(Culled from the pages of WWD and W)
“I would almost like to show my evening things with tennis shoes. That’s the sort of spirit I like — clothes and girls that don’t take themselves too seriously.” Oct. 8, 1975
“What is the worst is a fashion designer who talks all the time of his or her creativity, what they are, how they evolve. Just do it and shut up.” March 2, 1978
“One should be able to create one’s preferred atmosphere at any moment. If I feel I would like very much to have my big 18th-century bed in the foyer, then I move it there — pure and simple.” Feb. 16, 1979
“I see it as though I am a pianist and am about to play another instrument. You can do things in couture you can never do in ready-to-wear.” One month before his first Chanel couture show; Dec. 8, 1982
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“We fashion designers are pretty lucky. We don’t really make any great contributions, but people all over the world pay such attention to us. When I arrived on the Concorde, the customs man looked at my passport and said, ‘Oh, Karl Lagerfeld. I’m wearing it. Go through.’ Amusing, don’t you think?” Dec. 8, 1982
“One never has enough luck. You can’t be too rich or too thin.” April 19, 1983
“I design like I breathe. You don’t ask to breathe. It just happens.” Feb. 17, 1984
“I don’t believe in stops. I’m bored by designers who have one style and never want to move from that, because the interesting thing about fashion is that it reflects, over a very short period, the spirit of the moment.” March 10, 1986
“I think I’m the easiest person to work with as long as things are the way I think they should be.” March 10, 1986
“Dressing up is too banal or too classic — too commercial for me. I’d like to reinvent the feeling of night for day.” Sept. 6, 1990
“Long, short, it just doesn’t matter anymore.” On the correct skirt length; Jan. 28, 1992
“You don’t need a beautiful face — just a good silhouette.” Jan. 12, 1994
“People are so obsessed with what’s politically correct. But fashion should forget all those things, because the image of fashion is not always matching what’s going on in this world. It can describe it, but it describes it later, not the minute it happens.” Jan. 1994
“If you have the chance to buy what you want, to afford expensive things, buy them; but use them the way you use things from the supermarket. If not, that’s not luxury; it’s pretension, boredom, stiff, old, depressing even, no? If you wear a sable coat, use it like a raincoat.” Jan. 1994
“I’d rather have a bad reputation and be, finally, quite nice, than be considered quite nice and be a horrible, bitter, bitchy, mean creature like many of the people we know in this business — and that I don’t have to name because you know as well as I do.” Jan. 1994
“We don’t have that size.” What he would say if Monica Lewinsky called wanting a post-Oscar party dress; March 18, 1999
“Advertising is more important than ever. It’s part of today’s game. The good campaigns, you want to look at them as much as editorial.” Nov. 30, 2001
[Couture] can exist on a smaller base, but it can exist as long as it is not compared to the old days of couture. I hate nothing more than ‘the good old days.’ It makes the present secondhand.” Jan. 1, 2002
“It’s the only game you can play where you win when you lose.” On dieting; Jan. 14, 2002
“You can hardly pinch me. I’m a piece of wood.” On his new svelte self; Jan. 14, 2002
“There is no justice in this business — and no mercy.” On the tough market; July 1, 2002
“Even Madonna’s not giving strong looks these days. The men are doing better. Mick Jagger and all those people are wearing Hedi Slimane [for Christian Dior]. It’s the influence of those tight jackets. It looks good on David Bowie, too.” On musicians and their style influence; Aug. 30, 2002