WWD CEO Summit

He may be the most quoted man in fashion, but that doesn't mean Karl Lagerfeld feels inclined to write a book any time soon. "No memoirs," the Kaiser stated at Tuesday's WWD CEO Summit at New York's Plaza Hotel. "I have nothing to say."

While that may be true, at least as far as the written word goes anyway, the legendary designer certainly had plenty to say on stage. From revealing the surprising locale of his next show (Dallas) to explaining how it feels to be marking his 30th anniversary at Chanel ("Some people say I'm a hired gun. Well, I'm very happy to be one."), Lagerfeld kept the bon mots coming and the assembled crowd — which included Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld, and Sarah Jessica Parker — hanging on his every word. Below, a few gems:

On career longevity: "Fashion is for people to wear and that has not changed."

On inspiration: "When I like something, I don't ask myself why. I just like it."

On couture today: "There are so many new worlds, and so much new money. We have more couture clients now than we did 20 years ago. Many of the rich people of the past are poor compared to the rich people of today, I'm sorry."

On his childhood ambitions: "I didn't even know one could make a business out of fashion. Back then it was called clothes."

On designers who complain about the workload: "You accept a job, you know the conditions. Don't play the victim."

On what irritates him most: "People who create complications in order to appear more professional."

On Paris in the '80s: "The '80s were very difficult. I prefer to forget about them."

On career setbacks: "Sometimes you go two steps back but that's a healthy thing. No one has a one-line career."

On his look: "You may think it's very distinct but to me it is normal."

On the potential of a retrospective: "I would never make a retrospective. I look forward, ahead, ahead. I don't keep any kind of archive even."

On his three steps to success: "What? Steps? Oh, there's a whole staircase."

Marc  Jacobs concluded the Women's Wear Daily apparel/retail CEO summit yesterday with musings on the nonexistent idea of American fashion, "reindeer games" of the CFDA, and the arbitrary thoughts that spark a collection.

Speaking about the evolution from his Eightees hard-edged Marc Jacobs collection in fall of 2009 to the frills of spring 2010, Jacobs said, "“I have a very short attention span and I lose interest in things quickly. I also think that what works — and maybe this is just an S&M relationship that I have with myself — but whatever I don’t like, or causes me pain, will usually end up yielding the best results. For me to embrace something that I find unappealing, it has to be the least like whatever I just did in order to sustain my interest for the next six months. But it’s really torturous."

On traveling back and forth from New York, where he works on the Marc Jacobs collection, to Paris for Louis Vuitton, Jacobs said he will always feel most at home in New York but feels blessed to be surrounded by the passion for fashion in Paris.

WWD attributed Jacobs' bicontinental status to the following quote dismissing the idea of American fashion, although we think it has more to do with him not wanting to subscribe to one specific design philosophy:

“Sometimes I get really adamant when I hear designers make blanket statements like ‘American fashion should be...’ It gets my rebellious hairs up or something. This whole idea of American fashion or Seventh Avenue fashion is nonsense. It’s archaic and old, and we don’t have to subscribe to those rules. We work out of a loft in SoHo and we show wherever we want. So if we want to show a dress made of 50 yards of taffeta, who says that has to be couture?"

And finally, it's no secret Jacobs isn't always happy with the results of the CFDA's award ceremonies, so why doe he continue to attend? For Anna, of course. "I only go to the CFDAs because if I don’t go, Anna Wintour calls up and says, ‘You have to go because you’re part of the American fashion industry, da da da da da,’ and you can’t say no to her."

[WWD]