Rebirth of the Fashion King

Tuesday.

morning.

Karl Lagerfeld's private office.

When Li Xun pushed open the door, Virginia had already arrived.

She sat on the dark gray armchair with three black-covered booklets of varying sizes on her lap. The largest was about A3 size, and the smallest was only A4 size. There was no text or logo on the covers, only black.

The old man stood in front of the worktable, his back to the door. In front of him was an Ilford enlarger. The red safety light on the enlarger was on, but the bulb was off. He was clearly not enlarging a photograph, but rather organizing something.

Scattered on the worktable were paper cutters, metal rulers, acid-free tape, and scraps of gray cardstock.

"You're late again." Karl Lagerfeld didn't turn around.

"You said 8:30, and it's 8:30 now," Li Xun said irritably.

"At Chanel, being on time is the same as being late, and you, Rhine, love to be late the most. At Chanel, 28 minutes is the same as being early, 29 minutes is the same as being on time, and 8:30 is the same as meeting Sebastian in the corridor and having a brief chat."

Li Xun ignored the old man who was always making fun of him. He walked over to Virginia and sat down on the gray sofa opposite her.

"I did just run into Sebastian."

"What is he doing?" Virginie asked.

"Cleaning the bellows of that Sinar machine."

  

"That camera has been with him for ten years, and he has never let anyone else clean the bellows." The old man turned around, took off his reading glasses, and placed them on a pile of gray cardboard.

"Sebastian is making excuses for himself. He actually wants to stay down here and doesn't want to come up and help me organize these photo albums."

"Why?" Li asked.

"Because he thought I was in a bad mood when I did this." The old man walked over and sat down in the armchair next to Virginie.

"Yes, he's right."

Virginia handed the smallest of the three booklets on her lap to Li Xun.

"This is yours."

Li Xun took it.

The black cover is made of a slightly textured matte material, not ordinary glossy paper, but rather a finer, more delicate sandpaper. There is no text, no gold foil stamping, and no markings; only a small date is embossed in the lower right corner.

Turn it over.

First page, transparent tracing paper.

Unfold the tracing paper, and you'll see the first photograph.

Group photo.

Three people stood in front of the long table in the interview room. Virginia was on the left, Carl in the middle, and Li Xun on the right.

Three pairs of sunglasses, all dressed in black, with the greyish-white light from the floor-to-ceiling windows diffused from the upper left, creating a soft gradient on Virginia's left shoulder and above Karl's front.

The resolution of the Sinar P3 with its 4x5-inch film is overwhelming; the amount of detail in this photo makes a digital camera look like a toy.

All the details are on a single sheet of film, which is then developed and enlarged onto 12x16 inch photographic paper. The final product's quality is not "clarity," but rather "presence."

"This photo," Li Xun said after looking at it for a while.

"I don't look 23 years old."

"You look like you're thirty," Karl Lagerfeld said.

Is that considered a compliment?

"In the fashion industry, looking like you're 30 when you're 23 is an advantage, but looking like you're 18 when you're 23 is a disaster. Nobody will trust a designer who looks and has the appearance of a high school student."

"How old did I look back then?" Virginie asked Carl.

"You looked like you were twenty-three when you were twenty-three." The old man turned his head to Virginia Vyat.

"But your eyes look like you're thirty-three, which is why I decided to take you at first sight. There's something in your eyes, not ambition, but calmness and judgment. My assistant needs this kind of character and quality, and Chanel needs it too."

Virginia turned to the next page of her booklet.

It's a solo photo of her.

Enlarged from the original size of 4x5 inch sheet.

She stood in front of the camera, her profile turned to the side, wearing sunglasses, her gaze fixed on the window.

In the gray light, the shoulder line of her black suit jacket was sharply captured, and her shoulders were slightly slumped, not deliberately relaxed, but naturally relaxed when the subject completely trusted the photographer.

Her jawline formed a clean arc in the side lighting, and the sunglasses concealed all the gentleness in her eyes, leaving only her cold and stern features.

"This one." Virginie paused for a long time.

"This is the best photo of myself I've ever seen."

"You finally admit it."

"I've always acknowledged your good filming skills, but I've never said it to your face."

Why?

"Because you'll be even more smug."

The old man didn't deny it; the corner of his mouth curled up slightly. He then opened the booklet in his hand. He liked being praised, especially by "his own people." Virginia was usually quiet, and that brat Li Xun always liked to use Yves Saint Laurent to annoy him...

This made him, who "loves to show off," feel a little uncomfortable.

"I used several different magnification parameters for this image. The first version had too low contrast, the second version had too high contrast and lost the details in the midtones. This is the third version, which has 0.5 stops higher than normal contrast, preserving all the textures in the shadows, but making the white areas cleaner."

"There aren't many white areas to begin with," Li Xun said.

"Precisely because there is little, it must be clean," Karl Lagerfeld explained.

You only ever see half of it.

Li Xun continued turning the page.

The next picture is Virginie from a second angle.

In the same outfit, in front of the window, this photo shows her turning her head to face the camera, but she still hasn't taken off her sunglasses.

Her lips were slightly pursed, and her chin was slightly raised. At some point during the shoot, something happened between her and Karl that prompted him to speak up and remind her. He then caught her instinctive micro-expression.

"What are you thinking at this moment?" Li asked Virginia.

"I was thinking you said he hadn't washed his hair in three days," Virginia said. "Then suddenly I heard him say, 'Don't move.'"

"So you almost laughed out loud at that moment."

"Yes, he bit his tongue when he told me not to move."

Li Xun glanced down at the photo.

In the photo, Virginie's lips are not loose, but rather slightly constricted inwards, giving her a stern and unsmiling appearance, but in reality, she is holding back a smile.

"This proves a point," Li Xun said.

"What's the reasoning?" Virginia and Carl asked at the same time.

"The best expressions are not guided out, but created accidentally."

Karl Lagerfeld glanced at him.

Li Xun recognized that look; it meant, "You're right, but I don't want to praise you."

……

Li Xun flipped to the last part of the photo album.

It's not a photograph, it's a piece of paper.

A semi-transparent white sheet of paper with a line of text written on it in pencil:

After taking these portraits, a sentence came to mind.

"Fashion is not about clothes, it's about the people who wear them."

I didn't take that statement seriously; I always made the models lose weight to cooperate with me.

But today, during my model interview, after several hours of interviewing with two of the people I trust most, all wearing sunglasses, I found myself having a new idea.

Fashion is about people.

——KL

Li Xun studied the paper carefully for a while.

Then I closed the album.

"You've essentially written a letter to each of us."

"It's not a letter, it's a notebook. Letters are written to others, notebooks are written to oneself. I'm giving each of you a notebook because you are in it."

Virginia also saw the last page.

"You rarely admit you're wrong."

"Because I rarely make mistakes."

"And this time?"

"I wasn't wrong this time." The old lady glanced at her.

"I said I've discovered a new idea, not that I now agree with that statement. It was just a fleeting thought, and it might change tomorrow."

"But you wrote it down."

"Writing it down doesn't mean it will last forever, it only means that the moment was real."

Li Xun leaned back on the sofa and placed the photo album on his lap.

He now understood why the album, from cover to pages, contained not a single word, logo, or mark indicating that it was the work of Karl Lagerfeld.

Because it's not a portfolio, it's more like a piece of evidence.

A document proving that on that afternoon, in that interview room, three people stood together, facing the camera, and participated in something together.

It's not for outsiders to see, it's for them to see.

"Thank you," Li Xun said.

"What are you thanking me for?"

"Thanks for not ironing the logo on."

"Why do you think I wouldn't do logo printing?" Karl Lagerfeld asked with a smile.

"Because if we add the logo, it becomes part of Chanel's brand equity; without the logo, it becomes our personal memory."

The old lady was silent for two seconds, and Li Xun could read a deeper layer of consciousness in her behavior.

"Sometimes you make me feel like you're not a young person."

"You're not a seventy-year-old man."

"Is this an insult or a compliment?"

"I am presenting data."