Dressed

True Story: If Karl Lagerfeld Doesn't Like Your Name, He'll Just Change It

All it takes is reading a single interview with Karl Lagerfeld to become convinced he's one of the planet's most fascinating men. His recent interview with The New York Times is peppered with more gems, including this tidbit about renaming an employee. You see, an assistant at Fendi named Hervé Peugnet caught the attention of Karl. "I said, 'Hervé, this name is not possible, it's too heavy,'" he recounted. From there, the French word for lightness (légèreté) was transformed and, ta-da, the world met Hervé Léger. Other points that intrigued me? On stress: "I don't believe in it. It's a job; one should not become hysterical." On retrospectives: "Lots of my colleagues, they have archives, they look at their dresses like they were Rembrandts! Please, forget about it." On why he's behind the lens for so many of his campaigns: "It's quite important. If you do only collections, you end up in an ivory tower. You finish the collection and you are isolated until the time to get to the next one. That would be very boring. It's very bad and unhealthy to get isolated." On selfies and having his bodyguard play bad cop: "I don't do selfies. But other

All it takes is reading a single interview with Karl Lagerfeld to become convinced he's one of the planet's most fascinating men. His recent interview with The New York Times is peppered with more gems, including this tidbit about renaming an employee.

You see, an assistant at Fendi named Hervé Peugnet caught the attention of Karl. "I said, 'Hervé, this name is not possible, it's too heavy,'" he recounted. From there, the French word for lightness (légèreté) was transformed and, ta-da, the world met Hervé Léger.

Other points that intrigued me?

On stress:

"I don't believe in it. It's a job; one should not become hysterical."

On retrospectives:

"Lots of my colleagues, they have archives, they look at their dresses like they were Rembrandts! Please, forget about it."

On why he's behind the lens for so many of his campaigns:

"It's quite important. If you do only collections, you end up in an ivory tower. You finish the collection and you are isolated until the time to get to the next one. That would be very boring. It's very bad and unhealthy to get isolated."

On selfies and having his bodyguard play bad cop:

"I don't do selfies. But other people do, and they all want to do selfies with me. No, no, no. Thank God, Sébastien, my assistant, he's mean to the people in the street, mean and rude. I'm a nice person." [Editor's note: Sébastien is crazy good-looking and you can read more about him here.]

Um, if I ever became world famous, the very first thing I'd want to do would be to find someone who can say no and be an enforcer on my behalf. Also, Karl's said before that the thing he hates most in life are selfies, but there appears to be at least one person who's managed to get him to pose for one: Kendall Jenner.

Are you also interested by all things Karl? Like his stance on banning stress?