One of the first celebrity to be interviewed by Loic Lemeur during LeWeb’11 was Karl Lagerfeld, the famous fashion designer.
Either you love him, or you hate him… but no one seems to be indifferent to this guy. Myself, I discovered a geeky designer, rather strange and a bit mad: he owns 4 iPhones, 100+ iPods, 30+ iPads… Or a demonstration on how you can use one iPod per playlist and one iPad per pictures collection… Hightech used so badly… Crazy that nobody explained him how to manage his playlists or pictures! Or probably, it’s because he simply doesn’t want to be helped?
Karl is probably one of the best fashion designers ever, but has a complex personality (shown when the display of a video from one of his iPad was not in landscape view, he simply… cracked up a bit!). However, he acknowledge the fact is maybe mad (“mad people don’t think they’re mad”)!
Despite his long path of success, I think he has the merit to still be truly humble. Answering Loic Lemeur what he can teach entrepreneur, he simply replied he doesn’t want to teach people things… A strong quote (maybe from him, maybe not), is that “Life will teach you!”. So long as you are curious and eager to learn new things, you’ll learn by your own. I think that’s a true and strong assumption, as you never learn better as when you are really interested in the stuff… And you’ll better remember, because you know where you’ve been bad and what to avoid next. Perpetual learning is a mindset!
When asked about politics, Karl told he never voted during his whole life and see himself as an observer and would like to become a politic cartoon publisher. The fact that he never expressed his political opinion (by voting) shocked me a bit from an entrepreneur/successful designer. He changes the fashion world by his creations but doesn’t think important to express his opinions (which can also change things): paradoxical! Voting takes time that busy guys don’t have…but for me, that’s not just a right, but a duty. People die in some parts of the worlds to express themselves.
From his whole 30 minutes interview (that you can watch here ), I’d like enhance one strong quote I so truly agree: “Hate banality!”. Choose who you are, and not who you’d like to be!