Are we going to have two buttons in front?
Who did this?
I want two buttons more
did you make it Jean Philippe?
- No, it's not me but I can do it.
I want two more buttons at the bottom.
Yvette, give me a large bag.
The yellow one, it's funny.
The yellow one or the red one, or both.
In one of his last ever video interviews,
Karl Lagerfeld takes i-D to his Hometown of Hamburg,
where he showed his pre fall collection in 2018.
HOMETOWN
You're the captain.
She said that Hamburg is part of Germany
since 1945, no, since 1938.
But you know I spent my childhood in the country
-Mmm
but I was isolated from the country people
Very good.
I didn't know you could make a living out of fashion
In my childhood, fashion
was a retailer's thing.
Make sure that the collar's weight doesn't fall backwards.
It's difficult to describe how one
imagines the world when you're 7, 8 or 10 years old,
but I was convinced that it would work,
and that i'd be famous in the whole world.
I was born on the bank of the Elbe.
I loved, in the fog at night, when I was a child in my bed,
the boats sailing towards the North Sea,
with the sirens and everything.
It creates a very special feeling.
It's very melancholic,
but it's a very, very, very strong feeling.
But you need for and sirens like that,
otherwise it doesn't work.
My parents were almost never there, no one would ever bother me.
I spent my learn reading, learning languages
and drawing.
So, my time was completely full,
but in my own way.
I hated children, I didn't play with children.
I never had toys.
I only wanted notepads, pencils and books.
I never wanted anything else in life
and that hasn't changed, it's the same today.
Put a clip at the base of the collar.
Almost at the shoulder.
That's very good.
Can you put a clip there, darling?
On the collar's base.
I was relatively lively, I guess,
and delighted with myself.
Today I'm shy and modest.
My head was this big.
I left for different reasons.
My mother would say:
"Hamburg is a gateway to the world, but it's the only way out for you."
I couldn't see what I could have done there.
I wasn't going to take over my fathers business.
Hamburg is good.
I love the idea of what it represents,
the past and everything.
But, it's not for me.
Let's get out of here.
Heimat [home] is the place you care about most,
where you spend your childhood, that's the Heimat.
I sold my house because I never went over there.
I know I had a great house.
If you have the nostalgia,
"Oh I have to go home."
No, I don't feel those things.
For a start, home doesn't mean anything to me,
because I don't have a family.
If in fashion, we are not in the future
you might as well close the shops.
That's dreadful.
And I don't have an archive or anything.
Chanel and Fendi, they got archives,
I don't have anything.
I'm not even interested in them, because what I love is 'doing'.
- C'mon girls
It's Hamburg, the idea of it,
but in fact it has nothing to do with reality
because I don't know that reality any more.
I've always been relatively free,
obviously.
I don't have to ask myself the question
'You missed your thing, and couldn't do what you wanted.'
I know so many childhood friends who say:
"Yes, but I couldn't do what I wanted,
you understand, I got married, whatever..."
If that's the case, you shouldn't have got married.
It's not that i'm happy with myself
but at least I did what I wanted to do.
It has become more pronounced over the years
and in every sense of the word.
I'm free because I don't depend on anyone.
So people think it closes the circle,
they can keep quiet!