A Day With The KAISER
Kenneth Goh talks to Karl Lagerfeld as he prepares for the Chanel Cruise ’14 show.
Beautiful lace details on an evening ensemble the right of Lagerfeld, and there I sit for the next 90 minutes, observing the models being paraded in front of the Kaiser.
Sam McKnight, the famous British hairdresser and loyal Chanel collaborator, comes out immediately to adjust the wisps of flat-ironed hair. He looks concerned, and turns to look at the Kaiser, seemingly for his nod of approval. Lagerfeld fluently switches from French to English when he addresses McKnight. “I love it; it looks very chic,” he says and McKnight looks visibly relieved. Even someone of his calibre can get nervous in front of Lagerfeld. That’s the incredible power that Lagerfeld imposes in a room. There is no one else in the room that matters except the Kaiser.
Laetitia Crahay, creative director of Maison Michel and in-charge of costume jewellery, is flinging jewels around the room as if in a water dance. She adds an armourlike necklace on Chinese supermodel, Sui He, which Lagerfeld immediately declares as way too heavy. It’s promptly removed and replaced with two dangling drop earrings in her left ear lobe. Sui He marches down the room. “You look perfect,” says Lagerfeld in rapturous agreement, and with a single wave of his gloved hand, Sui He is wafted away. “Put your hand in your pocket and walk like this,” he gesticulates next, to catwalk darling Saskia de Brauw, who is in a white vest, trousers, and man-style tweed jacket. She defines cool with one hand clutching her