In a new interview published in the June/July issue of Harper’s Bazaar, Kendall Jenner admits she was nervous and shy when she first met Karl Lagerfeld, and he in turn says, “I was so rude to her.” But they have moved on: She’s walked in several of his shows, and now, the legendary Chanel designer couldn’t have more flattering things to say about the model and reality star.
For one, he wasn’t even aware she was on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. “We don’t have it here,” he told writer Laura Brown. “I didn’t even know she was in it. I saw it when it was only her sisters and she was, like, a baby.” Since Lagerfeld had no knowledge of her past, he says he only sees her good future. After Jenner called him legendary and iconic, he replied in kind: “And she is on the way to becoming [an icon].”
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The two talked about their wildly different upbringings: Lagerfeld’s in the country speaking three languages by age 6, and Jenner’s in the visual world of Hollywood and reality TV. One thing they had in common, however, was privilege. Jenner admits she thought she’d be a professional horseback rider and then a veterinarian when she was young. “I used to play these vet video games,” she said in the interview. Lagerfeld responded, “In my day, there were no vet video games. My father, though, he could never say no, so I got everything I wanted. I had a Bentley when I was 20.”
Most of the illuminating details came from Lagerfeld, who said one must look impeccable to go to bed, that there is no kitchen in his house, and that he stays at home from morning until 5 p.m., only leaving for fittings and shoots.
For her part, Jenner revealed she’s “100 percent a huge fan of Beyonce. If I see her, I will faint,” and that her life has changed dramatically between ages 18 and 20. Lagerfeld quipped, “When I was 24, my mother called me and said, ‘It’s only downhill from now.'” Considering his lifelong contracts with Chanel and Fendi — which he says some other people would love to take over — we’d have to disagree.
