So what’s the deal with Karl Lagerfeld?
Listen ––it’s been some time now since his death and therefore he’s ripe for reassessment - oh, and don’t come at me with: “Why he’s the King of Couture - didn’t he get Chanel off its knees.” Okay - so he managed to do something nobody could get petite little Coco to do for the entire duration of the Second World War - but really, does that require his beatification? “Saint Karl of the White Ponytail” ––he has no feast day you know - unless you can call drinking 12 gallons of diet Coke a day ‘a feast’.
His singular innovation seems to have been that of dragging the mummified corpse of Couture into our age of mass-manufacture ––and how did he achieve such a feat? Was it through the democratisation of ownership ––i.e. through an innovative use of manufacture to put the one-of-a-kind on-off within the reach of your average Betty-in-the-street? No such altruism. His grand solution was to use the Chanel brand alone as his creative cash-cow ––so now it could be carved into fine little slices of ownership ––so your average Betty could aspire to having a CC necklace without also requiring the income level of some bratty heiress to boot. “Wonderful Karl” they exclaimed, “You managed to sell to the masses without reducing us to the indignity of mass-manufacturing [presumably because no-one wants to do a three month course in Mandarin just to communicate with your staff ––no-one]”. However there was one unforeseen side effect of this saintly strategy ––and that was having average Betty turn up to every function wearing said diamond encrusted CC, while wafting half a bottle of no. 5, as she bounded in to a champagne breakfast wearing this piece of saintly egalitarianism paired with her a shocking pink Nike leisure suit ––a tragedy; especially as you yourself were going to look très chic donning your granny’s Chanel heirlooms to that same do - which, of course, has now been utterly ruined by ‘Betty from the hood’ flaunting her latest ‘Karl’ inspired knuckle duster along with outsized Swarovski encrusted CC neck plunger swinging between her own double Cs. Why what’s that sound I hear? I do believe it’s the whirr of petite little Coco herself spinning in her own grave ––listen, she’s fine ––at least she’s found something she can be caught dead in. A pleasure which saintly Karl has divested her own true acolytes of ever indulging again.
