The day before a fashion show is usually a designer's sweet hell, A waterfall of coffee and a flatbed of cigarettes fuel a fitfully controlled frenzy of pinning, preening and purging Request to interview a designer the day before his runway show? Why not ask for front-row seats to the Oscars while you're at it? Your odds are about the same. Unless you wan to talk to Karl Lagerfeld. In fact the instructions are to come see him while he's doing final fittings, when he's more relaxed. Less than 24 hours to go before the show, yet in Coco Chanel's legendary studio whith the mirrored curved staircase, two veteran fashion editors, who are also close frends, are hangging out. Rock is playing in the background. The design and production teams are milling about but ready; no pins in mouths, no voices pitched up a third. Seated at a long table, waiting for the next model to get dressed, Lagerfeld is playing with a dozen or so rings precatiously perched near his knuckles since he is also wearing driving gloves, "I think I lost one of them. Either a Buccellaty or Chrom Heats. I'm sure it fell off in a shopping bag somewhere," says the designer. "I should ask some one to find it." While he agrees the rings might say put if it weren't for the driving gloves, he says it's not worth giving them up. "Why do I wear them? Because I'm ne."
But Lagerfeld is no more disturbed about the missing ring than he is about his imperding presentation. "Why should I be? We are professionals here," he says with abrupt matter-of-factness. "This iconic image of the designer running around, furiously draping dresses into the night, is ridiculous. Because you are in a panic doesn\t mean you are creative. It means you are not organized. How can you run a business like that?" As he speaks a model comes out. Without taking a breath or shifting position, Lagerfeld sticks this arm in ther direction and says in French that someone should shorten the skirt, It's making her look matronly. "You see," he says, "this is why you have to be organized, You need time to review, to change. Fashion can't always be about impulse. You need to plan."
Chanel's plans have worked out beautifully since 1983, when Lagerfeld became Hair designer."The name was middle-aged," he says. "But at least it had and image. An archive. Some of these names they want to revive have nothing to recapture." By reintepreting, renovating and refreshing, Lagerfeld has made the house's bags, shoes, pins, jewelry, couture and,, of course, Chanel jacket more covetable than ever. With this gloved hand he brushes off taking credit. "Fashion is not about these two or three weeks.That's only 5 percent of the year.You need people who understand their jobs. You can make a great collection, but who cares if your company doesn\t know how to maket it or to sell it? I don't think success in fasthion is any secret. It's what happens when people work together well.|
Lagenfeld has played welll with others for more than 50 years. "It's because I don't take myself too seriousely," he says. "I don't do this to achieve things, to enhance my social life, or make more money. I have no ulterior motive. Fashion is a greet way of life, I am not a frustrated artist. On the contrary, when you design you are working class." And the work continues, with the new backing of his Lagerfeld Gallery collection (by Tommy Hiffiger), his riotous onetime-only H&M stint, and, this season, a venture in menswear. "But not for me to wear," he insists. "I design my nightshirts. Otherwise I design for others. I prefer to be a client, to shop, to go from there to ther. I am perfect for the world of fashion becuase I propose, then I buy, I think I do both thins well. Where is the next girl? And where is that ring?"
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