Points For Humor

Oh, my freaky friend, sometimes I love you in spite of myself...




This bag is made by Naco Paris and is available on Arty Dandy, a French website. I'm not sure what their policy is on shipping to the US, but there is an address where you can write them and query. There is also a t-shirt in this design. They aren't cheap, but they are hilarious.

Whatever you think of Kaiser Karl, you have got to give him credit for a sense of humor here. While I'm not sure I ever want to sit down and have dinner with him (or even a quick drink), I must admit -- I'm glad there is a Karl Lagerfeld in the world. I appreciate what he does for Chanel more than I love it, if you know what I mean; but I just adore his work for Fendi and his own line, and I think those are a better representation of who he is deep down as a designer. Bottom line, Karl Lagerfeld flies his freak flag high and proud, and I love that about him.

Hope everyone has a great, freaky, hilarious weekend!


Image: Purseblog.com

Films for Fashionistas -- Teutonic Edition

I don't think there's any argument that Karl Lagerfeld is a hugely talented individual. (And if you have one to make, please feel free.) I for one wouldn't balk at the adjective "protean." He designs three separate fashion lines with very different sensibilities. He also has a full-fledged career as a fashion photographer, doing editorial work for magazines as well as a good chunk of the advertising for the lines he designs.

And I'm not even going to get into the DJ-ing and the art & architecture collaborations and whatnot. It's always something with Karl. So, yes, protean, and probably genius.

I also don't think there's any argument that he's... well, an odd duck. How odd? Eh. Maybe a little less so than I thought.

Last weekend I finally got around to watching this:

Lagerfeld Confidential

Considering its subject, this movie should have been more interesting. The promotional materials talk very proudly about how the filmmaker, Rodolphe Marconi, spent three years filming hundreds of hours of footage for this film and if that is in fact true, I'm afraid Mr. Marconi needs a new editor. I'm probably being unfair here, because one of the other things that gets said a lot in the press material is that Mr. Marconi wanted to approach a documentary in such a way that "broke all the rules" of documentary filmmaking. Production notes state that "He demonstrates a delicate and subtle touch by deconstructing the documentary style and the conventions of portraiture; he chooses not to be polemical; he will show no insolence or disrespect. He rejects the style of television investigations and concentrates on what he feels as an artist about the Lagerfeld legend." That's a valid artistic ambition and all (love the Pompous Artspeak couched in that wonderful, awkward, hilarious French-to-English Translate-ese), but the thing about a movie about Karl Lagerfeld is that probably most of your audience is going to be hard-core fashionistas and design geeks and we want a little more than a tone poem.






I want to know how the guy works. I want to know what his design process is like, what his studio environment is like, just how many design assistants does he have, how on earth does a person maintain the kind of artistic output that Lagerfeld is generating? I want to meet the people he works with and hear about what he's like as a boss, I want to see how things go from ideas to plans to garments on a hanger. I want the down & dirty details of how Lagerfeld makes fashion. I don't, honestly, care all that much about his relationship with his mother.

And there is a LOT of talk about his mother. She sounds fascinating, don't get me wrong, one of those classic beaux monstres that are almost a cliché of the Artist's Mother -- a kind of post-Weimar Sally Bowles meets Auntie Mame. If Lagerfeld is to be believed, he's been openly gay since he was pre-adolescent, and his family, especially his mother, were always perfectly okay with it, even blasé about it. Given that this would have been mid-1940's Germany, that seems remarkable. On the other hand, Lagerfeld does seem an extraordinarily singular personality, so I guess it stands to reason that he was raised by unusual people.

Still, the fact remains that I personally am much less interested in finding out what makes Karl tick than seeing how he ticks, and there's precious little of that in this film. We do get this delicious nugget, footage from what I think is a Chanel Couture show:








::sigh::

I'd sure like to see more stuff like that rather than what I presume are home movies of the child Karl frolicking in the surf somewhere. (Are they Karl? Where was the surf? Who took these? We're never told. That really annoys me. It's pretty to look at, but Style Spy wants information.)

My favorite section of the movie comes exactly midway through it. It's a short interlude of Lagerfeld talking while he sketches.

He works in marker and correction fluid, mostly, and it's fascinating to watch. He's an extremely sure-handed sketcher, the pictures takes only a few minutes to complete and there is no hesitation whatsoever in Lagerfeld's movements. In my ideal version of the Karl Lagerfeld movie, we see him make that sketch, and then we find out how that garment is realized and see it worn by someone with a pulse.

But this isn't my movie, it's Mr. Marconi's movie, and in his ideal Karl Lagerfeld movie it's more important to know what Karl thinks about love, and whether he likes living alone or with someone else.

I'm not not recommending this movie. It's lovely to look at and is more information about Lagerfeld than I had before, even if it wasn't nearly all the information I wanted. It will not be a wasted 90 minutes, I assure you. (Unlike, say, the first two episodes of "True Blood," which I also watched last weekend. That's two hours of my life I'm never going to get back.) I honestly liked Lagerfeld more after watching it than I did before, and that surprised me. Yes, odd duck for sure, but his oddity seems genuine and somehow gentler than I expected it to be. I didn't get the feeling from this movie that Lagerfeld is putting on a show -- he really is this off-kilter, singular, visionary guy who lives in his own little world, but he doesn't seem particularly impressed by himself. He does make a lot of pronouncements about Life and the Way Things Are, but hell, he's earned the right. Most of his life and its activities seem motivated above all by a strong desire not to be bored or complacent, and I understand and even admire that.

So. Style Spy rating? One stiletto up (out of a possible two). Have you seen this movie? Tell me what you thought about it. Or give it a watch and report back, I'd like to hear your opinions.


Images: chanel.com, karllagerfeld.com, fendi.com, all via models.com; lagerfeldconfidentiel.com

French Tickler

Here's a postcard I found at a great little restaurant in Paris (called Le Loup Blanc, and I heartily recommend it, we had a really fantastic meal there). The bathroom, which like the rest of the joint was beautifully decorated in an extremely inventive manner, had a rack of postcards for various parties and events and this was one of them.



Now, this is in French and it seems to be in extremely colloquial French to boot, but near as I can figure from the info on the back (Denyse? Wanna help me out here?), it's advertising a party thrown by an organization who does that sort of thing. Whatever it is, when I saw the poster I let out a huge peal of laughter (which must have struck the Parisian denizens dining outside the door as extremely odd, but no doubt they chalked it up to my American-ness) and was very pleased to see there were postcards for the taking.

So what does this image have to do with style & fashion, besides the obvious fact that it's a satire of Karl Lagerfeld? It's this: style is important. But there is a runway-model-thin line between a recognizable personal style and becoming a parody of yourself. Find the things that work for you, stick with them, buy the best versions of them that you can afford (even if that means you only get one instead of three), and wear them with your head high.

But. Don't refuse to mix it up a little. Try new things. Every now and again, put on a dress that when you look at it you say, "Oh, that's sooooo not me." Its good for you. It clears the head and the palate. And you never know, there may be a different you lurking in there that you didn't know about.

Side note to M. Lagerfeld: Dahling, I love you. But you're getting too old & thin to support the weight of all that Chrome Hearts jewelry. And those French Romantic poet shirt collars are starting to get a little Paduang neck ring. Seriously, how about a nice tweed Aquascutum jacket and a pair of tasteful enamel fleur-de-lys cufflinks? Call me. We'll talk.

Photo: www.follivores.com

Some Favorite Things

I know I bust Karl Lagerfeld's chops a lot, but I really do love the guy. There's a protean talent buried underneath his Goth Beau Brummel exterior, and I admire his work immensely. I got a huge kick out of this video interview with him posted on Style.com, made on the occasion of the opening of his latest gallery show devoted to photographs of my favorite place on Earth, Paris. (Lagerfeld is an accomplished photographer, and has shot for many ad campaigns and fashion magazines.) Have a look at Karl (at about an 8 on the Lagerfeldian scale), holding forth on photography and the city I consider the home of my soul:



There's something slightly loony and charming about a man wearing fingerless gloves and a ruffled collar that would be the envy of Elizabeth I insisting on how down-to-earth he is. You go, Karl!

KL

Karl Lagerfeld is a little scary. And I don't just mean the omnipresent leather pants, fingerless biker gloves, and surfeit of Chrome Hearts jewelry. Rimbaud Goes to Sturgis is his look, he's been working it for a long time now, and more power to him.

(As we say in the South: Bless his heart!)

No, his Effete Goth thing doesn't scare me. (Amuses & puzzles, but doesn't scare.) What honestly sends chills down my spine occasionally is how consistently uncanny he is at making truly fresh and wonderful clothes that are instantly identifiable as Chanel. He's been designing Chanel for over 20 years now and he still somehow manages to pull this off at the rate of something like four collections a year. And on top of Chanel, he also designs for Fendi and his own Lagerfeld line. (Am I forgetting any? There's probably more.) It's pretty remarkable.

Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that Mr. Lagerfeld is responsible for every sketch of every garment for all three houses. I'm sure he has platoons of minions backing him up (many of whom he very generously and charmingly shared the limelight with by bringing them out to take a bow with him during the finale of his latest Chanel Couture show. Well done, Mr. Lagerfeld, and astonished bravos to les petits mains of the House of Chanel, so brilliantly upholding the traditions of haute couture.) But from what I can gather about Mr. Lagerfeld, safe money says nothing actually gets a label on it until he's given it the (leather-mitted) thumbs up.

This latest Couture collection once again brilliantly illustrates his ability to channel Coco. Fall 2006 Couture was also gorgeous, leaning more toward the gamine Parisienne side of the Chanel spectrum. This week's clothes, however, hang smack down the traditional center of the house like a strand of Coco's trademark pearls, and they took my breath away. Here's a few of my favorites:









I was especially thrilled to see the tulle evening skirts, since not long ago I got my hands on this little baby:



She was just hanging there in the vintage store, waiting patiently for me. I'd seriously been searching for a tulle skirt like this for a few years now. Whaddya know, me & Karl are on the same page!

At any rate, be sure to check out the whole show, it's beyond gorgeous. And don't forget to look at the detail shots, because that's where Couture really makes its bones. In the meantime I'll be sashaying around my place in my tulle skirt. I'm going to pretend that Mr. Lagerfeld made it for me, then told me I looked fabulous, and then we went out for drinks at this cute little wine bar on the Place du Marché St. Honoré. À bientôt!

Photos: Style.com