Karl, of course you spend a lot
of time in Rome and- and also
in Paris.
I go between the two cities
because I've got a plane,
so.
I may be commercial
but I don't fly commercial.
No, but you know I cannot
because people bother me to a
degree don't have any idea.
That selfie thing.
But it's my fault.
I'm too easy to recognise.
Does it bother you though you
know you don't want.
Bother? No. But there's always
but there's a moment you
are tired.
Especially if you have to go to
those gates, once you're
through your view to check in
and then they take some photos
and the put it on Twitter. No
no no no no.
That's in my contract.
Can you go anywhere Karl,
do you think, without being
recognized?
No, I going nowhere.
Nearly never.
But but does that upset you?
That you can't go anywhere.
No. I always have bodyguards
- ridiculous but
you know.
Karl, can I take you back when
you were growing up in
a town very close to Denmark
in Germany and I just would
like to ask you,
if you don't mind,
a little bit about your
childhood.
My childhood
was very simple, I only wanted
one thing - to get out of
there.
And to be grown up.
I hated to be a child.
That's why I could speak
English, German and French when
I was six.
No, I had a nice childhood in a
period when the world was not
that great. There is nothing I
can say against
that.
I'm not still recovering from
an unhappy childhood.
No. Everything was perfect.
I never played with children.
I only was sketching and
reading.
And it was on
a country estate, quite
isolated. I didn't even
have anything to do with my
sister and half sister.
I always was
isolated from the rest.
I was on the best of terms
with my father and even better
terms with my mother who
thought it was perfect like
this. As long as I was not
creating trouble.
Because the girls created
trouble and were sent to
boarding schools in the second
and from there they married
off.
My mother had no
patience.
She was right.
Your mother must have been very
proud of your own success.
No. She never mentioned
that.
And she preferred Sonia Rykiel
dresses to what I did because
it reminded her to the
twenties.
Really? How did that-
No no no.
And she never saw a show of
mine. She said: "No.
You know I don't go to see the
people who my son works
for."
It was another- these were people
were from another era.
And they let you go to Paris
very young. And did you enjoy
being there by yourself?
My father had offices in Paris
so the whole thing was easy.
Even those years for me.
And then one day in the street
I saw a huge poster for a
contest from International
Wool Fashion Office which was
then a very important
Australian organization.
The poster was
a sketch and the poster said:
Send a sketch in of a suit,
of a dress or of a coat.
Something done in wool.
So I made a few sketches,
sent them,
forgot them.
Six months later I got a
telegram, because in those days
you got telegrams, saying: "You
won the first prize for the
coat." And there were 200,000
people in the world who had
done this thing.
I mean. Then the
coat was made by
Balmain, what was a very
successful house,
and he asked me if I didn't
want to enter the studio.
And what was Paris like in
those days, Karl?
It was a very safe place but it
was like in a old movie about
Paris you know.
It still looked like a Paris
from another era.
No book.
I wanted to ask you about that
Karl because the
burqa is banned obviously
in France; there has been a lot
of controversy recently about
the bikini and the women
on the beach and the policeman
saying.
I don't discuss a subject,
it's none of mine.
I don't know how they will find
a solution for that.
I prefer not to think about it
but it's a very unpleasant
problem.
But for women to be told: You
can wear this you can't wear.
I hate this attitude against
women because you know my life
and my work is dedicated to
women. So I think
it's horrible.
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