Karl Lagerfeld has presided over the House of Chanel since the 1980s and is a shaper at the high end of fashion. Documentary filmmaker Rodolphe Marconi steps gingerly into the designer’s elegantly messy, book-filled Paris apartment at the onset of Lagerfeld Confidential. After a few moments the film’s subject pads into the frame, implacable under his trademark shades, all in black except for his white hair tied in a ponytail and matching the white furnishings of his living room.
Out now on DVD, Lagerfeld Confidential hovers alongside the designer as he traverses the exclusive world of the Paris fashion industry. Witty and urbane, Lagerfeld is no dummy with a drawing board but an heir to the bubbly if tart French intellectual tradition that began in the age of Voltaire. We learn that he takes his own fashion photographs, imbuing them with what he hopes will be an air of ephemeral melancholy. He admires the women who painstakingly execute his designs but has no patience for handiwork. He’s an idea man. And he’s a solitary creature who’d rather be alone.
Then again, Lagerfeld is well aware of the importance of image and playing to the camera. “I’m being watched. I have to be careful,” he quips upon realizing that the filmmaker has caught with his sunglasses down.
