Karl Lagerfeld - Heaven Gains a Legend

When I started being able to watch Chanel fashion shows on YouTube, that was like the greatest thing ever.  Before then, I didn't have access to the shows. Each season, I couldn't wait to see what Karl Lagerfeld had planned--his vision, his creations, his storytelling.  Each show was more than just models strutting down a runway in the latest creations.  It was always my dream to attend one of his shows.  But today, heaven gained a legend, a creative genius.

 I didn't grow up super wealthy, but I grew up with a dad who has great fashion sense and each year he would buy my mom a new designer handbag for her birthday.  I loved going with him to pick them out.  It is thanks to my dad that I, too, fell in love with fashion in the way art collectors collect art.  

Coco Chanel, was always a huge inspiration to me.  She, to me, was the ultimate woman--intelligent and confident in her own skin.  She's classic, she's timeless, just like her classic Chanel handbag, or one of her tweed jackets.  

What made me love Chanel the brand, was Karl Lagerfeld's creative vision.  As he once said, "What I've done, Coco Chanel would have never done.  She would have hated it."  That may be true, but he had a way of taking the classic, and being bold and daring with it.  I like that.  He understood that fashion changes, as time changes, so he was never afraid of evolution.

Whenever I need inspiration, I walk into a Chanel store and find it. That and Versace, but we're talking about Karl and Chanel today.  Of course, he was a visionary for Fendi as well, and then his own label.  He is without a doubt one of the greatest contributors to fashion and culture of the 20th and 21st Century.

Thank you Karl, for a lifetime of inspiration.

​Here are a few of my favorite quotes of his:

"DOn't dress to kill, dress to survive."

"i think everyone should go to bed like they have a date at the door."

“Be politically correct, but please don’t bother other people with conversation about being politically correct, because that’s the end of everything. You want to create boredom? Be politically correct in your conversation.” 

“I’m very much down-to-earth. Just not this earth.”

“She is like a kept woman. She has a strong personality. She has lunch and dinner with me on the table, with her own food. She doesn’t touch my food. She doesn’t want to eat on the floor. She sleeps under a pillow and she even knows how to use an iPad.”

“When I was four I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday.”

"Improvise. Become more creative. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Evolution is the secret for the next step."

"A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul."

​"I don't like standard beauty--there's no beauty without strangeness."

"I am physically allergic to flip-flops."

BIG LOVE & HUGS

Love,

​Justine