Coco Chanel would have hated me, says maverick designer Karl Lagerfeld
Chanel's head designer Karl Lagerfeld has revealed he thinks the founder of the iconic French fashion house would have "hated" him if they had ever met.
Chanel's head designer Karl Lagerfeld has revealed he thinks the founder of the iconic French fashion house would have "hated" him if they had ever met.
Lagerfeld said he had been a "rude awakening" for the prestigious fashion house, which had "grown dusty" before his arrival in 1982.
"I never bumped into Coco Chanel. It was better that way, she would have hated me," he told an audience of hundreds of French college students at a masterclass in Paris on Tuesday.
I never bumped into Coco Chanel. It was better that way
"You have to respect things, but if you want to survive, you have to change them," he said, recalling how he had "pushed" and "exaggerated" classic Chanel themes.
The couture house this year marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's first shop in Deauville in the summer of 1913. Today the label, whose founder died in 1971, has 300 outlets including 185 boutiques in cities such as Sao Paulo, Calgary, New Delhi, Istanbul and Brisbane.
Its creative director Lagerfeld, who heads design for Fendi and runs his own label, is famous for his prodigious output.
He joked that he was "pushing for a 48-hour day" because he was constantly pressed for time.