to lookbook of all places.

"Tenisha" actually goes on to create a conspaircy theory, one which can stand side-by-side the email I recieved the other day claiming an Arab lady designed all my designs which I stole, in 2005 (more on that later).
"I wrote about these comments on Qlixmag.com blog and actually found his comments hilarious, especially about not caring what a 14 year old thinks. Maybe Chris said these comments to get people talking. Why else would he go after or care what a 14 year old thinks? I mean his not stupid. He knows talking ill about the blogosphere, especially in fashion, would get the bloggers commenting, whether good or bad...we are talking about him. Mission Accomplished."
I like how you're familiar enough with Mr. Kane to call him Chris. But that's beside the point- I genuinely believe, in my frozen heart of frozen hearts, that Mr. Kane is out of touch. If he wants to get people talking, he should design a good collection, hm? There's no value in getting "the bloggers" (whoever they are) talking negatively about Mr. Kane- there's no perverse millionaire going around the blogs thinking "I'M GOING TO BUY THIS BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HATES IT". Or maybe there is! But I have not spotted this perverse millionaire yet.

Finally, I shall leave you with a letter that arrived in my inbox the other day. My favourite sentence of this letter composed of lies and electronic ink is "and how Karl Lagerfeld at age

of 70 suddenly since 2005 became genius and legendary?!" My dear, I have always been a genius. (I've left the letter in the exact same way it came to me, the "poetic" formatting and so on.)

My name is Kolsoum Amirbandeh, I want people to know my story,

The world top fashion houses are against me, it is a complicated issue.

All started since May 2005, when I applied for job at CHANEL co. as a fashion designer; they

asked me to send them my CV & some of my designs by ordinary post, And so I did.

Unfortunately they used my designs (Haute Couture Fall-winter 2005- 2006). All expert Medias became impressed by the Chanel’s new collection and new style. Then I decided to plead for justice to court, but I thought they are powerful and probably it won’t be useful; so I decided to move on and do my own business, but soon I realized that it’s not over and they are spying on me all the time to get my new designs. I see all my designs every season not just on Chanel’s fashion show, even at the other top brands (Dior, Armani,…,Versace, Dolce&Gabbana, Gucci,…).

The worst thing is that these companies use their power to avoid the investors after they had

agreed to invest, and unusually change their mind.

Even I can’t find a job despite I’m a professional designer. In other word, they have boycotted me. It seems weird but it’s totally truth. I have proofs.

I'm 24, grew up in an Arab country but latter I returned with my family to Iran, unfortunately in this country there is no place for fashion design, and may be because I’m in Iran , it is quite harder to reach out for help, but I won’t give up.

I’m wondering why with my level of design I can’t even find a job, and how Karl Lagerfeld at age of 70 suddenly since 2005 became genius and legendary?!

If you look at Karl Lagerfeld’s sketches from technical side, you realize, the shown collections

don’t fit the way he sketches; the style is different, the concept is different even the mood is

different. and every fashion expert knows that since 2005 the style of Chanel collections is

completely changed. I can easily challenge him.

Noting is worst than someone steals your work, your talent. I feel myself in exile; I definitely

need your help to publish my story.

I will appreciate if you can send me your answer.

Thank you

Christopher Kane Weighs In On Bloggers

2009-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

Christopher Kane is remarkable in that he has graduated from Central St. Martins and managed to produce a semi-decent collection, once or twice. Of course- this is in between creating lazy collections where he places photos of mushroom clouds onto simple dresses and calls it "design". Bravo, Mr. Kane- this is why you're not in couture. He's not McQueen, nor even a Pugh.

Anyway, our esteemed Mr. Kane says this about bloggers: “It’s a bit mad, isn’t it? It feels like it’s happened all of a sudden and at some shows this season the front row was just all bloggers. I think it will die down though, and people know what they are doing. No one who wants to read a serious review of a show is going to look at what a 14-year-old thinks. But it has become more critical; people can say what they want about anyone on a blog without consequences and that’s quite scary. There are real repercussions for a designer if a photo of something is leaked by a blog; it can be copied in a fortnight and that can really harm a business."

Let us disceet his expert opinion: "It feels like it's happened all of a sudden"- nevermind critics like Cathy "Ohio" Horyn and Robin Givhan have been blogging for years. "I think it will die down though"- like ready-to-wear would die down in the 60s, yes? And of course, he talks about "serious" reviews of shows- it's a pity most "serious" reviews of shows are sycophantic rubbish bent toward pleasing the designers as a French whore is bent toward pleasing her customer.
Nevermind a 14 year old might actually be more honest and have more insight, than say, a review appearing on style dot com (with the exception of Ms. Mower). Of course, what Mr. Kane is really afraid of is actual critical reviews- "people can say what they want.." Meaning, Mr. Kane's lazy resort collection might be called out for what it is- horror of horrors! It might be revealed that Mr. Kane is a mediocre designer capable of creating a few "hit" pieces to satisfy the masses.

Mr. Kane is right to be afraid, and to dismiss bloggers as a flash-in-the-pan. Honest, critical opinions not coming from Menkes, Givhan, Mower or Horyn are a threat to his credibility as a designer- and so they should be. Nevermind whether they come from a 14 year old or a 140 year old (such as I). Perhaps he'll start designing clothes rather than gimmicks, hm?

The Greatest Video Known To Man (Part II)

2009-11-30T20:16:00.001-08:00

B is sometimes for Bargains

2009-11-29T04:45:00.000-08:00

Bargains:

In these modern times, people tend to associate Bargains with that dreadful Walmart place. I think of bargains as things to be haggled over at distant European markets. When I was a child (or as close to a child as I can get), I haggled over and purchased several fine dresses in the markets of Berlin, until I realised I looked like my mother in them. I sold those dresses and thereafter only wore suits, even in bed.

The fatties who go to Walmart have cheapened the whole word- “Bargain”. I’ve observed that there’s actually a sub-culture of the fattie in America. They probably have meetings in underground basements, stocked with fries on tap (Americans say fries, and everybody in France is offended that some call them “french fries”. We do not eat fries in France. We don’t even let fries come into France- they’re more banned than one of those terrorists that you Americans talk of.)

So the fatties are having their meetings in their sweaty, mouldy little basements; planning the next Walmart-Hijacking.
“Toilet paper will be only one dollar tomorrow!” Chomps fattie number one.
“BARGAIN!” Chews fattie number two.
The other fatties, I imagine, gather around in a sort of penguin-like huddle, discussing specifics of their plan to go to Walmart tomorrow. They squawk “Bargain! Bargain!” to one another, a sort of fattie-version of the air-kiss. Their fat little hands shake up and down with anticipation. They rub their stomachs, as if they are going to actually consume the toilet paper.
“This will annoy Karl!” says fattie one, obviously their leader.
“Oh yes, this will degrade the word “bargain”!” munches fattie three.

I am convinced this is what happens. These fatties are always busy scheming on how to make the world more ugly, how to even make words ugly. They may pretend not to know who I am, yet they are totally aware of Karl Otto Lagerfeld. They’re probably totally aware of all things beautiful- what’s the saying? “Know your enemy”

Toilet paper on sale is not a bargain, hm? This toilet paper is probably low quality! It probably has so much acid and bleach in it that one could find the entire drug supply of Cuba within a single roll. And what sort of fattie wants drugs in their body- as far as they’re concerned, drugs make you thin.
Non, a bargain is something that lasts for a very long time. For instance, I am a bargain to my mother! I’ve lasted for a rather long time- rather longer than many of my “peers.” My suits are a bargain- although I wear each one only once, the homeless I give them to are still wearing them. I just looked out my back window, and I saw the chicest homeless man ever walk past- he had on an old suit jacket of mine, and an old pair of skinny jeans. This is my sort of charity.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T03:20:00.000-08:00

In Amerika*, the peasants- (assistant: everyone does thanksgiving, not just the peasants. Karl: Oh, really? Interesting. I don't do holidays) have a holiday called "thanksgiving", where they thank people for something- I don't really know what. But there's turkeys involved in it somewhere. Do they thank the turkeys, then eat them? Do they worship turkeys in Amerika? I thought they worshiped money over there, but I could be wrong. Anyway, the illustrator Danny painted a picture of me, surrounded by some models. I think this is a terribly divine gesture of Danny, and I thank him for it- notice neither I or the models are eating food, hm? And you know, food on a painting is calorie free- that's why Van Gogh ate paint!

Anyway, above is the portrait Danny painted of I and my disciples (there's also a colour version if you click Danny's name, but I posted the black and white version since I live in a black and white world). I wonder who's Judas! I wonder who's Paul! And I can turn that wine into water.

*Kafka is watching you, children.

Age is another A

2009-11-22T14:53:00.000-08:00

Age:

Lamb dressed as mutton. Mutton dressed as lamb. In the end, the mutton ends up in pies and the lamb ends up on the white china plates of some London restaurant! Mutton is terrible and chewy anyway, and lambs are best used for making a delicious jacket or boots or something. Besides, both contain calories- a no-no when it comes to eating. So I will not talk about the mutton dressed as lamb thing, because I assume you people are not sheep. I hope you are not. There are some people that do tend to look like sheep, I admit. I had the displeasure of being on the street last year, where an overweight lady in a floral dress came barging through the usual barrage of photographers, trying to talk to me. She had facial hair. The hair on the top of her head resembled a cross between a toilet brush and sheep’s wool. She had jowls. Perhaps we could call her a sheep. But non non non, I hope you are not that lady. If you are, there is no hope for you.

I am not going to talk about sheep, or animals or any sort. I am simply going to tell you a terrifying story:

There was once a lady who was forty years old, or about that. She harboured delusions that she was twenty- possibly younger, maybe seventeen. Every morning, she would get up and put on the shiny black leggings which the young people wore two years ago (I still see the young people wear these leggings today, but they are not the chic youth with whom I associate.) Her fat dumpling legs looked like sausages wrapped in black foil- not that she noticed, our blind and demode woman. She would see a beautiful young twenty year old woman in the mirror instead. The woman would then put on a checked shirt, not noticing her arms jiggling because the sleeves were unflattering. She would straighten her hair to give he impression of some dead skunk, and place wayfarer sunglasses over her eyes; as if to declare her blindness to the world. She would waddle out into the street, where she would glance in admiration in the shop windows, at her imaginary-chic-figure. The shopkeepers, all stylish to the nines- in fact, stylish to the nineties, would stare at this bizarre figure of a woman who had wrinkles all over her blotched skin, wobbling arms and legs trapped in some sort of sausage roll. Ah, the delusion of being young, hmm? We are only young for so long, and there is nothing wrong with ageing. But one must dress appropriately. I hope that story terrified you enough.

On the other hand, a young person dressing as somebody more…mature, can be rather terrible as well. For instance, I see five-year-olds walk around Paris in fur coats carrying cigarette holders. I asked one of these 5-year-olds: “is there a surplus of fur coats and cigarette holders in Paris at the moment?”
The five-year-old blew just cigarette smoke at my pants (5-year-old aren’t very tall these days), and looked at me through his monocle slightly contemptuously. His date, a 5-and-a-half-year-old in her red Yves Saint Laurent dress and 7-inch heels pouted at me. I stared them down. It’s simply too young an age to be wearing fur coats- one should wait till at least 8. I told he 5 year old this, and he tried to rationalise it:
“You see, monsieur Lagerfeld, fur coats for children such as us use less material than an adult’s fur coat. It is cheaper.”
“But we’re all children, are we not?”
“Some of us are bigger children than others” he retorted.
“Ah, but since we are both agreed to be children, a fur coat should be cheap for me too.”
“But big children like to spend lots of money on things,” the 5 year old said.
“I like very cheap things and very expensive things. Fur is from dead animals, no? The value of the animal is already gone- it is dead- so that is why it is so cheap.”
“True, true, Monsieur Lagerfeld.”

Later on I was walking to the Chanel atelier where I came across a rather plumb 6 year old with a cigar and a top hat standing outside the atelier. I took the cigar out of his mouth, and stamped on it with vigour. I told him to buy gloves. So you see, it is very dangerous to dress in a mature fashion if you are young.

The final thing to say here, is that many of the people these days are getting plastic injected into their bodies. We are made mostly of water- not plastic- this is why we are not Barbie dolls and Ken dolls and Batman figurines. Some people feel that plastic surgery makes them look younger. It is a way to cheat age, they say. All they are doing is cheating themselves- we call all see if someone has plastic covering their body, just as a child can see that Batman is wearing a suit, or one of those terrible comic book villains has a metal arm and such. It is just as obvious to have a metal arm with a laser attached, as it is to have plastic attached to one’s self. Why, these plastic-people might as well attach plastic bags to their breasts and margarine containers attached to their face!

Oh, Marc.

2009-11-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

This is quite true, you know.

IF I DIDN'T MAKE ALL OF YOU GO, IT'D BE A FREAKSHOW.
Jeremy Scott and Richie goddamn Rich would take the whole damn thing over, cover it in macrame stars and rainbow mylar and rename it 'FAUXHAWK FANTASIA.'

You'd be asked to bring your own libation, step over the go-go boys and drunk drag queens on the way in and stagger to your rented folding chair to watch Jason Preston take his shirt off and explain the moral and cultural significance of his 'MARIAH' tattoo.

So, Marc, be glad I make you go. I do these things for your own good.

xo

Anna

Daul

2009-11-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

I'll keep this short, since I'm not prone to sentimentality. Rest in Peace, Daul Kim. You were a true muse.

Yves wants a shot at doing "A"

2009-11-20T03:15:00.000-08:00

Editor's note: Hello. This is Karl here. Yves' lawyers have threatened to reveal decade-old secrets if I don't post his attempt at doing "A" in the little glossary we're compliling at my glorious "blog". So here it is (if you want my opinion, I think Yves does a little too mush hasheesh, no?)

Oh, hello! So nice to see you! Come in and sit by the fire!

A is for authentic style, born of adventure in your life, not Aspiring to be some one else. Aspirational is the worst, but adventure, that is chic, so very chic.

We had an intern, Tom Ford, who aspired to be young again. Plastic surgery doesn’t stop aging, he would have been better off with and acupuncture facial, it moves energy. Too much plastic surgery and soon you look like a muppet, or like you have panty hose over your face. The technical term for Tom is colonista.

OOOh, but I have an adventure to tell you about, are you comfortable? Here, grab the ottoman that goes with that chair, yes that blanket does melt over you like butter.

Soooo,I am exhausted, but in an exhilarating way!

OOOh, Pierre and I went horseback riding. I could have dressed el gaucho, but I went instead for a more Western look-plaid, denim, and a hat that I admired on some folk singer in the 70s.

And Wrangler jeans, what real cowboys wear, as the inseams are kinder. (Karl, I said kinder, as in easier when riding, not kinder, like that garcon Baptiste.)

Denim, and where does that word come from? de Nimes!

Anyway I was inspired to go riding by several things. First, I have been reading Winston Churchill’s My Early Years, This man won a Nobel Prize for literature when Nobel Prizes still meant something. In it he has the most beautiful descriptions of whirling dervishes and berbers attacking the British, on their horses, in hooded cloaks, charging across the spare rosy desert at dawn. And I learned the origin of the phrase “Hold your horses.” Apparently, when shooting at the enemy from horseback, you have an underling hold your horse’s bridle so it doesn’t startle. Oh, how I long for life before tweeker or whatever.

We rode far as the American West. We stopped in the middle of the shimmering gold and sage desert, and saw two men, in a field that went on for miles, on horses circling with ropes. They were calf roping on horseback, so beautiful in silhouette it looked like a ballet. A rugged ballet.

Of course, horses are a wonderful chance to be elegant, with colorful woolen blankets, and graceful deportment. Who compared horses to shopping? They were wrong. Shopkeepers, non. “Ooh, would you like a nice spaghetti sandwich to go with those shoes you will regret before the light bill is due?”

Save your shop money and send the maid out to look for acreage with a barn.

Of course, Karl wears his denim jeans too tight to mount a thing.

Afternoon tea around a real campfire is nice, crackling noises, and the scent of pine in the breeze, and a ninety mile view of the Cascades and Canadian Rockies.

Oooh, so is being home, surrounded by my books, carpets, furniture, zinnias, chrysanthemums, and watching the cat’s tail waiver past the window as she chases a moth out in the garden. .

Oh, lets ring for smoked salmon, and tawny port over ice! Beach! And some sweet banana nut bread with the apricot pineapple jam we made that lovely afternoon in August! The scent of it makes summer return, fleetingly!

Oh, I am so glad you came! I do look forward to our visits, ma puce!

A- for Anna, but also for Appropriateness

2009-11-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

Appropriateness:

I often visit libraries. It’s mainly because I enjoy observing people, stalking them through my dark sunglasses. I walk down the aisles of bookshelves, my pony-tailed-super-slim silhouette cutting a vaguely scholarly figure- I like to think to myself that people imagine if I’m real or not. On the odd occasion I’m walking down yet another aisle where I spy a children’s group reading novels- Nabokov, Pynchon, and so on. This is all fine, I think children should start reading novels as soon as they can- none of this sycophantic rubbish they teach in schools these days. The first book I ever read was War and Peace! Now it’s all “Generic character’s first day of school.” Who really cares about generic character’s first day of school, hmm? I would find this very boring, even as a child. I do not want to know about some mediocre child and their mediocre school and their mediocre lives. It is a bore, no?
Anyway, I saw these children wearing ball gowns whilst reading these authors. Shamefully, the mothers were in sweat suits. This is not my point though (the mothers are beyond help)- my point is ball gowns. It is inappropriate to wear these things in a library, reading. Does an archaeologist wear a ball gown when they are on a dig, hm? Books are very much like a dig- and one should dress appropriately. I hope you’re dressed for this book, dear reader. I hope you’re dressed for I, Karl, dear reader.

On the other side of all this, we have those poor souls (if they haven’t sold them yet) who dress like they are gardening when they are at the opera. I don’t go to the opera too much- I normally go to smirk at the nouveau riche, with their over-applied makeup and handbag-husbands. Over-applied makeup is as much of a sin as dressing badly for the opera, by the way. Anyway, when I do go to the opera there’s almost always a couple who dress like they have been struck by the flu just after they’ve been gardening. It is horrid. Worst of all, it is an insult to the performers of the opera- they take hours to get ready (days, if they are a prima donna), and these people dress as if they were just out feeding the chocks? We are not in provincial France anymore- there is no river cottage for you here. To be chic is to be appropriate (among other things), and one can never be appropriate as a farmer at the opera- even if it is one of these Philip Glass operas that go on for years. If it is a Philip Glass opera, one should dress in black and white.

A IS FOR ANNA.

2009-11-12T14:31:00.000-08:00

*click*

Did you turn on the recorder already, you idiotic little girl?

Well, this is what I want it to say...

The title should be something like "Anna is Ageless Always," or "Anna is Absolutely Beautiful Always" - see how we tied in the 'B' there? As in the letter that comes after 'A?' This is what being an editor is all about - it's thinking on your feet, being creative. Something you are quite incapable of achieving.

Anyway, tell Karl to halt his little ABC experiment so we can talk about my birthday. We should issue some sort of statement to the effect of:

"Hello darling admirers,

I would like to remind you that I am beautiful, radiant, and I -"

WHERE IS THE BOTTLE OF VEUVE I ORDERED HALF AN HOUR AGO? ARE ALL OF YOU DEAF MUTES? GET IT NOW. NOW.

"- and that little birthday thing I apparently had last week? Pure tabloid fabrication. You see, adoring public, I am Anna. Thus I am ageless. I wasn't born, really - it was more of a creation. I am just like those Chanel frocks, you see. A beautiful, stunning apparition. Although I must be quite clear; I didn't spring forth from Karl's head. Can you imagine the contents of his brain? I would have been crushed by visions of his mother, large format black-and-white prints or any of the 139,300 Adonis-like male models currently just "hanging out" in there. Seriously, it's like a German carnival mated with Pride and all French film from the 50s in a sick menage-a-trois. I mean, I'm sure it's beautiful. But it's also insane.

So there you have it, darlings. I have no age, no wrinkles or date-of-birth. I am simply Anna."

That's all it should say. Did it work?

I said, did it work? Did it record? Good. Now go use your stubby little fingers to post it to the blog - Karl thinks I disappeared. Also, call the Khashoggis and tell them I left the yacht in the normal slip in Monte Carlo, and thank them for letting me use it for the party. If there are any underwear models left hanging around, tell Octavia and Petrina that they can keep them.

Did that Veuve get here yet?

*click*

A is also for Adaptability

2009-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

Adaptability:

I am now at least 70, depending on what reports you have read. Some reports place me around the region of 250! The truth is somewhere in between. In any case, I have seen a great many young up-and-comers become old-maid-one-hit-wonders. One day they are young and beautiful; the next they are alcoholics doing guest appearances in small towns at women’s conventions for a cheap make-up supplement manufactured in Peru. An old foe of my, Yves Saint Laurent, is in this situation. He is dead. I imagine you understand the problems associated with being dead- it’s a rather hard situation to adapt to. Yves could never adapt anyway, so I wonder how he’s going to get out of this one. Of course, one only becomes dead when one fails to adapt. Yves stopped adapting in the 70’s. I think he died last year, but it may’ve been 20 years ago- one can never tell.

I knew Truman Capote for a while, actually. We met maybe four years before he died- you know, nobody was paying attention to him at this time. He was just a sort of imploding star, stuck in the jet set. The sort of people who are wealthy, inbreed but are not aristocracy- rather an executive of some sort, a chairman. He was obsessed with the jet set- writing a book about them. There was no jet set by then, and there is certainly no jet set now! Times have changed! When times change, one must change too or one will became another fatality, hm? But I met Truman, and he was such a sad state- stuck in a time that didn’t exist anymore.
“You won’t believe what dish I’ve found out on executive so-and-so,” I remember him saying to me.
It took me five seconds to think of a reply- a long, drawn out five seconds where I umm-ed and ahh-ed (mentally, of course. Never show a sign of indecision) between saying “nobody cares Truman”, or “how interesting.” I just ended up with an “Mm.” He continued babbling on, whilst I blocked out his words by having a conversation with myself in my head.

Adaptability is paramount. I am like some vampire-esque chameleon, always absorbing the zeitgeist like fatties absorb grease. Where those plump creatures which weigh down the earth with their dinosaur-like stomping eat those pizzas and such, devouring them as if to create a world pizza-short; I eat the zeitgeist- designing it and throwing it away when I am done. I am not immortal for the fun of it; I am immortal because I am always up-to-date! The zeitgeist is my lover.

A is for Accessories

2009-11-06T15:56:00.001-08:00

Accessories:

Coco Chanel said that one should start with too many accessories and take one or more of them off. This is because Coco could not accessorise very well herself. When one puts on too many accessories in the first place, one risks somebody stylish walking in on them, and catching them with too many accessories on. Mon Chanel! How embarrassing! Imagine the look of this stylish person walking in on you and your overly-accessorised self, the shock in his or her face, the loss of whatever respect this person has for you. I myself sometimes do this at wherever I happen to be staying- I open every door of the hotel or castle or somesuch, trying to catch an over-accessoriser in the act. It is great fun for the catcher, but you don’t want to be the one caught!
More importantly- imagine your demode self, with one thousand and one accessories on. Imagine how trite and cheap you must look! Imagine how you might look like a goldmine to the men who may see you- not a goldmine they’re sexually attracted to; more like a goldmine where they’re going to approach the owner of wherever you’re staying at for the cost of the land rights to “that large heap of gold and silver that was laying in room one-oh-eight”. That large heap is you, over accessoriser. Non non non, that look is demode.

How is one meant to accessorise, in this case? What is this correct amount of accessories, hm?
I am not a mathematician- I’m not going to give you a formula. It is up to one’s own eye. What I do is I look at the person in question- in most cases it’s myself, occasionally a model. I observe their weight, their height, their hair colour, their favourite music and so on. Really eye this person up- is their neck particularly attractive- will a necklace enhance it? Is this person a fattie? Does this person have unattractive fingers? For instance, my own fingers are terrible- my mother used to tell me: “Don’t smoke Karl, because your hands are much too ugly for it and a cigarette will draw attention to it.” So I wear fingerless gloves and put many, many rings on my fingers. Yet if I had painterly fingers, it would not be acceptable to wear a million rings.

I choose to accessorise with high collars, sunglasses, fingerless gloves and rings- but I’m not going to tell you to wear this (I do hope you didn’t buy this book in order to justify your high collar habit- that’s your own problem.) However, I think everybody should wear sunglasses at least some of the time. Unless you are very stupid, or have very beautiful eyes, sunglasses act as a sort of disguise- a sort of eye shadow. Stupid people do not need a disguise because they’re too stupid to register anything anyway, hm? If one of the accessories you are wearing is sunglasses when your chic friend walks in on your overly-accessorising self, at least you can conceal an iota of your embarrassment.

Foreword to a book that might be posted whenever I feel like it

2009-10-31T16:25:00.001-07:00

FOREWORD,
By Karl Lagerfeld.

One day, as I was taking off my quilted sleeping mask and ringing the bell beside my bed for my morning-butler, I felt an odd benevolent feeling surge within me. Non, it was not a surge- it was just a tickle. Now normally I equate “benevolence” with charitable old men, who are balding and senile. These old men probably are chairmen of a bank someplace, and they most likely have grandchildren whom they dote like a fashion designer dotes upon his mother. I do not have any grandchildren; banks bore me and I am most certainly not senile. Yet I felt slightly benevolent as I thought to myself: “I should write a book about how to live in a proper fashion.” Of course, this would mean helping people, as hardly anybody knows how to live these days. This itself led to a moral dilemma: do I really want to help people? Do they deserve my help, hmm? I debated this with myself for all of an hour, as I sketched out the latest Chanel collection. Yet this niggling charitable feeling simply would not go away, even as I practised my passive-aggressive face in the mirror. I pursed my lips, and eventually decided on a course of action. I would write this book, but only for the sake of posterity (like one might produce a great artwork, a great symphony or somesuch- I am writing this guide to living simply because it would be a crime not to.)

It is safe to assume that since you are reading this book you know who I am. On the chance that you’re some philistine who does not know who I am, some jam-brained sweat suit wearing fattie- well, just stop reading now. However, I’m going to introduce myself anyway. I did consider making one of my cohorts write an introduction- “Karl Lagerfeld is perhaps the most important fashion designer of the 20th and 21st centuries. Here is a man who is always relevant, who has produced more variations on the little black dress than Bach produced variations of the well tempered clavier…”- that sort of thing. I’d get someone people think of highly to write the introduction, whilst looking over their shoulder with a silver cane. Maybe Alber Elbaz, Anna Wintour- someone like that. In the end I couldn’t let somebody else write my introduction, I’m too selfish.

My name is Karl Lagerfeld (but you knew that, assuming you can read the front cover). I am the greatest fashion designer to ever walk this little planet- Chanel became a legend because of my designs, my genius. Before I came to Chanel, it was a near-comatose ugly stepsister, remembered by nobody. Coco Chanel was remembered primarily as the private call-girl to a Nazi and a decent businesswoman (I am not making this up, no joking here. You can look it all up if you don’t believe me). I revived Chanel solely through my own design genius. I also have designed almost every other collection worth noting, whether it is Comme des Garcons or Dior; every decent collection has been designed by me. Other designers put their names to these collections, yet I see the other “designers” scavenging around the bins outside my Parisian abode. They’re looking for the collections I’ve designed which are not good enough for me. Generally, they find them and take the sketches back to their teams who plagiarise my aborted collections. It’s rather similar to stealing a Picasso piece which Picasso himself does not like, or settling for a second-rate lover. All my collections are fantastic lovers, of course, yet I prefer to be incredibly fastidious with the collections I release. Some lovers are more Karl than others, hmm? And the Karl-lover is always better. Besides- if I released too many lover-collections upon the world, they would simply die of sexual ecstasy. Dead customers are deadbeats when it comes to paying their bills.

As you can see from the above paragraph, I’m rather brilliant. You’re probably awed, and your jaw has dropped so low that I must ask you to close it- drool is never chic. Imagine what you’re doing to my pages! It is a privilege to be reading this book, and you should thank your trust fund or whoever gives you money that has allowed you to afford this opportunity. You may never get to speak to me, but at least you can read my words.

This book- a guide to living, if you will- will be organised alphabetically. A, B, C, and so on, until we reach Z and as the children’s song goes, you may start all over again! Everything in here is my strict advice- it is no joke. If you follow these commandments, you will be living a far more chic life! You’ll never equate with I, of course, yet at least you will rise above those plebes not reading this book. Let us begin.

Yves says he's elegant, even when he's dead.

2009-10-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello! I am so glad you came by. Cocoa is really nice in the afternoon, no?

You know why I like our little visits? They are elegant. Look, here is that darling Portuguese bringing the tray. Her name? Beach, I am sure of it.

Oh, and she sets up the tea table and goodies, Merriwether is following with the service de the and chocolatiere. Oh, and muffins. Can I interest you in an orange nut muffin?

Restaurants are not really chic. They are so awkward. And some unemployed interior designer barking “excellent choice” at each request. How people enjoy their meal in this environment? Chefs choice? Non, its my choice.

That’s why this economy, oh I keep saying this economy, don’t I? Anyway, this is an opportunity to create a beautiful dining room, enjoy your grandmere’s plates and to be really exclusive. Learn about food, experience it, rather than have some worker bee explain it to you. Do you have a lovely decanter, rimmed in silver with lovely little glasses?

Use the good china. Today is soo special. In my Algerian village, there is a girl who is Eucharistic minister, the one who helps at communion, who sneers when people she doesn’t like approach during mass. Do not invite her with great flourish. Invite instead, her sister who works at a coffee shop, so her children have insurance and a Tennis Club membership.

That wonderful Horyn woman is right. Let the celebrities have their own fashion weeks. We will entertain each other in private. Dinners, fashion, bookclubs.
Ahhhh, use this economy to refine your life. All those divorcees selling their Gucci bags and Rolexes. No, mon amie, you look sooo chic in your leggings and your fathers sweater, the plaid sneakers are charmant. Chic cannot be purchased. Let us sit back, and think of all the people we don’t have to invite, and then blame it on the economy! Vreeland was right when she said refusal is elegance!

Ooh! Ooh! Look! A pretty green hummingbird has joined us! She is over there, in the fuchsia baskets! A lovely guest!

Coco or cocoa?

Could you please pass the apricot cream bread, I think its still warm! Oh lovely!

Oh yes, we were going to speak of the 1970s, of beatniks, and plaids.

We’ll get to that. Those old folkies, they are like granite, we will always have them.

I am so glad you came by today!

Mail from SeoBlogReviews.com (you can contact them yourself at eunicesm18@yahoo.com)

2009-10-28T03:31:00.000-07:00

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--

Dear Morally Bankrupt Fatties,

You are terrible people and you should all be ashamed of yourselves. How on Earth do you sleep at night, you two-bit hacks? Do you have families to feed, hmm? How do your children feel, knowing that what you do is email glorious people such as myself with your worthless fodder? How do you live? Don't you feel soul-crushingly depressed when click the "send" button on your pre-written email? Don't you just want to jump out the window like your former and late colleagues have done? You are horrible, dreadful, unsavoury people. Unsavoury! Please, quit your job and become a taxi driver or accountant or stylist while you still can. I implore you! The life you're living is useless!

Good day to you, sirs,
Karl Otto Lagerfeld

K and J

2009-10-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

K: Do you know what?
J: What?
K: All these models look like trees.
J: That's because they've turned into trees.
K: Very well. Do they still wear the clothes?
J: Indeed they do.
K: In that case I have no problem with models-turning-into-trees, hm?
X: You've already done the old models-turning-into-trees thing before, Karl!
K: Oh, so you think that models turning into trees is a joke, hm?
X: No, but if you go back into one of your previous posts..
J: This is a serious issue, X.
X: X isn't even my real name!
J: Then how come it's on the screen?
X: Because it's a totally arbitrary letter which could stand for anything!
K: It says your name is "X". I just read so, above. Where you come in with the line "X: You've already done the old models-turning-into-trees thing before, Karl!"
X: Oh...it does too.
K: And now you're going to vanish into a pair of rapidly aging- both fashion-wise and quality-wise, Balmain t-shirt.
X: No I'm not!
[X vanishes into Balmain t-shirt]
J: So you mean, by looking at the script we can see what we say next?
K: But of course.
J: But here it says "X reappears in a confusion of logic.."
[X reappears in a confusion of logic..]
X: This is really rather meta.
K: I can do whatever the hell I want. I'm Karl Lagerfeld, and you're just an arbitrary character.
K: Quite right.
K: I agree, Karl.

This Plus-Sized Business

2009-10-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

Goodness me, I woke up this morning to a deluge of mail regarding comments of mine that were published all over the world, even in Cat Lovers Daily, Cat Lovers Weekly, Cat Lovers Digest, Feline Fanciers Fortnightly and so on. I was talking about overweight women, not normal women. In other words, I was talking about the fatties. We know about those types, hm? And I was talking about the fatties in context of the runway, and you know, one time we had a "dry run" of a Chanel show with fatties and the runway collapsed! It's a health and safety risk, frankly.
Of course, you gannets- meaning the press- take my words out of context and think I'm talking about everybody! I am talking about models. I am not saying the fat mummy from Ohio who eats potato chips all night and watches "Project Runway", saying to her husband "These girls are just too damn skinny" (of course, Project Runway girls aren't proper models anyway.)

That's all. You may all proceed to continue eating your potato chips in front of your television-computer screen, or feeling superior to the rest of the readers of this blog because you aren't eating potato chips.

tavi wears my clothes and helps me feed stray cats in the graveyard

2009-10-10T05:09:00.000-07:00

YO WHATEVS YO

Tea

2009-10-10T04:38:00.000-07:00

Recently around the atelier I've noticed a sort of "trend" popping up. Or rather, I thought it was a "trend" at first. It appears that it is more insidious. Let me explain, hm?

1) I noticed about a month ago that my seamstresses were placing bags of brown-black coloured material into hot water, and then drinking it. My seamstresses would gather around in a circle and exchange gossip as they drank this brown liquid. I thought this most curious.

2) After a while, I noticed other people were doing it as well. My assistant, Veronique started drinking the brown liquid. Even the models, who exist on a substance called "Evian" were drinking it. Multiple circles of people drinking the liquid started to form. I noted this phenomena in my handy-dandy notebook as "crop circles."

3) During Paris fashion week, I noticed whole rows of security men and runway-cleaners (a job similar to street cleaner) were dipping the bags of brown-black into hot water. I wondered where on Earth these people got the idea to drink this brown concoction.

4) I asked Yves, who was yawning because he's been dead for a long time now, what this thing-- this brown water thing is. He said it is called "tea". I noted it in my notebook.

4) Yesterday I shouted, in my most thick and treacle-like accent: "WHAT IS THIS TEA?"
Veronique said "Oh Karl, it is something you drink."
"Like diet Coke?"
"Sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Well, you know how diet Coke comes ready-made.."
"Yes. It is pret-a-porter drink. I am, after all, a commoner, hm?"
"Well tea is something you make on the spot"
"Like couture!"
"Yes, like couture."
"Why is everyone drinking couture?"
She shrugged. "Because they like the taste?"

I thought this was also curious. Couture drink. Whatever next? Well. I was about to find out something far more sinister..

6) I went into the seamstresses break room, where they don't sew but "break", as the name suggests. I saw them in a circle, chanting away- here is the chant:

"No really!"
"Yes really!"
"He didn't?!"
"He did!"
"No really!"
"You'll never believe but.."
"Mon dieu!"
"I know!"

And they kept repeating this chant on and on, and it was at this moment that I realized I was in the middle of a cult.

"No really!"
"Yes really!'
"You'll never believe but.."

These people worship gods such as: Bell, Dilmah, "Earl Grey", "Lady Grey", "Twinings". I suppose this is the changing world, hm? Couture drinks. Goodness me. I will keep you updated. Maybe you, dear reader, are a part of this cult too.

Plaid (Yves Wouldn't Stop Talking About It)

2009-10-10T03:37:00.000-07:00

Plaid Plaid Plaid. Love plaid!

Ahhhhh, the maid brought me a lovely blanket to keep the chill off. A lovely plaid blanket, with fringe. It belonged to my dear mother.

Man learned 12,000 years ago that sheep were worth more alive than dead, when he began to fashion garments to protect his body from hot or freezing temperatures. A deal was struck, man protected the sheep from predators, sheep provided man with food and clothing. Man, born with the most empty closet of the animal kingdom.

Prehistoric sheep grew dark hairy coats that caught on branches or simply fell off their bodies in heavy clumps every spring. This could be plucked by hand, and woolgathering, another word for daydreaming was born. It caught on quickly.

Ah, the Scots. A bunch of thugs who drank beer from their prisoners’ skulls. Scots are just Vikings who got run out of Norway. So these gangs created designs in the wool, different plaids represented who their family was. Oh, plaids and tartans instead of reading and writing!

Do not get dressed today until you have perfected your posture. Beautiful alignment, a gentle sway, that is more important that plaids or cashmere. This economy means we will leave sequined pasties to drive through espresso girls licking whip cream off of each other.

And the telephone. Remember elegance. Don’t say “Is this Yves?’ Give me the option of “May I speak to Yves?’ or , for Karl, Ich mochter mit Yves sprechen bitte.

Oooh, lets get back to plaid and wool.

Futures trading, the carpet ride to riches, or not, was invented by the Cistercian monks. These wise monks began dabbling in the wool trade in the 13^{th Centruy} , as the wool trade from the landowning abbeys grew prosperous. Buyers would pay several times the going rate for a consistent quality of wool. Richard the Lionhearted was ransomed on his return from the Third Crusade by a years worth of Cistercian wool, not cash. Another time his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, bailed him out with her 90 carat diamond.

Wool is designed to last forever, so pick some good pieces. Leave the faux furs to oh never mind. Read the Truman Capote short story about second hand furs. Your maid can look it up.

More about plaids later. But plaids are like furniture and jewelry , even better when inherited rather than purchased. And of course, clothes are stored, never curated.

Oh, its time to sit in the garden and have some cocoa, and look at the radiant purple beauty berries. We put them next to bright red dahlias, purple and red. YSL in the garden, purple and red. Its diiiiiiwine. Try that Karl!

We’ll talk again soon. I do so enjoy our little visits!

Homeage

2009-10-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

A lot of you thought I was joking when I claimed, several months ago, that Anna and I go around the city stencilling various things onto walls, ceilings, ipods and such. Generally it's the Chanel logo, but here you see an assistant of Anna's attempt at an homage to me. It's not bad. If you're looking for Chanel logos, you need look any further than streetlights in London. Or the offices of Dior, of course.

Yves said I'd better post this or he'd put strawberries everywhere again

2009-10-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Ooooh, mes amis, it’s a little brisk outside!. I could see my breath this morning! Un boue de souffle!

Autumn is so pretty! Apples and golden leaves that spiral down into the garden. So peaceful! And another opportunity to be elegant!

Yesterday I spent hours watching a leaf attached to a spider trail, so it remained all afternoon suspended between earth and sky. Oh, the maid brought out the chocolatiere set. Mother gave me the chocolatiere, it is made of lovely porcelain and the cups are so small and lovely, as it is a treat, to be sipped. A moment so sweet that cocoa has its own serving set, so precious The falling leaf, the hot chocolate in little cups so fine you can see your fingers if you hold them up to light, oh what a lovely way to spend an afternoon. Did you smell the plums that fell to the ground?

Bone china comes from pieces so delicate you can see through. It is hardly ever made from the dessicated bones of rival ground up. Well, not so much anymore.

Demitasse are the lovely little cups coffee used to be served on, before the whole big gulp drinking coffee. Karl’s right, you are getting fat.

Autumn is a wonderful time to invite friends over for oysters and a nice Riesling. Do you eat oysters off lovely oyster plates so ornate with little wells for lemon and salt?

Karl, that reminds me of the 1970s, what a lovely time. So creative, before this orgy of consumption. Oh, fashion wasn’t so fast, and littered with day time television people, clutching around their supersized coffees. Ugh, that is right up there with a truffle burger. Truffles, like fine cocoa or coffee, is meant to be savored, and appreciated, not mashed into the burger. Who are these people following off a cliff, like it’s the fall of the Roman Empire?

Do you need a faster computer? A “phone app” to “make it easier to order fast food”? How much easier and faster does fast food need to be? Are you going to stand in front of your microwave screaming Hurry Up? Fried chicken at the Met Ball? Its gluttony.

Slow down and enjoy yourself.

Enjoy the dahlias of this time of year. Some are sunset, dark orange centers with apricot spikes radiating out from the center. Some a royal purple, some a lipstick pink, or vibrant red. Have you seen the French Vogue cover from summer 1983 with Jerry Hall straddling an Air France Jet, wearing only bright red lipstick? It was my lipstick, of course.

Oh, I hope this economy means magazines go back to putting models on the covers.

Oh, this economy isn’t a bad thing, It’s a chance to learn about what counts. If you have a black skirt and sweater, you have what counts. You supply the elegance. Those editors trying to force unwearable clothes on you, ha, budget cuts mean they don’t even have stir sticks for their fake sugar in their coffees.

Oh, I meant for us to chat to day about wonderful plaids and timeless clothes. Oh, plaids. So beautiful for fall. But I am really quite tired. We’ll talk again soon, about plaid. I am dozing off, but my lips smile at a joke of Karl’s. Why do Scotsman wear kilts? Because zippers scare the sheep!

A bientot mes amis!

"Mr. Margiela has Left The Building"

2009-10-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

I was speaking to my elevator operator today, as I descended from the top floor of my penthouse to the bottom. I had a fitting.
"Did you see Margiela, Frank?"- which isn't a particularly French name, partially on account of Frank being a Bulgarian who wound up in New York years ago, until I decided he had a particular brilliance at pressing elevator buttons and installed him in Paris.
"I did. Martin came to this building after the show, actually. Drunk as an alcoholic whore at a bar...if you don't mind my language"
"Of course I don't. Whores are a necessary part of society, hm?"
"Quite. Anyway- Martin came here- drunk- upset."
"It was quite a show."
"Do you think the designers of the collection studied at Central St. Martins.."
"..Or Parsons?"
"Ha ha, exactly Monsuier Lagerfeld, exactly"
"Anyway- Martin, you know how he's always looked invisible?"
"Of course."
"Well- normally, the only way I know that Martin's in the elevator is that slight cough he always seems to have. And I actually saw him today!"
"Oh?"
"I saw almost all of him- parts of him were still invisible, but as he got out of the elevator, he became more and more visible until he resembled a tourist in a Bermuda shirt and socks with sandals on them"
"Remarkable."
"As he entered the bar, I heard someone say "Mr. Margiela has left the building".
"How clever of them!"
"Such is Mr. Beckett."
"I heard a rumor too- they're selling Margiela at Walmart now."
"Someone's got to buy it, no?"

SUZY MENKES

2009-10-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT FAT.

xo

Anna

Paris

2009-09-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, my little creatures. I've been terrible with this "blog" as of late- frankly, I'm more interested in shooting naked men in Vermont. Don't you wish you were with me, hmm? I don't. In fact, I don't even know why I'm writing this entry for you ungrateful little demode ones.

Now, I see that "New York Fashion Week" and "Milan Fashion Week" has been and gone. In fact, behind me, right now, are seamstresses busily sewing various pieces of dresses together. I treat them to a bowl of cream when they're done, and copious sweets. They're almost like cats in that respect. I don't care if they get fat because we need people who aren't models too, hm?
Cathy "Ohio" Horyn, I apologize for putting- quote: "pantyhose over Milan", but I feel that bare leg isn't very chic right now, especially in this climate. Why, I see that you yourself, Cathy, wore overalls to my Fendi show! Overalls! I recall them as being blue, denim, and very farmer-looking. I recall you as having cow-dung on your left gumboot (dear readers, I can imagine you recoiling in shock at the mention of "cow-dung" on these holy pages), and speaking very loudly about muffins. Actually Cathy, I have a fridge magnet of you. It is the only thing on my fridge, on or out. I bought the fridge especially for it.

Of course, now that the...lesser cities and countries have done their fashion weeks- you know, New York, Milan, Oxford, Fiji, Ethiopia (the place where they put all the poor people); it is now time for Paris fashion week. I will be in my room reading Colette, and occasionally you'll find me out and about. I have a rather distinctive appearance it seems- you can't miss me.

Cathy (Old Karl's Book of Fashionable People)

2009-09-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

Cathy Horyn was a high faultin' critic,
(Some say she was an acrobat!)
She made the rounds, wearing a beanie as her hat,
And a hip flask filled with gin and tonic

Yet bacon muffins were her game- she dreamt of them at night,
(When she'd tucked her clothes from Walmart far out of site),
In the mornings she'd make them, after pruning the roses,
And a visit from a plump lady who claimed to read her blog:

"My name is A.Cat.Lady" said the woman with a grin,
And she wore a dress of florals, as middle aged women do,
"I adore your blog! I love it!" she exclaimed frightfully,
As Cathy backed away- said she had to go to sea

"But do you have a new recipe?" was what our floral lady said next,
As drool fell down her chin as she imagined things with bacon
Well- Cathy was tempted, I don't need to tell you that,
As she popped inside with a notebook, and revealed her carefully hidden stash:

"This is my new recipe!" laughed Cathy oh so deeply*,
"It is a bacon flavoured wine!" she announced, as her admirer regarded her meekly
"Oh great Cathy! You're the hero! The hero of New York!"
As the Pea- travelling in his moped, stopped in for a gawk

"Well, well, well, what do we have here, my finely adorned friends?"
-the Pea jumped out of his pea-green moped and flexed his manly muscles, and fixed Cathy with a fiendish glare
"How nice of you to join us!", Cathy wearily spoke,
In her deep monotone voice- it looked like the Pea had seen a ghost,
"I am telling this badly dressed, floral, dumpling-shaped middle aged woman my recipe for wine-"
"I see"
"But not just any wine, oh no! For it is bacon flavoured wine."
"I shall have to take a photo" said the Pea, turning green
As Cathy turned her attention to the pie simmering on the windowsill,
And I felt self-satisfaction, in the fact that I don't eat

*Whilst turning around to Julie Anne and saying "Go to Barnard!"

Love, a short poem

2009-09-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

Love is very demode,
And weddings are quite out of date,
Anyway- how can one be fashionably late,
To a wedding of their own date?

I once had a lover myself,
Until he hid under some drainpipe cover,
And scampered off with some little lover,
This was quite a bore

To be quite honest, I'm simply sick of giving advice,
To all those couples who end up having fights,
Over who owns what and what owns who,
Isn't it simply better not to love at all?

Consider the financial implications of such:
No lover, no money spent,
Perhaps buy an artwork instead;
Or a coat of delicious animal fur

Also, there's no dinners or dates,
When one is sitting on the shelf,
One will become much more thin,
And besides, there is always the option to telephone a prostitute

Fashion Week is Tiring

2009-09-22T08:24:00.000-07:00

Dear adoring public,

I am exhausted.

Fashion Week is quite taxing for me, and having to arrange stand-ins for myself is just horrific. There was a slight mix-up at Phillip Lim, where Stand-In A appeared for a few moments in the same room as Stand-In C. My assistants were terrified:

Assistant 1: "THERE ARE TWO OF THEM?!"
Assistant 2: "I AM GOING TO GO SHOOT MYSELF BACKSTAGE AT DOO.RI."

I, naturally, found this all quite hilarious. Karl and I watched the whole debacle on Karl's new invention: ModelTV. It's a closed-captioned television system that broadcasts via the undernourished tendons and ligaments of models during Fashion Week (obviously, it doesn't work too well after Fashion Week when they all start eating again). They capture video via tiny implanted cameras that Karl convinced them were "the new chic body jewelry, hmm?"

Sometimes it's fun to sit in Karl's closet in Vermont and drink champagne while we scan the modelwaves for something good. Usually it's all "Anya, stop eating the amuse bouches; those are for the fat makeup artists" or "Lisa, please fall down on the third downbeat after you get on the runway; we need some publicity."

But sometimes we get international channels. Usually it's just Donatella on a bender, though.

"JOHNNNATHOHN, PLEESE GET ME MORE CHAMPAGNE. MY LEEPS ARE DEFLATEEENG!"

The Pea (Old Karl's Book of Practical Fashionable People, Part 1)

2009-09-20T05:02:00.000-07:00

Of peas, there are none to equal
A certain pea I know,
Who carries around a camera,
And has a manly baritone

He stands on top of flower pots,
He stands on top of two,
To get his shot for the book,
He might even take a picture of you!

If you are lucky, traveller,
You may find him in Paris,
Where he sits with many other peas,
And discusses lemon-green tea,

His voice can be heard from the rooftops-
"Come! Fashion-seekers, and see!"
Says he in his deep voice, full of heroism
"I shall take a photo of thee!"

His shirt- it rips apart,
As he gets his camera out,
And his stands upon a flower pot,
And clicks his button with a shout

"For I am the pea!"
(says he)
As he quips about his prowess in bed,
And his ten million thousand suits

"Hooray for the pea!" cries an audience,
Abound with joyful cheer,
"Hooray for the pea! Hooray for the pea!"
As they drown in bottles of fashionable beer

K and J

2009-09-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

J: So Karl, what does Cathy think about the totes you designed for the NY Times T magazine?
K: I'm going to make her a tablecloth with the same design on it, for her to put her bacon pies on.
J: Brilliant! And have you tried any of her bacon pies?
K: Non.
J: They're quite the favourite among the..er...farmer sector.
K: Well, I am not a farmer. Even with the Vermont property..
J: And how's that going?
K: I enjoy going there feeling superior to the wildlife. You see, it's fine to feel superior to the fashion wildlife- I already am, anyway, and everyone knows it. But it's another thing to feel superior to Vermont wildlife.

Bob Dylan's 115th Post

2009-09-04T04:29:00.000-07:00

I've been digging Christmastime lately, man. I've been digging it a lot. Man- I dig Christmas so much you could just toss a whole sack of Christmas at me and I'd be covered in bright lights and fools. But I dig that. You know man- when I was just starting out, fat men on youtube who teach harmonica would say "Hey Bob man, why don't you play some of your older stuff?" and I'd say "man, youtube doesn't even exist yet, how can you exist?" and they'd say that they were folk and free and fritters and I said "okay man, if that's what you dig, you fly with it" as they faded off into non-existence at the sudden realization, the truth, that youtube didn't exist in 1960. I love this Christmas thing a whole lot 'cause it's about love, and you know, there needs to be more of that around these days. Not free love, you understand. Nobody's free from democracy and oppressing and lightbulbs, but love where you pay in kisses. Can you dig that? I tried to tell Joan, this chick I used to needle back in the 60s, I tried to tell Joan this. But all she said was "I don't know Bob man- I don't know if I can flow with that" and I said "you gotta flow where the water's flowing" and she said "love is just a four letter word" and I said "only in the English language, Joan" and she said "what other language is there" and I pointed to French- amour. "Love in the land of the fries and frogs is amour" said I, to which she said "love is a 5 letter word doesn't sound so great, Bobby." I said "yeah, it doesn't, but it's the truth" to which she said that French isn't a really folkie language, so it doesn't count. Now here's where I differ: French is a very folkie language, they've got those clothes that the sheep buy down at the factory, you know, Chanel and all that jazz. I remember Thelonious Monk saying to me we're all folk musicians, to which I said "yeah man- except fat men on youtube who teach harmonica. They're politicians."
Because that Coco chick, she's a folk musician, just a thin one. She's like a blind folk musician. Blind Coco Chanel or something like that. Who even cares. I don't care about clothes anyway- I just care about dressin' like a cowboy. You never know where those cowboys can turn up, they could be in the subway or even in a documentary. It's just so very suspicious, if you catch my drift. You've gotta serve yourself. Or is it serve somebody. Yeah, you've gotta Serve Somebody. Isn't that right, John?

Hello? Hello?

2009-08-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

Is this thing on?

All of you people are bloody incompetent. Turn the bloody recorder on, Karl is angry that I haven't posted in a while and you know how he gets. I expect an edited markup of this rant in precisely half-an-hour ago.

THAT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE. YOU'RE FIRED.

Ahem.

Hello lovely admirers,

I wish to say hello and prompt you to not go see that movie called 'The September Issue.' It is now demode, as that was a number of eons ago. You see, in our beautiful and luxurious world full of beauty and luxury, years = eons. One shouldn't be documented in fashion that is eons ago, hm? This is why we here at Vogue are working on taking over the world's media and erasing all footage of myself and Karl previous to exactly this moment. Now, this moment. Now. Now.

You see, this is an arduous task and I have fired exactly 13 assistants since thirty-five minutes from Tuesday; so I really must be going.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I think I might do a 'tip' or something at the end of each blog, you know, so you can remember to perform some small task in my honor every day. So, Anna's tip for today: DON'T WATCH THAT DAMN MOVIE.

God, I am beautiful. Hand me that Chanel lipstick. Is Karl here yet? Yes, you blithering twat, turn off the record-