Karl Lagerfeld Quotes

Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

The only love that I really believe in is a mother’s love for her children.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

People who say that yesterday was better than today are ultimately devaluing their own existence.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I am a fashion person, and fashion is not only about clothes -- it's about all kinds of change

~ Karl Lagerfeld

In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and even clothes, the discussion of fur is childish.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Clear thinking at the wrong moment can stifle creativity.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

We need houses as we need clothes, architecture stimulates fashion. It’s like hunger and thirst — you need them both.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion and music are the same, because music express its period too.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

When people want to be liked for what they did, they should stop.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Don’t overact the story of your name. Overact the story of your work.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Stuff your brain with knowledge.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion is a language that creates itself in clothes to interpret reality.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

The woman is the most perfect doll that i have dressed with delight and admiration.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I want everyone to wear what they want and mix it in their own way. That, to me, is what is modern.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Luxury is the ease of a t-shirt in a very expensive dress.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Reinvent new combinations of what you already own. Improvise. Become more creative. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Evolution is the secret for the next step.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

The secret to modeling is not being perfect. What one needs is a face that people can identify in a second. You have to be given what’s needed by nature, and what’s needed is to bring something new.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I’m very much down to earth, just not this earth.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion is about going ahead, not about memory.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I do my job like I breathe — so if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion is about two things: the evolution and the opposite.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I had an interview once with some German journalist—some horrible, ugly woman. It was in the early days after the communists—maybe a week after—and she wore a yellow sweater that was kind of see-through. She had huge tits and a huge black bra, and she said to me, ‘It’s impolite; remove your glasses.’ I said, ‘Do I ask you to remove your bra?

~ Karl Lagerfeld

The elegance is as physical, as moral quality that has nothing common with the clothing. You can see a countrywoman more elegant than one so called elegant woman.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Forgiveness isn’t something I’m preoccupied with — turning the other cheek isn’t my trip.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore – and then you get something out of her

~ Karl Lagerfeld

The French say you get hungry when you’re eating, and I get inspired when I’m working. It’s my engine

~ Karl Lagerfeld

For me, Chanel is like music. There are certain notes and you have to make another tune with them

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Success nullifies. You then have to do it again, preferably differently

~ Karl Lagerfeld

For every book you buy, you should buy the time to read it.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Youthfulness is about how you live not when you were born.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Guilty feelings about clothes are totally unnecessary. A lot of people earn their living by making clothes, so you should never feel bad.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs

~ Karl Lagerfeld

Never use the word “cheap”. Today everybody can look chic in inexpensive clothes (the rich buy them too). There is good clothing design on every level today. You can be the chicest thing in the world in a T-shirt and jeans — it’s up to you.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

One is never over-dressed or underdressed with a Little Black Dress.

~ Karl Lagerfeld

I love classic beauty. It’s an idea of beauty with no standard.

~ Karl Lagerfeld