Rebirth of the Fashion King

After a simple lunch, the three of them quickly finished their afternoon work.

Just as Li Xun and Virginia were preparing to retreat.

Karl Lagerfeld stood before the long table, his left hand resting on the edge, a pencil still in his right. His gaze swept from behind his glasses over Virginia on his left, then over Li Xun on his right, before he placed the pencil on the list.

"Don't move."

Virginia was about to reach for her sunglasses when she heard this and her hand froze in mid-air.

"Stay in this position." Karl Lagerfeld's voice came from behind his sunglasses, with a tone that Virginie knew very well. Lagerfeld was about to create.

"Three people of different ages, three pairs of sunglasses, a black theme—I've never seen such an interesting scene at a Chanel interview before."

"Because Ms. Virginia never wore sunglasses before," Li Xun said with a smile.

"Because I was the only one who liked facing the camera before," the old lady corrected Li Xun.

"Virginie never liked wearing all-black suits, and you haven't been to Chanel yet."

"So you did it on purpose, deliberately making yourself the most eccentric person in the room so that everyone would look at you."

"Isn't that obvious?" the old lady said sarcastically to Li Xun.

Virginia chimed in from the side.

"So now three people of different ages are sitting together interviewing for models. Do you think this scene is worth recording?"

"It's not just about recording." Karl Lagerfeld turned and walked towards the door.

He opened the door and said something to the outside.

The speaker was speaking in French, very quickly, and in a low voice, but footsteps immediately echoed down the corridor.

Sebastian Junker appeared at the door.

"The trunk."

Which one?

  

"The most commonly used one."

Sebastian turned and walked away, his footsteps quickly fading into the distance in the corridor.

Virginia took off her sunglasses and held them in her hand.

"Guess what he's going to take?"

"I guess it's a camera." Li Xun also took off his sunglasses and placed them on the table.

"There are at least three in the trunk, the one I use most often is..."

"Senna," Virginia said directly.

"It seems you've taken it before."

"I've helped him carry them more than once." Virginie folded her sunglasses and put them in her suit's inner pocket.

"Backstage at the 2004 haute couture show, he took a series of backstage portraits with that camera. After developing them, they were hung in the corridor on the third floor of Rue Cambon for half a year. I was the one who helped him get the camera that day."

Karl Lagerfeld walked back from the door and asked after hearing Virginia's words.

Where are those photos now?

"Have Sebastian take it off..."

"I'm asking where we are now."

"Uh, at my house," Virginie replied awkwardly.

"The day you took it down, you said you were going to throw it away, but I told Sebastian not to. I sent it to my house, and it's hanging there now."

"That photo is actually quite good."

"Of course I know."

"You knew it, yet you still kept it hidden."

"You said you were going to throw it away." Virginia smiled and shrugged.

"I'm actually doing cultural relic rescue work, Rhine, you agree, right?"

Li Xun chuckled, and the Empress Dowager heard him.

Do you find it funny?

"I think the way you two get along has a lot of historical significance. One person employed another more than ten years ago, and more than ten years later, the person who was employed is saving the work of the person who was employed. This is not an employment relationship, but heritage preservation. It's a very good way of getting along."

Are you saying I'm old?

"I'm saying your work is classic."

Sebastian is back.

He was carrying a black aluminum alloy case with no logo on the surface and slight wear marks on the corners.

He walked into the interview room, placed the box on the long table, unlocked the two metal latches, and lifted the lid.

Sienna P3.

This is not a camera that will make laymen scream with excitement. It doesn't have Leica's red dot, Hasselblad's chrome bezel, or Rolleiflex's twin-lens reflex design.

It looks like a sophisticated optical device, because that's its essence.

Large format technical camera with bellows folding structure, the front and rear elements can be independently adjusted for pitch, tilt, and pan.

The lens was Rodenstock, the shutter was Kopp, the focusing screen was frosted glass, and the film was 4x5 inch sheet film.

Karl Lagerfeld opened the bellows and locked the anterior stent.

His fingerless, gloved fingers turned on the metal knob.

"How long has it been since you built your own computer?" Li Xun asked, looking at him.

"Two months ago, the last time was in Biarritz, to photograph the lighthouse."

"Has it been filmed yet?"

"It's been filmed, but the exposure is overexposed by three stops."

"Was it intentional or a miscalculation?"

"I miscalculated, but after developing the film, I found that the overexposed effect was better than the correct exposure, so I told them I did it on purpose."

Virginia shook her head gently beside her.

Li Xun knew what she was thinking, probably something like, "I've never seen such a shameless person before."

After the installation was complete, he straightened up and glanced at the light in the room.

There are three light sources in the interview room: a floor-to-ceiling window covering an entire wall, through which natural light diffuses in from the gray-white sky, which is the main light source.

There are two rows of recessed spotlights on the ceiling, with a color temperature of approximately 4000K, which serve as auxiliary light sources.

The diffused light reflected by the floor-length mirror is ambient light.

The three light sources are superimposed to form a uniform, soft, and almost shadowless field of light in the center of the room.

"Sebastian, the curtains."

Sebastian quickly went to the window and drew the first layer of sheer curtains.

The natural light immediately softened, and the light from the spotlights began to dominate.

He then drew half of the second blackout curtain, reducing the area of ​​light in the center of the room and making the edges sharper.

"Tripod".

"Location."

"Twenty centimeters to the left."

"Too much, it's back five centimeters."

"That's fine."

……

Virginia watched this scene, then turned to Li Xun and said, "He's always like this when taking pictures. If the position is off by five centimeters, he'll be upset for a long time."

"I don't think this is obsessive-compulsive disorder. The image field of a large format camera is fixed. If the composition is slightly off, the perspective relationship at the edges will be completely changed. He is not pursuing perfection, but respecting physics."

"Looks like you're one of those people too," Virginie said.

"So I often argue with him."

Karl Lagerfeld stood behind the camera, lifted the black cloth to cover his head and the camera body, and glanced at the focusing screen.

"You should stand where you were just now."

Li Xun and Virginia put their sunglasses back on and stood in front of the long table. Carl was in the middle, Virginia was on the left, and Li Xun was on the right. No, now Carl was behind the camera, and Virginia and Li Xun were standing in front of the lens.

"Is this a group photo?" Virginie asked.

"Nonsense," the old lady said from under the black cloth. "What did you think I was going to film?"

"I thought you were going to film the two of us."

"Take a group photo first, then take a photo of the two of you." Carl's voice came out muffledly from under the black cloth.

"The three of us have been interviewing together for so long, wearing such suitable outfits for the first time. Don't you think something's missing if we don't even have a group photo?"

"We're missing a photographer," Li Xun said.

"Now we have it."

He crawled out from under the black cloth and walked in front of the camera to adjust the exposure.

His light meter was an older model, the Shiguang L-558, with a black plastic casing that was worn shiny. He would point the light meter at Virginia's face, take a reading, and then point it at Li Xun's face and take another reading.

"Half a gear less."

"His skin is lighter than mine," Virginie said.

"Your skin isn't dark; it's his skin that's too fair..." Karl adjusted the aperture. "It's unreasonable for Chinese people to have skin that's fairer than Europeans."

"That's called genetic diversity, and Ms. Virginia is old... Ah! Damn it." Before Li Xun could finish speaking, Virginia Viard's iron clamps were already at him.

It hurts terribly.

"That's because you didn't sunbathe in Biarritz," the old man teased.

He set the aperture, shutter speed, and focus point, then took a film back out of the box, attached it, and pulled out the lens hood.

"Sebastian, you press the shutter. I've taught you before, no problem, right?"

Sebastian went behind the camera. He had worked with Karl Lagerfeld for a long time and probably pressed the shutter button more times than many photographers. He bent down, his fingers on the shutter release cable, and waited.

The old lady rubbed her hands together and walked between Virginia and Li Xun.

Three people: an old man, a middle-aged man, and a young man; all three wore sunglasses and were dressed in black.

Virginia stood on the left, her posture a little stiffer than usual, but her sunglasses concealed all the uncertainty in her eyes, making her look not nervous, but rather aloof.

The Empress Dowager was in the middle, a slight smile on her lips, her arms crossed. Everyone could see that she was in a very good mood.

Li Xun stood on the right, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly slumped, and the collar of his black shirt forming a clean V-shape at his collarbone.

His sunglasses were slightly smaller than Karl's, with darker lenses that completely obscured his eyes.

Sebastian pressed the shutter.

The mechanical shutter makes a very soft sound. It's not the decisive "click" of a DSLR camera, but a gentler, brief "whoosh."

One.

When Karl Lagerfeld saw Junker give him an OK sign, he didn't say "take another one as a backup." He always kept only one finished film, which was the final product.

"Group photo complete." He walked back behind the camera, took out the film back, and replaced it with a new one.

"Now, the two of you."

"You just said you'd take pictures of both of us," Virginia said. "Would you like to take a picture of both of us together, or separately?"

"Take photos separately." The old lady crawled back under the black cloth.

"The group photo has already been taken; now we need to take it one by one."

"Why are you in the group photo but not in the individual photos?"

"Because I don't want to be photographed myself; the photographers at the fashion shows are enough," Karl Lagerfeld's voice came from under the black cloth. "And I didn't wash my hair today."

Li Xun and Virginia both looked at the lying old man.

The small section of silver hair peeking out from under the black cloth was tied into a low ponytail, hanging neatly behind the collar of the black suit, each strand in its proper place, without any trace of messiness.

With so many supermodels watching today, aren't you going to wash your hair?

Do you think we're silly huskies?

"Your hair looks neater than mine," Virginie said.

"Looking neat and not washing are two different things; it's the effect of hair spray."

"So you haven't washed your hair for three days?"

"Let's shoot Virginie first." Karl Lagerfeld didn't continue the topic.

Virginia stood in front of the camera.

She was still wearing her sunglasses. Carl didn't ask her to take them off, and she didn't ask if she wanted to. Carl stood next to the camera, his left hand on the front knob of the bellows, and his right hand holding the light meter.

"Don't look at the camera," he said.

"Then look where."

Look out the window.

Virginie turned her head.

Half of the French windows were blocked by sheer curtains and blackout curtains, and the remaining light shone through the other half of the glass. The sky was grayish-white, just like the sky in Paris in May, neither sunny nor rainy, like a piece of gray cotton cloth that had been washed too many times.

Her profile was very clear in the gray-white light.

The lines of her cheekbones, the angle of her jaw, and the slight curve of her nose bridge when viewed from the side—it's not a very high nose, but it complements her face shape perfectly.

"Don't take off your sunglasses," Carl said.

"I know."

"Tuck your chin in a little."

Virginie lowered her chin.

"There's too much. Lift it back a bit. From the same angle as before."

"Don't move."

The shutter release cable was in Carl's hands. Instead of using the shutter release cable interface on the tripod, he plugged the cable directly into the lens, with his right thumb resting on the release button.

He waited three seconds, not to focus or meter the light, but to wait for Virginia's expression to settle, for her to forget that she was being photographed, for her shoulders to droop naturally, and for her lips to relax from the slightly pursed state of being "photographed" to a truly natural state.

Shutter released.

"Okay," Carl said.

Virginia turned her head. "Just one?"

"No mistakes, just one."

"I thought you would take more pictures."

"You should know me better than you do now. If I need to do something a second time, it means I made a mistake the first time, and I don't make mistakes."

"The lighthouse in Biarritz is overexposed."

"That's another kind of right."

Virginia stopped talking.

"Rhine," Carl said.

Li Xun walked to the spot where Virginia had been standing.

He was about 20 centimeters taller than Virginia, so when he stood in front of the camera, Carl had to lift the front of the camera slightly.

The bellows can only stretch a small amount, but it is enough to change the perspective. This is the reason why large format cameras have a tilt-shift function. It can correct the perspective distortion caused by shooting from a low angle, so that the body proportions of the subject remain true.

"Take off your sunglasses," Carl said.

Li Xun took off his sunglasses and stuffed them into his shirt pocket.

"Why doesn't he wear sunglasses?" Virginia asked from across the long table.

"Because you didn't take it off when you took the picture."

"Then why couldn't I pick it just now?"

"Because your sunglasses are covering the best part of your face. When you're not wearing sunglasses, everyone looks at your eyes. Your eyes are too gentle and not suitable for the shots I'm going to take today."

"Then what am I suited for?"

"You're suited to a cool and aloof demeanor."

"So you think I'm not cool enough in person."

"You are the most gentle person in the entire Chanel studio, but when you put on sunglasses, you look like you could fire the entire design department with a single sentence." Karl Lagerfeld pressed two buttons on the light meter reading.

"That's the purpose of props."

Virginia was silent for a moment, then smiled at Li Xun and said, "Was he praising me or insulting me just now?"

"Maybe both," Li Xun answered directly. "That's just his style."

The old lady pointed the light meter at Li Xun's face.

reading.

Between the eyebrows, cheekbones, and jawline. Three readings.

"Your face is half a shade lighter than Virginie's and a shade lighter than mine. This isn't a matter of skin tone; it's because your bone structure has a higher reflectivity."

The position of your cheekbones, the position of your brow bones, the angle of your jawline. Your bone structure is the type that any photographer would love.

"Is this a compliment?"

"This is stating data."

Karl Lagerfeld put the light meter in his pocket, walked behind the camera, and lifted the black cloth. He looked at Li Xun's face on the focusing screen.

The focusing screen of the large format camera is a frosted glass panel that projects an inverted image. Li Xun stands in front of the lens, wearing a black shirt, black trousers, and black leather shoes; only his face and hands are white, making him appear as a negative on the focusing screen beneath the black cloth.

Carl is focusing.

Li Xun's right eye. Iris, pupil, and then the reflective point within the pupil.

Large format cameras do not have an autofocus system, a split-image focusing screen, or any auxiliary tools; they only have a frosted glass screen and a magnifying glass.

The old lady aimed a magnifying glass at Li Xun's right iris, and turned the focus knob with her left hand, causing the bellows to slowly extend on the gears.

After focusing, he didn't immediately crawl out. He lingered under the black cloth for a few more seconds, not because of technical issues, but because he was looking at the composition.

Li Xun stands slightly to the right of the center of the picture, which is a classic composition for classical portraits.

His posture wasn't facing forward; his body was slightly turned to the left, with his right shoulder in front and his left shoulder behind. This angle created a clear shadow line on his collarbone below the shirt collar.

His face turned towards the camera, but not directly; the angle of his chin created a sharp transition at the junction of his jawline and neck.

This is the image Carl wanted.

He crawled out from under the black cloth.

"Don't laugh," he said.

"I wasn't planning on laughing."

"Don't look at the camera either."

"Virginie is looking out the window, should I look out the window too?"

"you see me."

Li Xun's gaze shifted from the camera to Karl.

"Don't look at my face, look at my position, but don't focus on me, focus on what's behind me."

There's a wall behind you.

"Then look at the wall."

"You're showing me a blank wall."

"I'm showing you something that doesn't exist," Karl Lagerfeld explained.

"The best portraits are not about looking at the camera or out the window, but about looking at a point that only the subject can see. That point is next to the lens, behind the lens, anywhere, but not in real space."

Li Xun was silent for a moment, then his eyes changed.

The change was very subtle, but the old master noticed it. Li Xun's eyeballs did not move, his pupils did not dilate or constrict, and his facial muscles did not make any obvious movements, but his gaze changed from "looking at a specific target" to "looking at something that does not exist."

Karl Lagerfeld pressed the shutter.

Then he crawled back under the black cloth, changed the film back, refocused, recomposed, and re-metered.

the second one.

The third one.

The fourth one.

He took four pictures.

Virginia watched this scene from beside the long table, saying nothing. She knew what it meant for Carl to take more than one picture of the same person.

The last time I took multiple photos of the same person was in 2003 in New York, when I took eight photos of my old friend Anna Wintour.

"He's shooting a series," Virginie told Sebastian.

"That's right, Mr. Carl was always very pleased with little Rhine, whether it was her design work or her modeling."

……

After Li Xun's solo photo session, the three of them played around with group photos, creating various "permutations and combinations".

The atmosphere was harmonious and pleasant. Although it was a short time, it was probably the most relaxed moment for the three of them at Chanel. Even Karl Lagerfeld, who is usually very serious, "indulged" himself at this moment and was very relaxed in front of the camera.