Fairy tale of New York
Juliet Nicolson recalls an enchanting literary partnership with
In 1991, I was working for Atlantic Monthly Press in New York when a German children’s publisher asked if we would be interested in collaborating on a new edition of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Hans Christian Andersen’s classic story concerns two swindling tailors, and is a cautionary tale of truth and deception, in which the innocence of childhood cuts through the toadying of celebrity.
The USP of this new edition was that Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s creative genius, had agreed to draw the illustrations. The joining up of subject and illustrator was clearly a match made in heaven; it was the designer’s favourite childhood story, its title even nodding to his nickname of Kaiser (the Emperor).
Over the next few months, Karl’s vibrantly coloured illustrations began to arrive in the office. The identity of one of the two fictional hoaxers was unmistakable: a solidly built man dressed in a dandyish frock coat and crisp, highnecked shirt, his white-powdered ponytail held back with a large black bow, an inscrutable expression on his round face. Karl’s self-deprecating, mocking sense of humour was evident on every page, as his alter ego crept obsequiously through the story pretending to make the clothes-obsessed Emperor a suit beyond his wildest dreams. But all the time, Karl’s respect for authenticity and creativity was very clear. The care and meticulousness of his approach, combined with his insistence on the freedom to express the truth, however uncomfortable, was all contained in this one children’s book. In his own words: ‘Fashion is a game that has to be played seriously.’
A few weeks later, an unmistakeable figure with a pepper-and-salt ponytail, wearing an immaculately cut
Chanel jacket, blue jeans, black tie and crisp white shirt was waiting for me with an embrace in the lobby of the Pierre hotel.
Karl’s excitement about our joint project was infectious; he insisted on being involved in every detail of the upcoming publication, from production to promotion to launch. No fairy tale had ever been clothed so beautifully or with such care. When it came to choosing a fabric to bind the book, we might have been deliberating over swatches for Cinderella’s ballgown. Eventually, he chose an exquisite scarlet silk; a slender ribbon in a matching shade, from which hung a pair of miniature golden tailor’s scissors, was attached to the spine to form a bookmark; and a protective handmade slipcase was eased over the top. The otherwise prohibitive cost of such lavishness was borne by Karl himself.
Dressing for our encounters was a challenge for me, but I did my best to mimic a designer look in my navy Topshop power suit, accessorised with a string of fake pearls. In this inadequate outfit, I set out one spring day, arm in arm with the Great Illustrator himself, to visit the Manhattan bookshops. This had been Karl’s idea, an Emperor’s progress along Madison Avenue past New York’s most glamorous designer stores.
But Karl ignored the glittering shop windows unless they displayed a book; he seemed equally oblivious to the effect he was having. People jumped out of our way, amazed to see the world’s most celebrated fashion designer striding up the street, his ponytail bouncing behind him, discussing at bullet-train speed the writing of Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson and Yeats. His erudition was irrepressible.
Visits to every single independent bookshop along the route punctuated our journey. Here, with a black-inked flourish, he signed hundreds of copies of the book, as well as buying armfuls of novels and volumes of poetry to take back to his huge library in Paris.
Later that day, he enchanted my young daughters with talk of fairy tales before the launch party, to which all the terrifying glossy magazine editors came to pay their respects. The next morning, a vast and astonishingly beautiful bouquet of flowers arrived for me.
Although I never met Karl again, the memory of that sparkling springtime walk has not faded. As I leaf through the pages of our book, I still wonder what the imaginary suit he created for Hans Christian Andersen’s fictional Emperor looked like in his mind’s eye. Undoubtedly, it would have been as dazzling and as enigmatic as the reallife Emperor himself.