Karl Lagerfeld / Zaha Hadid

Partnership of the Traveling Bags. By Matt Tyrnauer. Vanity Fair. June 2008. 

excerpted quotes:

"He wanted to make an event to mark the 50th year of the Chanel handbag - a touring art exhibit related to the fashion house. I said, why not? But I have a better idea. Why not build a museum that travels? Why don't we ask somebody like Zaha Hadid?" (Karl Lagerfeld)

“She was impressed, because she had done a similar project when she was a student—a house like prêt-à-porter, a place that you could simply buy and move from one place to another. And we formed this project in a very short time, because in her mind, and perhaps in her archives, the project already existed.” (Karl Laferfeld)

“I do everything, not because I’m bossy, but just because I think what I do is a better idea. Now, for a movie you need a set, and though I design the catwalks for my shows and even boutique windows, I always thought Zaha was a genius. I discovered her sketches before she even had people who could build her places—they were technically too difficult for them—and I knew it was going to cost a lot, but I wanted her to make this pavilion for Chanel.” (Karl Lagerfeld)

"In the show, 20 artists interpret the Chanel bag as a cultural totem, among them Yoko Ono, Stephen Shore, Pierre and Gilles, and Nobuyoshi Araki, whose sadomasochistic images of a woman bound with the Chanel bag’s gold-chain straps are a favorite of Lagerfeld’s." (Matt Tyrnauer)

“I’m not an art critic, so don’t ask me too much about what’s in the container. I hate this complex of the fashion world with art. There’s no reason to have complexes. (Karl Lagerfeld)

"Designers’ art—whatever it is—has to be applied art, because nobody’s wearing it otherwise. If it’s a concept—and maybe it is conceptual—then we have galleries, and in that case it should not be in a fashion show. Balenciaga, Chanel—they never had this complex. They never even did a retrospective of their work in their lifetime. I am proud to be in trade, but I know designers who say, ‘I’m not a designer—I’m an artist who’s been picked to do collections.’ Ugh.” (Karl Lagerfeld)

“I’m not a curator, and I don’t even collect art anymore. People don’t collect art today; they come because of the prices. I don’t like art in private life. I don’t really care what I own or what I don’t own. I sold all of my art, because modern art is really only beautiful when it is displayed in huge places. If you live in an airport, fine. But I live on the Quai Voltaire, so where do you put this stuff?” (Karl Lagerfeld)

“I chose Zaha because I think architecture is the real art of today. There are great things built today even in countries we never go to—stunning, unbelievable—and there’s something very interesting and exciting going on with architecture in the 21st century. What I think is great about Zaha Hadid is that she found a way to break the grip of the post-Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was great, but the shit that came after it and that covered the world—all the cheap copies—was monstrous, no? So, here you have this woman who is a genius, making things that cannot compare to anything you have seen before. What’s better than that?” (Karl Lagerfeld)

“For me, it’s magical. When I first saw it in Hong Kong—at night especially, surrounded by tall buildings—I thought, This is something that hasn’t happened before. This is really a 200 percent 21st-century event.” (Karl Lagerfeld)