Karl Lagerfeld's Preferred Vision | No Women Allowed

Karl Lagerfeld is a fascinating read. I can think of many male designers and photographers who love women -- perhaps not many designers, but certainly some like Marc Jacobs and lanvin's Alber Elbaz. Both men honor women on our own terms. In my superficial knowledge of both men, there's not a misogynistic bone in their bodies. 

When a man says -- persumably about an aging women --

"There is a sort of melancholia which I find quite elegant after the 'bimbo' years'."

-- he disrupts our consciousness. At least mine. 

"No one wants to see curvy women," Lagerfeld was quoted as saying last Fall 2009, during the Ralph Lauren photoshop scandal. "You've got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly."

When it comes to men and specifically his 20-year-old muse Baptiste Giabiconi, Karl feels differently. 

 “I think after the ugly skinny boys of Hedi [Slimane’s] days…some ‘beauty’ was needed, but new beauty.”

WWD asked Lagerfeld why more men are suddenly turning up in women’s fashion ads and editorials:

“It’s very simple,” Lagerfeld explained. “They put the girls in a more lifestyle situation. Lonely girls can be a little sad in a fashion story. They dress not only for other girls, but also to please men. The popularity is sudden because there are a few new faces.”

A popular story on Sensuality News is our update of the 2009 Karl Lagerfeld Lara Stone Chanel commercial.

We were taken with the negative energy between the male/female couple in the dressing room and Karl's directing Lara's every move. Her sexuality was totally subordinated to a love of Karl's clothes and her existence as a female with no will, except to do as she was told.

Very robotic, from our perspective. 

We're clear that Coco Chanel didn't consider herself a feminist. When Lagerfeld says he's not ugly enough to be a feminist -- channeling her memory -- he's not lying about Coco Chanel's declaration that she wasn't a feminist. 

A Man Was Never Helmut Newton's Ideal Woman

The Purple Magazine photos of Baptiste Giabiconi, taken by Karl Lagerfeld, carry another of those psychologically disruptive quotes to my Smart Sensuality mind.

We think the photos are scalding hot. If the gorgeous stud muffin Baptiste Giabiconi wants to parade around in high heels, it's fine with us. Blended sexuality is everywhere, especially among the young.

Purple Magazine art director Olivier Zahm wanted to portray the iconic Helmut Newton woman, and so he and Lagerfeldchose Baptiste.

To say that the iconic Helmut Newton woman should be played by a man diminishes further the integrity of women -- except that 20 years of Lagerfeld have demanded that women have no bust, no hips, no muscle and a BMI of 15, low enough to stop menustrating.

It's factually correct to say that Lagerfeld's stable of girls doesn't include women who look like Helmut Newton models. He has banished them from the fashion world. 

With all due respect to Baptiste Giabiconi, I doubt he cracks the whip with his boss, who is not called the Kaiser for no reason. This is yet another reason -- beyond his gender -- why Giabiconi is an imposter as a Newton woman.

Monica Bellucci by Helmut NewtonHelmut Newton created striking portraits of strong, fertile, Amazonian goddess women who often assumed fetish-like poses that underscore and illuminate man's fear of women.

So let's be honest. As much as we like the Purple Magazine photos of Baptiste Giabiconi, they are a tribute to Karl Lagerfeld's desire to have a world without women. Helmut Newton's vision of strong women dominating is NOT in the Purple Magazine photography studio.

It amazes us that these editorials appear in the fashion world and no one with fashion credentials peeps a single question or comment about the relevancy and implications of the imagery. Minds far greater than ours can read the writing on the wall. 

I wrote yesterday, after reviewing the Numero Homme #19 editorial, shot by Lagerfeld and called “Prédateurs”:

In the same way that Aristotle was misogynistic, Anne of Carversville suggests that Karl Lagerfled shares an Aristotelian view of women.  Anne has studied Karl’s psychology for many years and agrees that Lagerfeld follows in the great tradition of men who view women as corrupting forces that must be managed by a patriarchal vision.

Here are Karl’s girls Abbey Lee Kershaw, Freja Beha Erichsen and Heidi Mount, presented as predatory, seductive influences on poor Giabiconi. Never fear.

Under Lagerfeld’s keen artistic eye, his protege Baptiste Giabiconi emerges triumphantly in the end — with the bigger head in the last photo. Lagerfeld's goddess boy-man embodies both male and female attributes, the ultimate symbol of an Aristotelian logic that categorized women as lesser beings.

If Karl Lagerfeld didn't need women's money, I don't believe there would be women in his manly, patriarchal world. Man men feel this way and I assume that a similar group of man-hating women can be rounded up. Karl Lagerfeld is enormously influential in how women see themselves and women should consider if this misogynistic psychological manteau is a good one for wearing. 

I am curious if Karl Lagerfeld has ever said anything positive about women in any of his quotes. In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the answer is "never". It's fascinating that women so love the men who hate us most. Amazonian women and 80 supermodels didn't behave like such compliant women.  Anne

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

Baptiste Giabiconi | Karl Lagerfeld | Purple Magazine

Comments

[dan]

Maybe Karl should start using a more realistic slice of life in his adds....How many boy toys make up what percentage of the population. The same as ho many women actually look like the young women in his adds.... Not as aspiration of mine to look like a boy toy, even when i was that age....

[Katherine Knupp]

I've secretly always loathed Chanel. Karl is the perfect designer for it. In the early mid 1990s American Vogue did an issue with the 1990s Supermodels wearing Chanel powersuits. The spread actually made me like the clothes for that brief moment. I'm hoping that Riccado Tisci has the towering talent to match his staggering level of humanity. We need someone like him in Fashion.