karl lagerfeld spotted in manhattan

O.K. I am running the risk of a Karl Lagerfeld overdose! On my blog??! Jeez! Well, screw it, I've got to post this one, it's Karl Lagerfeld shooting the new Chanel campaign in Manhattan of all places! I thought he was a French designer??! So is he moving to Manhattan? Is he going to move his business to the Big Apple? Now?! I guess NYC has gotten bourgeois enough for him by now!?

Anyway I could not believe my eyes walking through the LES... You can see Karl yielding his camera atop an industrial lifter!



The question that poses itself automatically is: "Is he wearing his glasses while shooting?" "Yes, he is." Goodness I am still in shock! But, frankly, it's just another photography job lost in the city's fashion industry!!

karl lagerfeld quotes in case you care...

Here is a little treat for you in the midst of the afternoon, may it lighten you up a bit! Karl Lagerfeld's recent quotes! He's hilarious as ever. He doesn't stop. It's like he goes against what everybody else says and thinks as a principle. No BS. Gotta love it!

by YM Ousley

At this point, we’re not sure Kaiser Karl could say anything that would shock us. He famously chided curvy women looking for some representation in fashion as fat mothers sitting with bags of chips in front of the television, then went on to surprise everyone by shooting the curvy burlesque star Miss Dirty Martini for V’s size issue.

Karl Lagerfeld and Bruce LaBruce

In Lagerfeld’s latest interview we find out who still sends faxes (Karl and Anna!), why he doesn’t believe in gay marriage, his own personal burka and other gems that could only come from one person. Our picks for the most interesting excerpts:

on his omnipresent glasses

BLB: I like that you make it clear that you don’t want to be photographed or filmed without your sunglasses on. I don’t either. Who would?
KL: They’re my burka.

BLB: Exactly. A burka for the eyes.
KL: A burka for a man. I’m a little shortsighted, and people, when they’re shortsighted, they remove their glasses and then they look like cute little dogs who want to be adopted.

speaking of adoption

KL: I don’t like the idea of taking people out of their lives and their contexts. If there were a child I wanted to adopt, I would try to find the family of the child and give them the money for an education in his life and his context. [Don't look for Christmas cards from Angelina or Madonna in his mailbox]

on being judgmental

KL: I have not one prejudice. I don’t judge things. [ed. note: really?]

on legalizing gay marriage and taking up the cause of gay rights

BLB: You are against the idea of gay marriage. I totally agree with you on that.
KL: Yes, I’m against it for a very simple reason: In the 60s they all said we had the right to the difference. And now, suddenly, they want a bourgeois life.
…
For me it’s difficult to imagine—one of the papas at work and the other at home with the baby. How would that be for the baby? I don’t know. I see more lesbians married with babies than I see boys married with babies. And I also believe more in the relationship between mother and child than in that between father and child.

KL: I’m in fashion. Politics is not my job. I don’t vote in France even though foreigners here can. I will never vote in my life.

on porn

KL: I admire porn. And I personally only like high-class escorts. I don’t like sleeping with people I really love. I don’t want to sleep with them because sex cannot last, but affection can last forever. I think this is healthy. And for the way the rich live, this is possible. But the other world, I think they need porn. I also think it’s much more difficult to perform in porn than to fake some emotion on the face as an actor.

on fur

KL: That’s why I always say, when people talk about not using fur, “Are you rich enough to make an income for the people in the north who live from hunting? What do you want them to live off of when there’s nothing else to do?” It is farmers who are nice to the cows and the pigs and then kill them. It’s even more hypocritical than hunters. At least the hunters don’t flatter the animals.

on modern communications

KL: …I hate telephones. I prefer faxes because I like to write. People I’m really friendly with have faxes. Anna Wintour has one. We speak via fax. And in Paris I send letters to people. I have somebody to deliver letters all over every day.

He's so old school!

10 most inspirational tweets

As you know, I am on Twitter. 55 followers and 63 updates. I am trying to figure out who I do want to follow... which basically means to have to put up with whatever they are twittering about at any time (which sometimes feels a bit like Facebook's "10 Things You Did Not Know About Me"), so this is a decision not to be taken lightly (I have stopped following a few people, because I could not take their tweets).
I follow a lot of fashion people. It's my job. One of my favorite people on Twitter is Karl Lagerfeld (you know he is going to tweet something funny, you can almost hear the German accent). Check out some of his most inspirational tweets so far:



1. The most important thing is to do things, not to have done them.

2. Success nullifies. You then have to do it again, preferably differently.

3. If I read too much or know too much it's not because I want to talk about it, it's only because it's interesting for me.

4. I think I'm going to have a dinner party where no one speaks. I'll give all my guests pens and pads instead of the usual dinner conversation.

5. I have no scene. I go everywhere. I adapt.

6. I love to photograph architecture because I can do it with nobody, all alone with my small camera. For fashion, I need millions of people.

7. I only wear the latest thing. It's my job.

8. Sometimes it’s easy to have ideas, but somebody has to find a way to do it. Often those responsibe for finding a way don’t have the idea.

9. I hate the word “avant-garde.” It was used, overused, and often used for useless things. So I do not use that word any longer.

10. On this day each year (Jan. 1st), I soak the previous year's calendar in my mother's favorite perfume and then set it ablaze. Here's to a fresh start.


Hilarious! Follow Karl!

chanel mobile art

Finally got over Pipilotti!!! No, seriously: listen, you guys. I cannot possibly post the same day I experience all these things. I am not - despite visiting mobile art exhibits - mobile blogging. I have mentioned several times - and as a reader, possibly through a feeder, of this blog you should be aware by now - that blogging is NOT my business, but a passion (I always was good at writing and story telling in my own way and after I won an impossible case against my landlord, I also knew a talented lawyer was lost on me).

I feel blogging somehow will be important for me later down the line and will become a part of my business, etc. So, I really try to take this seriously - I want you to know - despite the fact that time is scarce and time is money. Therefore here - late, but don't hate - finally the pictures and impressions of the Chanel Mobile Art exhibit in beautiful Central Park on an incredible Fall day early afternoon on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 . The day after the election. So the mood was really amazing, it was the first day with a new president elect and it seemingly still has not sunk in with many... so in this trance, we got here....


Mobil indeed. That was the impression throughout the more or less hour and a half spent on the reserved patch of the park. The capsule looked like it just landed and the wind blew the thousands of leaves from the countless trees in a whirlwind, it almost blew me away how beautiful it looked and felt.


First thing that most probably became visible to anyone upon entering the gated area around the space ship was the very cool Chanel wind breakers everyone was wearing. Black, shiny nylon with embossed CC logo buttons in crisp white. "We can't keep them" said one of the guards or "helpers" after we came closer to check them out and we let them know that we thought that that was indeed sad. I am sure there were a few inquiries about if they could be purchased - somewhere - I mean, anything that bears the famous logo is instantly a desirable item, right?

And of course they got us right where they wanted us from the get-go! No uncertainty about where you were and why you came. Because of Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel. There were a few very famous artists too.


"Can't take the cameras in. No pictures inside." O.K. I started to take some out front, opposite the mirrored building which was some administrative office which kind of disappeared by reflecting the spaceship everywhere you looked... cool!!



I will for sure always remember this day and I am glad I took all the pictures! The exhibit was organized very well and I loved the voice of Jeanne Moreau narrating me via MP3 through the space... Some installations were better than others. I guess I loved the compact powder mirror/TV screen in the giant Chanel bag the best (Sylvie Fleury), along with the wishing tree of Yoko Ono. Then that photographer Nobuyoshi Araki was excellent! That is about it.

It was clearly an attempt to advertise the brand (Chanel) in an alternative way and that succeeded, but there where several instants when I asked myself: What am I admiring here? Advertising? A brand? So far so good. Not the absolute worst try I'd say.

After the show we went bike riding through the park and that again, was probably my favorite part, after all. The scenery, the fresh air, the clouds, the time of a new beginning...

...a young couple taking wedding pictures in central park...

... and when I finally got home at sun set, the Empire State building was blue (New Yorkers know that there is no such thing as the color blue on the ES). For a moment I reflected... "Ah! It's the color of the democratic party, yeyh!" It summed up the day for me!

Good night!

chanel exhibit in central park

Yeyyh! On Nov. 4th I have a reservation (thanks to my hubs, who was experienced and savy enough to book wayyy in advance. By now all tickets - which were free - are "sold" out) to see this "Star Trek”-style spacecraft, which temporarily lands in Central Park (from Oct. 20 to Nov. 9.) and houses art from artists recruited for the project including Sophie Calle of France, Sylvie Fleury of Switzerland (who is a idil vice fashion fan since the very beginnings), Subodh Gupta of India and the Russian collective Blue Noses.

Each was asked to create a work that was at least in part inspired by Chanel’s classic 2.55 quilted-style chain handbag, so named because it was first issued in February 1955.

I will be reporting my own view after I have seen the exhibition, but as this is exiting, I can't wait until then and have to show you a couple of images I found in the NYC tabloids...


An aspect I'd rather don't think of too much is, is that Chanel will pay the city a “use fee” of $400,000 (not that we do not need it, but it is only a sad fact that the sluggish economy puts the city up for sale further). It's advertising for the French brand, needless to say.


In an interview, which was done on opening night a couple of days ago, Karl Lagerfeld did not seam very happy about the exhibition and kept mentioning that "it is too tight here... too many people, too much art and not enough space"... well, we'll see!

The convergence of art, architecture and fashion is common place these days. A Louis Vuitton bag designed by the artist Richard Prince is constantly spotted on the streets of New York, Basel and London. The Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s creations for Louis Vuitton were sold in a special shop that formed part of a Murakami retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The architect Rem Koolhaas has helped define the look of Prada shops, and Frank Gehry recently designed a line of jewelry for Tiffany & Company.

“Art is art. Fashion is fashion,” Mr. Lagerfeld said. “However, Andy Warhol proved that they can exist together.”

lady bunny and kaiser karl

Karl Lagerfeld is one of my top friends on my space. I adore his character and so do I love Lady Bunny.
She has been an inspiration to me since I moved to this darn town in 1992 and I remember she was already a huge star in the early nineties, when I was a proud witness of the Wigstock Festival which was then still held at the Tomkins Square Park, around the corner of my East Village studio (things were different then!). It was the time when Ru Paul sung "Supermodel", Linda Simpson came up and Dee Lite was performing and my goodness! - Groove was in the Heart!!

Innocent? Lady Bunny. Wigstock poster.

...for old times sake: me and friend at the Wigstock Festival in 1992...

To see them both, Bunny and Karl, side by side at the Visionaire hosted party aboard a yacht on the Seine, in Paris, the night before last, was mind buggeling! They make a great couple and even had a common sparkly fashion sense going on... Ahoi, to these immense trend setters!

They both have white hair too! FYI, in the back peeking through is YSL's Stefano Pilati.