Rebirth of the Fashion King

on Monday.

Chanel model audition scene.

It was morning when Li Xun entered the interview room.

Pushing open the side door of the interview room, I could already hear some soft conversations inside.

The sounds stopped when he came in.

Li Xun looked up and found countless eyes staring at him from all corners of the room.

The interview room wasn't large, about 180 square meters. It was rectangular, with a row of full-length mirrors on one side and a white wall on the other. The floor was light gray oak, which shone slightly from being trodden by countless pairs of high heels.

A long table was placed by the window, behind which were several black leather chairs, where Karl, Virginia, and Li Xun would sit. In the center of the room, there was an aisle about ten meters long, with two rows of young girls standing against the walls on both sides of the aisle.

They're all supermodels.

Li Xun's gaze swept over.

Freja Beha Erichsen leans against a mirror, her black hair cut very short, wearing black skinny jeans, and a black leather jacket open over a white T-shirt.

When she saw Li Xun, the corner of her mouth twitched, which could be considered a smile.

Natasha Poly stood beside her, wearing a minimalist black spaghetti strap dress, her long blonde hair cascading down. She held her own brochure in her hand, flipping it over from side to side. Hearing the noise, she looked up, nodded at Li Xun, and smiled.

Supermodel Vlada Roslyakova sat on a folding chair against the wall, a French version of "The Stranger" spread out on her lap. Her pale face was expressionless, but her light blue eyes looked over from above the pages of the book, then suddenly curved, and her expression changed 360 degrees.

Jessica Elizabeth Stam was speaking quietly to a casting assistant when she stopped and turned around.

Coco Rocha was standing by the window, chewing gum. She stopped and nudged Abbey Lee next to her with her elbow.

Abbey Lee Kershaw stood in the corner, in the most inconspicuous spot. The twenty-year-old Australian girl had a slightly pale face, long light blonde hair, and wore a white tight-fitting tank top and black high-waisted jeans, holding a bottle of mineral water in her hand.

Her face was small, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. She was so thin that the veins in her arms were clearly visible in the light.

Hi, Rhine.

  

The first to speak was V-Fairy, who was an old acquaintance of Li Xun. She had previously walked the runway in clothing designed by Li Xun, and Li Xun's "debut" design in his career was given to her.

"You seem to be late."

"I know," Li Xun said.

"Mr. Carl doesn't like people who are late."

"Mr. Carl has many things he doesn't like."

Vlada chuckled.

Then the atmosphere in the room relaxed.

Jessica Stan walked towards Li Xun, her high heels clicking crisply on the floor.

With her height, plus those black high heels with red soles, she could look down on Li Xun when she walked up to him.

I like your outfit today.

"Black suits you perfectly."

"It's as if you've never seen me wear black before."

"I've never seen you dressed like this before."

"What kind of occasion is this?"

"Judgment Day," Jessica Stan said, then laughed at herself.

Coco Rocha walked over chewing gum. Her catwalk was known in the industry as "chameleon" because she could change her style at the request of any designer. But in private, she was a Canadian woman who spoke so directly that it was almost offensive.

She brought her head very close to Li Xun's ear.

"I heard you planted a bomb in Mr. Carl's office."

Li Xun glanced at her.

"The news spread very quickly. Who told you?"

"There are no secrets in Paris." Coco spat her chewing gum into a tissue, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash can.

"Especially regarding your matter, only I know about it right now. I have a good relationship with Ms. Virginia, and she knows I won't talk nonsense."

"I'm actually fine."

"You are, you are probably the only person besides Mr. Yves Saint Laurent who dared to say that your design has problems in front of Mr. Karl."

"I didn't say there was a problem with his design; I was talking about the standards."

"In Mr. Carl's ears, this means, thank you for challenging Mr. Carl's authority for our health... Just between you and me, if you want, there are plenty of girls here willing to go home with you, I swear."

Li Xun shook his head.

His gaze passed over Coco's shoulder and landed on the light blonde Australian girl in the corner. Abbey Lee remained standing there, not coming over, just quietly watching, the mineral water bottle in her hand slightly deformed from being squeezed.

Li Xun took two steps toward her.

"Abbey".

She straightened her back slightly.

"Did you receive the notification?"

Her expression changed slightly. It was very subtle, but Li Xun noticed it.

"Received it," she said. "At least two kilograms."

"Is it possible?"

"I……"

Don't lie to me.

Abbey Lee's lips moved, her fingers tightened, and the mineral water bottle made a slight squeaking sound as the plastic deformed.

"My agent said I'd be replaced if I didn't meet the standards, so I've been eating only apples since the day before yesterday."

Seeing her listless appearance, Li Xun couldn't help but speak up.

"A few a day."

"two."

"Stop," he said.

"What?"

"You can stop eating apples now and eat normally. You have a very well-proportioned figure."

Abbey Lee blinked.

"But."

"I'm a professional, and Mr. Carl won't have any problems."

……

The door to the interview room opened again.

Karl Lagerfeld walked in.

He entered without looking at anyone, went straight to the leather chair behind the long table, and sat down in a way that was completely out of character for his age—clever and decisive.

Virginie Viard followed behind Carl.

She wore a black women's suit, well-tailored with clean shoulder lines, a black silk shirt underneath, black flat shoes, and a pair of black sunglasses perched on her nose.

She looks cool.

But if you look closely, you'll notice that her walking posture is a little stiff, her chin is slightly tucked in, and her left hand occasionally tries to touch the temple of her sunglasses, but she manages to resist.

She's really not used to this.

This morning at the studio on Cambon Street, when Virginia saw Li Xun and Karl both wearing sunglasses, she instinctively wanted to put her own pair into her bag.

She's never been one to seek the limelight, and she felt that wearing black sunglasses indoors was a bit too much.

Li Xun was flipping through the model's information card at the time and said, "Let's put it on."

"I don't need it."

"It's not a question of whether it's necessary or not," Li Xun explained.

"You look cool in sunglasses, don't waste them."

"Are you praising yourself?" Virginia responded with a laugh, referring to Li Xun's all-black outfit today.

Wearing black sunglasses, a black fitted shirt, black trousers, and black leather shoes, his already fair and clean complexion, along with his 1.8-meter height, made him appear even more upright after being completely covered in black. Black does indeed make one look slimmer and taller.

"I'm wearing black because I want to put pressure on them today, just like Mr. Carl did. Carl wears black because he only ever wore this one color in his life. You're wearing black because we're both wearing it."

"That's too far-fetched."

"If you're not wearing sunglasses, you're the only one without them." There was a hint of a smile in Li Xun's eyes behind his sunglasses.

"The three of us are not a complete team without you. Do you want to be different or fit in?"

"Then why don't you wear them for my sake?"

"That's a good question," Li Xun couldn't help but tease.

"But you're asking too late. I've already put it on. Carl has been wearing it for fifty years. So now it's not a matter of the two of us accommodating you, it's a matter of you accommodating both of us."

After a moment of silence, Virginia put her sunglasses back on.

As she walked out of the studio, she caught a glimpse of herself on the mirrored wall of the elevator: a black suit, black sunglasses, standing next to Karl and Li Xun, the three of them lined up, expressionless, like some kind of secret organization in the fashion world.

She admitted that it was pretty cool.

But she would never tell Li Xun.

In recent years, Virginie has been brainwashed by Li Xun to a certain extent. She wants to keep a low profile, but Li Xun and Karl Lagerfeld have huge followings. One is a disciple of Karl, the dream lover of supermodels and celebrities, and the other is the Caesar of the fashion world.

Seeing these two people every day on weekdays makes it difficult to keep a low profile, especially after Li Xun arrived...