A Conversation With Karl Lagerfeld

Q: WHAT ABOUT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY ?

KARL LAGERFELD: How I got started in photos is, in a way, the key to my whole approach to fashion. I think the photographer can do anything. You are not the best photographer or a lousy and poor creature only because you do press kits. One of the reasons I started off was press kits-no famous photographer wanted to do them. One season we had three different photographers do the press kits. All three times the work went to the garbage can, and I said, ‘That’s enough.’ That’s how I got started. Press kits are not fun, because they have to be black-and-white and handled in such a way that they can be used for daily papers. Press kits have to be made a week to ten days before the collection is finished. Very often I photograph unfinished dresses, so I have to know how to fake them, how to make them look finished. That was four and a half years ago, but I was already prepared for it. I am of a graphic attitude. I sketch very well. I have drawn portraits all my life. When I was a child I wanted to be a portrait painter. Anna Piaggi, the Italian fashion editor, has published a book of many of these drawings that I have done. Sketching and laying things out is, for me, what I have always wanted.

KL: I do a lot of society portraits and portraits for royalty. These friends use the photographs for themselves-for their houses, for their friends. They order about a hundred prints. I do my portrait work with a 8 x 10 Sinar. I often employ very strange backdrops. I will show twenty portraits at my next exhibition. This is something very special. There is only one print from each negative and it belongs to the subject. At these exhibitions, nothing is for sale. On the other hand, for a charity exhibition at London’s Hamilton Gallery, fifty-nine photos were for sale, and all of them sold the day of the opening.

Q: Do you collect photography?

KL: Yes. I collect late nineteenth and early twentieth century work. Steichen, Stieglitz, a little Baron de Meyer-I have a beautiful one. Also, Käsebier, Demachy, Paul Citroen, Kertész, Coburn, Kühn, Munkácsi and early Lartigue. The Lartigues were given to me as gifts. In fact, much of my photo collection is made up of gifts, it is never-ending. I love Paul Strand and Minor White. I also collect Helmut Newtons, tons of them. Very beautiful and huge ones. The last thing I received from him was a beautiful photo of David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini where Lynch had Isabella’s hand in his hand-a marvelous photo. Today I think I prefer to collect photography rather than to collect paintings. The new artists such as Peter Lindbergh, Bruce Weber, and Steven Meisel-they are my favorites for the moment.

Q: Do you see fashion photography becoming as valuable as fine photography?

KL: For me old fashion photos are pieces of art. Steichen, for example. What is as beautiful as a Steichen? It may have become a lower commercial product because there were too many prints available.

Q: Do you think photography is art? Can a photograph compare with a Monet or Hopper?

KL: For me, modern photographs touch me personally because they are from my time. Monet feels far away from me now. Early twentieth century photographers are as good as Monet and other painters in a certain way-but one should never compare- it’s like [comparing] sculpture and painting- it’s something else.

Q: What is a Lagerfeld shoot like? Do you prefer the control of a studio or the spontaneity of location work?

KL: I have very bad working habits. Sometimes I start at ten in the evening, and at ten in the morning I am still working. I can be slow, well, not slow, but it takes a lot of time. I don’t believe in those thirty-five minute jobs. I have a big team. Often we are between fifteen and twenty people; makeup artists, stylists, models, lighting people. I work with nearly all the people I started working with from the beginning. You can’t spend nights and days with people you don’t like or don’t know. I don’t want to. I don’t have to. It’s fun to be in a studio, and I think it’s fun to be outdoors. In fact, I like very much to be outdoors, but there are some photos that require a backdrop. You know, these backdrops are paintings that a Parisian stage painter makes for me. A backdrop like this costs between $5,000 and $10,000. He was once very famous and had trouble because he made copies of real paintings. He’s unbelievable.