Coco Chanel | Powerful, Seductive, Independent in "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky"

British Vogue shares the secrets of Karl Lagerfeld's inspiration cupboard, where he keeps little prized vintage tokens for jumpstaring creativity.

Costume designers Chattoune Bourrec and Fabien Esnard-Lascombe, otherwise known as Chattoune & Fab, turned to Lagerfeld for help in designing clothes for this summer's most stylish film, "Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky".

Anna Mouglalis' version of Coco Chanel is seductive and sexual, a powerful woman with money, a reputation and business savvy. See a preview of the film at Vogue.com UK, a moment in which Coco Chanel picks the scent of her world-famous Chanel No. 5.

In a separate interview, Anna Mouglalis, who plays Coco Chanel says that Karl Lagerfeld was very keen for her to show Coco's humour, an idea rejected by the film's Dutch director Jan Kounen, who was committed to showing Coco Chanel as fearlessly independent.  Read Kounen's in-depth interview about the film and movie-making at The Filmmaker Magazine Blog.

In our affectionate, ongoing discussion about Karl Lagerfeld's attitudes about women, his desire to show Coco Chanel's humour while Kounen wanted to show her as fiercely passionate struck a chord.

Chattoune & Fab didn't mention seeing this photograph of Karl Lagerfeld's protégé Baptiste Giabiconi in Lagerfeld's Paris apartment. Sourced via fashin blog, the bouquet of Barbie dolls image, styled and shot by Lagerfeld, resonates with us.

We're about to dig into this rich March 2010 Bruce LaBruce interview with Karl Lagerfeld for Vice Magazine. Already we have a new Karl twist, something we never considered. With our extensive writing on burqas and the lives of women under them, we never considered that sun glasses are burkas for the eyes. Very clever, Karl.

More Reading:

Karl Lagerfeld's Preferred Vision | No Women Allowed

Like Aristotle, Karl Lagerfeld Sees Women As Predators Anne of Carversville

Baptiste Giabiconi | Karl Lagerfeld | Purple Magazine