100 Quotes by Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld, an iconic figure in the fashion industry, possessed an unparalleled ability to weave together tradition and innovation. With his signature high-collared white shirts, fingerless gloves, and powdered wigs, Lagerfeld became instantly recognizable. His role as the creative director of Chanel marked a new era for the legendary brand, as he reinvented classic designs while upholding their essence. Lagerfeld's artistic genius wasn't limited to clothing; his multifaceted talents extended to photography and illustration. His ability to anticipate trends and infuse luxury with a contemporary edge redefined the boundaries of fashion, making him a true visionary whose influence will forever shape the way we perceive style.
Karl Lagerfeld Quotes
Change is the healthiest way to survive. (Meaning)
Personality begins where comparison ends. (Meaning)
I’m very much down to earth, just not this earth. (Meaning)
Keep the best, forget the rest. (Meaning)
Think pink, but don't wear it. (Meaning)
Its all about taste.If you are cheap, nothing helps (Meaning)
Fashion is the healthiest motivation for losing weight. (Meaning)
Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose! (Meaning)
Trendy is the last stage before tacky. (Meaning)
Don't dress to kill, dress to survive. (Meaning)
Vanity is the healthiest thing in life. (Meaning)
My only ambition in life . . . is to wear size 28 jeans. (Meaning)
Fashion designers are dictators of taste. (Meaning)
Music gives color to the air of the moment. (Meaning)
Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress. (Meaning)
Truth is only a question of point of view. (Meaning)
When I was four, I asked my mother for a valet for my birthday. (Meaning)
I lost 200lb to wear suits by Hedi Slimane (Meaning)
Evolution is the secret for the next step. (Meaning)
I live my memoirs, I don’t have to write them down. (Meaning)
You know, I don't ask myself too much how. I just do it. (Meaning)
I don't eat bubble gum, but I like the smell. (Meaning)
Sunglasses are like eye shadow: They make everything look younger and pretty
I like the idea of craziness with discipline.
The secret to modeling is not being perfect. What one needs is a face that people can identify in a second. You have to be given what’s needed by nature, and what’s needed is to bring something new.
Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.
In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish.
Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.
What i like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.
One is never over-dressed or underdressed with a Little Black Dress.
Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born.
I don't like standard beauty - there is no beauty without strangeness.
I’m very much down to earth, just not this earth.
Change is the healthiest way to survive.
Trendy is the last stage before tacky.
Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.
Its all about taste.If you are cheap, nothing helps
People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.
Forgiveness is too easy. I can forget by indifference, but not forgive. I prefer revenge.
For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.
Fashion and music are the same, because music express its period too.
Elegance is a physical quality. If a woman doesn't have it naked, she'll never it clothed.
A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul
When people want to be liked for what they did, they should stop.
I design like I breathe. You don't ask to breathe. It just happens
Personality begins where comparison ends.
I hate the word 'cheap'. People are cheap. Clothing is either expensive or inexpensive.
The best thing to do is dive with your imagination ~ you can never drown yourself.
You come first, the clothes later. Reinvent new combinations of what you already own. Be creative.
The most important piece in the house is the garbage can.
The middle has not enough class that I think about the middle class.
"It’s up to you to make everyday as perfect as possible.
It’s a question of will and discipline."
Don't look to the approval of others for your mental stability
I think that it's a crime to say you are bored when time is so precious and there are so many things to do in life: read, learn, watch.
Stuff your brain with knowledge.
I'm a working-class person, working with class.
To reinvent a newly impeccable you in the most modern of outfits, don't skip on makeup and be sure to have flawless skin and hair. That will have more impact than expensive clothes.
Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young.
I am not a fashion victim. Fashion is my victim.
I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.
Dress for yourself and the man you love (if there is one). Women dressing to impress other women--forget about that. Forget about that. It's a very bad way of thinking.
You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.
I'm not a social person. Not that I'm not at ease. I'm pretty good, but it bores me. Not the people, but the whole thing. What for? It's not very productive. I only want to do what I have to do: fashion, photography, books. And that's all.
Work is making a living out of being bored.
The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman.
Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs.
Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life... they are mean and they want to kill you.
I think everyone should go to bed like they have a date at the door.
What is the worst is a fashion designer who talks all the time of his or her creativity, what they are, how they evolved. Just do it and shut up.
Nothing makes you look older than attempting to look young. You can fool anyone, apart from the young. The worst are the lip operations. There are people who have it done and I don't recognise them afterwards. They look like they flew through the windscreen during a car accident and were patched up badly afterwards.
The reason American cars don't sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That's why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.
Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose!
Books are a hard-bound drug with no danger of an overdose. I am the happy victim of books.
When I was a child, I never played with other children. I hated them.
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.
Normal people think I'm insane.
I had an interview once with some German journalist - some horrible, ugly woman. It was in the early days after the communists - maybe a week after - and she wore a yellow sweater that was kind of see-through. She had huge tits and a huge black bra, and she said to me, "It's impolite; remove your glasses." I said, "Do I ask you to remove your bra?"
A sense of humour and a little lack of respect: That's what you need to make a legend survive.
I don't know what "normal" means, anyway.
If you're not ready to do a non-stop dialogue with fashion, you should do another job.
Think pink, but don't wear it.
Fashion is the healthiest motivation for losing weight.
When people talk about the good old days, I say to people, 'It's not the days that are old, it's you that's old.' I hate the good old days. What is important is that today is good.
I'm born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.
Those social networks, there's something sad about them. Is it because they don't have enough knowledge about friends and people? I don't understand it. It's like a talkative mirror where people talk to themselves. And what I hate most in life is selfies.
I'm not an employee who goes to the office every morning at the same time. Then, vacations are needed.
Chanel is composed of only a few elements, white camellias, quilted bags and Austrian doorman's jackets, pearls, chains, shoes with black toes. I use these elements like notes to play with.
I never touch sugar, cheese, bread... I only like what I'm allowed to like. I'm beyond temptation. There is no weakness. When I see tons of food in the studio, for us and for everybody, for me it's as if this stuff was made out of plastic. The idea doesn't even enter my mind that a human being could put that into their mouth. I'm like the animals in the forest. They don't touch what they cannot eat.
I think tattoos are horrible. It's like living in a Pucci dress full-time.
I like everything to be washable, myself included.
Fashion designers are dictators of taste.
My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn't dare do themselves.
Don't dress to kill, dress to survive.
When you hear designers complaining about the challenge of their profession, you have to say: don't get carried away-it's only dresses.
These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly. Fashion is about dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women.
I never drink anything hot; I don't like hot drinks, very strange.
My hair is not really white; it's kind of grayish, and I don't like the color. So I make it totally white with Klorane dry shampoo. That is the best thing to do because my hair is always clean.
I don’t do meetings. At Chanel, there are no meetings. At Chanel, we do what we want, whenever we want and it works. And Fendi is the same.
Keep the best, forget the rest.
I was never a feminist because I was never ugly enough for that.
If someone gives me a to-do list, I say 'thank you, this is nice.' One needs things to throw in the wastebasket.
The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.
With expensive fashion, the inside should be as perfect as the outside.
I don't care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.
I love classic beauty. It’s an idea of beauty with no standard.
There's something boring about people who have to go to an office for a living...
If I was a woman in Russia, I would be a lesbian, as the men are very ugly. There are a few handsome ones, like Naomi Campbell's boyfriend, but there you see the most beautiful women and the most horrible men.
Kate Middleton has a nice silhouette and she is the right girl for that boy. I like that kind of woman, I like romantic beauties. On the other hand, her sister struggles. I don't like the sister's face. She should only show her back.
I think it's horrible that people have to be told. Don't smoke! Everybody knows it's bad for the health. But they have to forbid it.
I like to reinvent myself — it’s part of my job.
Success nullifies. You then have to do it again, preferably differently.
I'm never content with what I do. I live in a sort of permanent dissatisfaction. I think that's the secret to doing things well.
Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests.
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.
Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad.
I don't want to do anything over again, ever again. I want only to do what I haven't done. There's no "again." There's only the future. I hate the past - especially my own past.
I am physically allergic to flip-flops
It’s great that in life you do something that you want to do because you like doing it and you’re not bored. I’m not bored at all. I’m even interested in lots of things, more so today than before.
If you stick to something doggedly, you are off to a bad start.
Seduction is, first and foremost, an art form. And seduction should not always be treated as a wild celebration. In fact, it's more of an evocation of what you do. It's more an evocation of seduction.
I hate amateurs. I hate unprofessional people. There are enough people who can do jobs decently that there's no reason that people who cannot do them decently [should] pretend to be great at it.
I hated the company of other children. I wanted to be a grownup person, to be taken seriously. I hated the idea of childhood; I thought it was a moment of endless stupidity.
Chic is a kind of mayonnaise, either it tastes, or it doesn't.
I don't want to look sloppy, because then I feel sloppy
What I love best in life is new starts.
The purpose of life is life.
Life should be larger than life. Size is important to escape normalization.
My only ambition in life . . . is to wear size 28 jeans.
I sleep seven hours. If I go to bed at two, I wake up at nine. If I go to bed at midnight, I wake up at seven. I don't wake up before - the house can fall apart, but I sleep for seven hours.
Never use the word “cheap”. Today everybody can look chic in inexpensive clothes (the rich buy them too). There is good clothing design on every level today. You can be the chicest thing in the world in a T-shirt and jeans — it’s up to you.
When I was 14, I wanted to smoke because my mother smoked like mad. I wanted to smoke to look grown-up. But my mother said: 'You shouldn't smoke. Your hands are not that beautiful and that shows when you smoke.
Nothing scares me more than people with some doll collection.
The thing at the moment is Adele. She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice.
As a child I wanted to be a grown-up. I wanted to know everything - not that I like to talk about it. I hate intellectual conversation with intellectuals because I only care about my opinion.
I only know how to play one role: me.
Sometimes it's easy to have ideas, but somebody has to find a way to do it. Often those responsible for finding a way don't have the idea.
Black-and-whit e always looks modern, whatever that word means.
I only go to places if I have a professional reason. I'm not a tourist.
The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine.
I'm all self-taught. I never had a teacher. Even for English, and French, and German, I hardly went to school.
What I've done, Coco Chanel would never have done. She would have hated it.
I like the discipline of well-cut, impeccable clothes. I think it's a very healthy discipline.
People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.
If you want respect for your past, it means that you have a problem with your present and even more with your future.
I'm not a marketing person. I don't ask myself questions. I go by instinct.
I am a black diamond, unfaceted. Black diamonds are rare, hard to cut, and therefore uncommercial.
The brain is a muscle, and I'm a kind of body-builder.
Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.
Reinvent new combinations of what you already own. Improvise. Become more creative. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Evolution is the secret for the next step.
Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle creativity.
Buy what you don’t have yet, or what you really want, which can be mixed with what you already own. Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.
I've survived quite a few generations. That's because I never lost my enthusiasm. I wake up every morning like on Christmas Day, waiting for the gifts.
I get along with everyone except for men my age, who are bourgeois or retired or boring.
During the golden age of movie stars, there were plenty of actresses who were deemed unattractive at the start of their careers, but struggled and finally appeared more beautiful and more iconic. Sometimes that idea of being truly iconic has something to do with not necessarily being beautiful and thus trying harder.
The clothes don’t have to suit you; you have to suit the clothes.
Don’t wear what you question, wear what you think is right for you.
Luxury is the income tax of vanity. But it is so pleasant.
No one wants to see curvy women.
I never fall in love.
I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.
Buy only because something excites you, not just for the simple act of shopping.
You cannot fake chic but you can be chic and fake fur
I like girls to be wild but at the same time beautifully brought up and very funny.
Beauty with character ages better than perfection.
It would have been difficult to have an ugly daughter.
Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.
I have no personality, or I have three, depending on how you look at it.
― Karl Lagerfeld Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
