Karl Lagerfeld remembered

Documentarians Frédéric Tcheng and James Crump pay tribute

by Anne-Katrin Titze

James Crump, in his documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, shows Karl Lagerfeld acting in Paul Morrissey and Andy Warhol's obscure fashion film L'Amour: "Karl would send little personal notes and was always an extraordinarily supportive person."
James Crump, in his documentary Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco, shows Karl Lagerfeld acting in Paul Morrissey and Andy Warhol's obscure fashion film L'Amour: "Karl would send little personal notes and was always an extraordinarily supportive person."

Karl Lagerfeld died today at the age of 85 at the American Hospital in Paris. Lagerfeld, never shy to be caught on camera, had a cameo in Julie Delpy's Lolo and was seen in Fabien Constant's Carine Roitfeld documentary Mademoiselle C with Sarah Jessica Parker. Frédéric Tcheng, editor of Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor, co-director with Lisa Immordino Vreeland of Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, and director of Dior And I, sent the following remembrance in honour of Karl Lagerfeld.

Dany Boon with Karl Lagerfeld in Julie Delpy's Lolo
Dany Boon with Karl Lagerfeld in Julie Delpy's Lolo

"What news! I thought Karl was going to live forever. I guess he died on stage, a true entertainer. He said once he wanted to be an apparition in people's lives, and he was in mine. I kept running into him like a fleeting vision... holding hands with Valentino in "The Last Emperor" and telling him not to retire, on the streets of Rome where he designed Fendi, or at a Scissor Sisters concert at Bowery Ballroom in 2008 where I summoned my courage and went to say hi." - Frédéric Tcheng

James Crump, in my conversation with him on Antonio Lopez, told me that Karl Lagerfeld was "protean, he's ever-changing. He is someone who keeps moving through cycles and cycles and cycles."

"Karl was always supportive when I was first starting out. I met him in Paris a few times in the late 1990s and he invited me to his photography studio which shared space with his bookstore, 7L on the Rue de Lille. Karl merchandised my art book company Arena Editions’ entire list of books in the 7L window space during the then crucial week of Paris Photo. One year, I remember Karl bought up 1,000 copies of one of my books, When We Were Three which he used for his Holiday gift that year. Karl would send little personal notes and was always an extraordinarily supportive person." - James Crump

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