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Authors: Rosamond Bernier

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At first, the new Chanel collection seemed dead on arrival. The neat little suits, the easy-to-wear black dresses, looked déjà vu. Where was the explosion of the new that was expected?
Karl Lagerfeld, that canny seismograph who was to take over the Chanel house in 1983, summed up, many years later, his reactions: “You had a feeling you were seeing something prehistoric, but I loved this look that harked back to a prewar world I hadn't known but found more intoxicating than any current fashion.
“Chanel was so alive and intuitive, and she found the right compromise between her style and the 1950s look.”
The press was damning. “A fiasco” was the verdict of London's
Daily Express
. But her American fans, including Carmel Snow at
Harper's Bazaar
, beat the drums for her. And it worked. She had done it again. By January 1971, when she died, sales were zooming. She had made a positive of retro designs that evoked what people had loved decades earlier—but always with a witty twist. She had tapped into the zeitgeist and given the look they wanted.
A
lmost forty years after my visit to Chanel, Anna Wintour, the editor of
Vogue
, sent me to Paris to interview Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's present mastermind.
Unlike some of us who might wish to change our physical appearance and take on a new persona, Karl Lagerfeld has actually done it. The original model, whom I met in 1991, was a thick-set, solid man in a dark suit (made in Japan), a white shirt, black tie, a discreet cameo for a tiepin, gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, black glasses de rigueur.
The dark glasses are still there, but the image has dwindled: an unforgiving diet and an iron will—no alcohol, a low, low no-cal drink—have honed Lagerfeld to a Giacometti look-alike, ninety-two pounds gone, and they stay gone.
The hair is bleached snow-white. There is a stiff white collar as wide as a hand, the skinniest of jeans, various metallic hand embellishments, fingerless gloves.
If there had been a Shakespearean stage direction for our first meeting, it would have been “Enter, talking.”
What has not changed is the rapid-fire, flat staccato voice. It greeted me on my arrival and continued with nary a largo. French and English moved seamlessly in and out of the talk. Had I been proficient in German and Danish, no doubt those languages would have come into play. Karl is of German and Danish extraction.
He told me, “If I had not been in fashion, I would have studied languages. My big regret is that I don't speak more languages. I have French, English, German, and vaguely Italian. I'd like to know Russian, Spanish, Swedish (which I can understand), and Danish because I come from that area.”
He told me, “I love your English.” I learned that before meeting me, he had acquired some of my tapes and played them. It shows how thoroughly he watches his publicity. He commented on my name: “Rosamond. That's the English spelling. Not like Schubert's Rosamunde. It's like Rosamond Lehmann.” And it is, of course. But I wondered how many people in Paris still remembered the author of a once ubiquitous novel,
Dusty Answer
.
He said, “I can never have enough dictionaries. I want to know everything. Life is a continuing lesson. There is not a stupid subject.”
And “I want to
have
everything” might be added to the mantra. That includes houses, clothes, works of art, books, people.
He has owned a number of houses in a number of places and disposed of them all. When I first met him, he occupied, and had restored at vast expense, a splendid eighteenth-century Paris mansion, of the kind referred to in French as an
hôtel particulier
. It was furnished in the grandest eighteenth-century style: all the furniture had pedigrees like racehorses. Of the stupendous Savonnerie carpet in magenta and clear yellow, he let drop, “Louis XV ordered it.”
At the time of my visit, he referred to an apartment he had had in Monte Carlo: “All Memphis furniture—I only went to Monte Carlo for the annual Grand Prix automobile races, so I got rid of it.” What he didn't say is that he is a frequent visitor to Monte Carlo because of his close friendship with Princess Caroline (the daughter of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier). To his credit, he never name-drops.
He had had a mansion in Biarritz, which he described as completely refurbished and stocked with over two thousand books and a full contingent of servants. “I realized I hadn't visited the place in two years, so I sold it.”
There were passing references, usually punctuated with “Hmm?” to his Art Deco collection that had furnished an apartment near Saint-Sulpice. “It looked too much of a set.” All gone now. And there was a Wiener Werkstätte ensemble, a high-tech apartment, and a group of Pop Art artists. “I bought David Hockney and Tom Wesselmann and the others, but when it got to be such a trend, I gave them away as Christmas presents.”
Now the whole grand eighteenth-century package of the Paris
hôtel particulier
and its furnishing has left the radar. Karl has acquired
several floors of a handsome house on the Quai Voltaire and no doubt will surprise us when he has finished with its transformation.
He claimed he was in a minimalist mood, and he spoke about wanting one day a really modern house—like one designed by Tadao Ando. Where to live has always been a presiding passion. It is an inherited trait. His very entry into the world hung on the choice of a house. His father was a Swedish widower in Hamburg, his mother a divorced German.
“But she knew what she wanted. When my father took her to see the house he had built for himself, she said, ‘I'm very sorry, but this is a horrible house. Anyone can see that a widower built it. I'll never marry you in this house.'
“So they walked around the city until they saw a very pretty neoclassical Biedermeier house in a big park, and then she said to my father, ‘I'll marry you if you buy this house. Otherwise, forget it.'
“So they got married. I was born ten years later.”
Like Catherine the Great, Lagerfeld obviously believes in excess. According to a recent documentary about his living quarters, there are reams of shelves with what looked like hundreds of those collars and white shirts, hundreds of fingerless gloves, dozens of pairs of jeans, belts laid out in the hundreds, a treasure trove of necklaces, rings, brooches, buckles, clasps, pins.
In a separate room, there are some dozen clothes racks on wheels with some five hundred suits, all in shades of gray or black.
Clearly, Lagerfeld does not subscribe to the “less is more” school. According to a profile in
The New Yorker
by John Colapinto, these days Lagerfeld is apt to appear with a large belt buckle “encrusted with diamonds” and wearing a tie “looped with silver chains” that is “fixed with a jade Cartier clasp” from the 1920s. He wears “fingerless black biker gloves” that bear “silver grommets” on each knuckle. A “chunky Chrome Hearts ring” worn over the glove completes the look.
Like the eighteenth-century French encyclopedists Diderot and d'Alembert, who believed everything worth knowing could be listed and classified, Lagerfeld wants to know everything, especially about what is happening right now.
For this he has an immense collection of books, and magazines
and publications of all kinds, spilling out from a succession of rooms. He has read a surprising number of them. How he can find the time is utterly mysterious—and in four languages. The fact is that he really loves books, and even has his own bookstore at 7, rue de Lille. It specializes in his particular interests—fashion, photography, poetry, architecture, history, and design—and he has his own imprint.
Incidentally, he is a highly proficient photographer who has been exhibited abroad and does many of the publicity shoots for Chanel.
I am perhaps one of the few people who remembers that the well-publicized Freudian analyst Jacques Lacan practiced and lived at the same address where Lagerfeld now has his bookstore.
After my interview with him appeared in 1992 in
Vogue
, for years, heavy packages of the latest books and art catalogs would arrive from La Hune, the best Paris bookstore, sent by Karl.
He had not met my husband, John Russell, but admired him. He told me, “Let me know when John is next in Paris.” In due course he arranged a lunch with just the kinds of people John might enjoy. The director of the Versailles Library was one of them.
After lunch we did a tour of some of the book-filled rooms, books overflowing on a succession of tables, even on the floor. Karl noticed John had picked up a book by Paul Léautaud, a seldom-read author today. Next day, he sent around a copy to where we were staying.
Not so long ago, unexpectedly, I got a note from Karl, handwritten, as usual: “Tell your husband I enjoyed his translation of Roger Martin du Gard.” Who else would even have heard of this author?
It may not be long lasting, but his generosity is princely. After our first encounter in 1991, he sent me right to the Chanel Boutique. I understood I was to choose something. I chose a suit in black. “But it comes in red too, don't you like red?” the chic salesperson asked me. I explained that I thought I was only to choose one thing. “But you don't understand, madame, Monsieur Lagerfeld wanted you to have everything!” And I got everything: not just the outfit, but the blouse, the shoes, the gloves, the costume jewelry. And that went on for a decade, every time I stopped by the boutique when I came to Paris.
And at each arrival in Paris, there would be such an opulent arrangement
of flowers from Karl that it practically took an Olympian weight lifter to deliver them.
What do you give the man who has everything? I owned two complete sets of the years I edited
L'ŒIL
, my magazine, handsomely bound, each year in a different color (1955 to 1970). They were my most precious possessions. I got a hefty messenger—they were extremely heavy—to deliver one set to Karl's residence, with my note (in French): “I have given you the best of myself.”
Some years ago, John and I came to Paris to go to the eightieth birthday ball of the very erudite Baroness Elie de Rothschild (she and John had just celebrated fifty years of friendship). I was wearing a pink ruffled dress by Carolina Herrera. Karl, a fellow guest, complimented me extravagantly on my appearance. Next day, a sketch from memory of me in that dress arrived. I can't imagine any other designer making such a gesture. I sent the sketch on to Carolina.
It is inevitable that a certain ruthlessness is involved in Karl's determination to keep renewal at the forefront of his preoccupations. People are not exempt. This remarkable man is an immensely disciplined perpetual-motion machine, in quest of—if not eternal youth—the eternal new.
He hates nostalgia. It's new trends, new ideas, new people, new favorites. This entails sloughing off old baggage, human or material, but renewal is the name of the game.
I
first started going to Mouton—as it was called
tout court
—in the mid-1950s. My friend Pauline Potter, an American educated in Paris, had married Baron Philippe de Rothschild, owner of the famous wine château Mouton Rothschild, in 1954. Then began the union of money with taste and determination.
Pauline had decided that life
chez elle
would be exceptional, and it was. The attention ranged from the sharpened pencils, magnifying glass, and pads by each guest telephone to the bottle of scotch and its accompanying soda on the night table of every male guest, following English country house tradition.
The visit began with the visitor's suitcase or suitcases being immediately unpacked and the contents stored away.
Each bathroom was an oasis of Guerlain soaps, Floris bath oil, and scented potted plants. The bath was drawn by the
femme de chambre
, of course. Denise, the
femme de chambre
who had been allotted to me, whisked away any garment that might have touched my skin so rapidly that once, having arrived with only one evening bra, I took to hiding it.
The bed linen was of gossamer fabric. The turndown sheet was starched and pleated, with an in-and-out wide strip of satin ribbon. Every morning two maids in pink uniforms would arrive with a small ironing board and an iron and meticulously re-pleat the top sheet. In fact, anytime a body rested on a bed, however briefly, the iron came into play. Incidentally, Philippe chose to have a maid, not a butler, take care of his needs.
The breakfast trays were little masterpieces with every kind of toast, croissant, jams, a pat of butter like the moon, and a minute
basket of pansies. The only sounds that could be heard at breakfast time were the cooing of the doves and the gravel of the driveway being raked into perfect shape by a small man in a black beret who was at it even on Sundays.
Although called a château, the original building was not a castle but an old Victorian house, with a warm crimson Napoleon III décor of tassels and poufs, a carpet celebrating the Anglo-French alliance with full-length figures of the English queen and the French emperor, and a full-length portrait of Philippe's wasp-waisted mother. Philippe told me that she kept her figure by picking delicately at unshelled baby shrimps throughout the gargantuan dinners of the period.
Soon Philippe and Pauline had taken over the spaces adjoining and over the original cellar, henceforth called Grand Mouton (as opposed to the old house, Petit Mouton), and added a long living room overlooking the vines, a series of handsome bedrooms, and a library. This long gallery was paved with faded pink tiles copied from a medieval manuscript. The grand décor combined Renaissance sculpture, Venetian chairs, some pieces of baroque sculpture. A rare foray from Philippe's bachelor days, when he was a famous racing-car driver: a gleaming Brancusi
Bird in Space
, with its suggestion of speed. In his racing days, Philippe was known at railroad crossings because he would toss out gold coins to the gatekeeper, who hurried to let him through ahead of other competitors. A contrast to the Brancusi was the immaterial, freestanding Giacometti.
“When you live in the country, you need variety,” the Baronne Philippe said. The tables for those famous meals at Mouton were set in different rooms from both houses: the long gallery over the vines, a small intimate salon, the library, a corner of the house, and even … the dining room.
At lunch there were patterned Provençal tablecloths. They were inventoried, and a sample of each was pasted in a book so Pauline could point at what she wanted for that day. The same was true of an enormous set of Creil dishes, each with a different printed illustrated scene, collected all over France. Each model was photographed, numbered, and listed in an album. To choose the set for the next day's lunch, the hostess just had to indicate the desired number. Even for a long visit, guests never saw the same series twice.
This system was borrowed from Marie Antoinette, who had swatches of her dresses in albums. She would place a pin in the one she wanted to wear that day or evening.
For dinner, there were always white tablecloths and eighteenth-century porcelain. Table landscapes were created by a woman trained by Pauline who collected ferns, grasses, branches, berries, and whatever was at hand that season and built little still lifes in the middle of the table, directly on the tablecloth.
At dinner there were usually five wines, served in identically sized glasses, which made a crystal garland around the table. Each guest had a card listing the menu and the wines. Wine was served in tallnecked beakers, the neck tied around with a kerchief dyed wine red, a custom from the austerity period postwar, when laundry was difficult with little soap available.
On occasions when really great vintages were to be served, the
maître de chais
, not a butler, came himself to pour the wines, wearing a wine-colored jacket.
Philippe often seated me next to him, not because of any particular charm on my part, but because he knew me so well that I was no effort. He would place his foot firmly over mine under the table, and I thought, if it gives him any pleasure, why not?
The inventive, really historic, meals were presided over by the chef, Maisemain. Pauline had poached him from Princess Marthe Bibesco, from whom she had rented an apartment each year when she was on furlough from her job as designer at Hattie Carnegie, New York. Maisemain was only a modest
homme à tout faire
at the time, but Pauline sensed his potential and whisked him away, to the fury of the princess. When Pauline took over the Bibesco apartment for her Parisian stay, she used to bring her own luxurious curtains that trailed to the floor.
When I left France for New York, I found a cache of Mouton menu cards dating from the 1950s to 1969. Some samples:
Le 30 Octobre 1960
 
FILETS DE SOLES AU CAVIAR
BAS ROND DE PRE-SALE ROTI
RIZ AUX RAISINS
PETITS NAVETS AU BEURRE
ARTICHAUTS FARCIS
SALADE
FROMAGES
GLACE AU CITRON
 
Margaux 1934
Haut-Brion 1908
Mouton Rothschild 1881
Yquem 1937
Moulin 1909
 
Le 4 Janvier 1964
 
CREME DE MOULES
POULET A LA RUSSE
SOUFFLE STAUNTON HILL
SALADE
FROMAGES
GLACE AU RHUM
POMMES GLACEES
 
Riesling 1949
Lafite 1949
Mouton Rothschild 1929
Mouton Rothschild 1879
Climens 1929
It was of course black tie every night, and for women practically ball gowns were encouraged. Balenciaga made a series of billowing creations for Pauline to wear for Mouton evenings. She called them “
mes Moutons
.”
Guests were expected to hold up their end, preferably in at least two languages. There were often English guests, literary types such as Stephen Spender and Raymond Mortimer. No excuses of headaches or any other ailment were allowed; you were expected to perform regardless of the fact that you might have just heard some very bad news.
There was a steely, relentless quality to Pauline. If someone who had been an intimate friend for all her New York years was introduced to Philippe and Philippe found her boring, that person was dropped irrevocably and never heard from again. On the other hand, a future biographer of the Rothschild family was courted assiduously, his wife given luxurious presents from Dior. The Philippe de Rothschilds received extra favorable coverage in the family biography.
Pauline, a great reader, kept stacks of books in baskets under her bed. She went to bed later and later, and emerged for meals later and later. At night, she was always the last to appear for dinner. Cecil Beaton said her appearance was a work of art. She created the aura of a beautiful woman through sheer will, although in fact she was not a beauty.
Philippe had thought for some time of creating a museum that would marry works of art with the making and drinking of wine. In 1962, with the impetus of Pauline's flair and energy, the pair began assembling the contents of a Museum of Wine in Art. They had a spectacular head start with the collection of seventeenth-century vermeil ceremonial pitchers and goblets inherited by Philippe from his great-grandfather Carl von Rothschild—very much in what was called “
le goût Rothschild
.”
The pair traveled from America to Anatolia on their treasure hunt. Soon cases began rolling into the vast hangars of the domain: exotic objects, elaborately mounted, so-called unicorn horns, nautilus shells, ostrich eggs, coconut shells …
A suite of fifteenth-century tapestries shows some stylishly dressed young men in miniskirts harvesting grapes. There is a jade cup from Agra, English monteith bowls, seventeenth-century Venetian glass, blue-and-white Chinese porcelain, still lifes by Willem Heda and Georg Flegel. The twentieth century is represented by a Picasso sketch, a Rouault, a Juan Gris, and a wire sculpture by the American Richard Lippold.
These were displayed in rooms adjacent to the vast, always cool, musty-smelling cellar, where there were barrels of Mouton Rothschild as far as the eye could see. Pauline had lined the museum cases in raw silk, in various shades of eggshell.
I had been in on the project since the beginning, and before the museum opened, I worked with my photographer to prepare a feature
for
L'ŒIL
. I chose the objects, but instead of shooting them in their cases, I placed them in unexpected backgrounds: like chess pieces on the tiled floor, or emerging from forests of cobwebs in Philippe's own private cellar, where he kept his most precious bottles.
I got to know the museum so well that I was pressed into service as guide to the various notables, including André Malraux, who arrived. I had everything except a guide's uniform.
There were two particularly grand dinners on consecutive nights to mark the opening. Philippe insisted that the menu be identical for each so he would not be tempted to overeat.
Mouton continues today under the skillful guidance of Philippe's daughter, Philippine. Obviously, Mouton has changed as the world has changed—no more pleated sheets—but the high standards for excellence nevertheless remain. Philippine, whose background as an accomplished actress might not be expected to form an accomplished businesswoman, has multiplied the Mouton activities worldwide and maintained Mouton itself as a continuing delight for her friends.

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