What Happened When Kendall Jenner and Karl Lagerfeld Met for the First Time
LAURA BROWN: Kendall, tell me about the first time you met Karl.
KARL LAGERFELD: I have to leave the room because she has to say something nice. I was so rude to her.
KENDALL JENNER: No, you weren’t! Before I met him, well, when you think of Karl Lagerfeld, someone that amazing, you sort of don’t think they actually exist. I met him at my first fitting for Chanel two years ago. I was already nervous because it was my first season, my first Chanel show, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’m also pretty shy when I first meet someone. But I got to know Karl when I was shooting with him for the Karl Lagerfeld campaign. I had heard a lot from Cara Delevingne about how funny he is, how he’s normal and just a cool guy. Now every time we get to work together, the relationship gets better.
KL: It’s very easy-it’s problem-less.
KJ: I mean, Karl’s a legend, so just listening to him speak …
KL: [Drily] I prefer other people to say that.
LB: Karl, how did you first become aware of Kendall? Have you ever seen Keeping Up With the Kardashians?
KJ: My family’s show.
KL: No, we don’t have it here. I didn’t even know she was in it. I saw it when it was only her sisters and she was, like, a baby.
KJ: I love that. That’s so refreshing to me.
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LB: So Kendall had no history; she came like a blank?
KL: Yes, no past, but a good future. There was a good feeling coming from her. And I don’t see that with everybody! There is something very warm, human, and sweet about her.
LB: Kendall, how would you describe Karl in three words?
KJ: Funny, legendary, I was going to say iconic, but I think legendary and iconic pretty much go together.
KL: And she is on the way to becoming [an icon].
LB: What’s something about Karl that you didn’t know?
KL: Everything!
KJ: Karl, I honestly don’t know how you still do it. You’ve been doing it for so long, like, years, and you still have so much energy.
KL: Everyone wants to know and hopes I retire so they can get the jobs. But my contracts with Fendi and Chanel are lifelong.
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KJ: That’s amazing, Karl. What were you like as a kid?
KL: As a kid, I was overspoiled, with a head like this [Gestures widely]. My mother would say to me, “You look okay but not as good as me.” I could speak three languages when I was six, and when I went to school I only liked to read and sketch. At five, I could write and everything.
KJ: What languages could you speak at six?
KL: English, French, and German. I have a French accent, but in German I have a French accent too. It’s more my way of talking.
LB: What different childhoods the two of you had! Kendall’s was so relentlessly visual.
KL: When I was a child, there was no visual world.
KJ: For me, I don’t know any other way. We were brought up in this abnormal world, if that’s what you want to call it. I feel like a lot of people say that kids who grow up in that kind of world go crazy. But it has everything to do with how your parents raise you. I was raised so normally, or as normally as I could have been. It’s also a generational thing. I see my six-year-old nephew, and he’s on an iPad. It’s just what you grow up with.
KL: When I lived in the country, school was easy, and at 16 I had finished school. I wanted to go to Paris, so my parents let me go alone at 17. It was not dangerous at all, not like today. I got very nice pocket money, and it was perfect. Then I won this contest [the International Woolmark Prize, in 1954]. That is how I started.
We were brought up in this abnormal world, if that’s what you want to call it… But it has everything to do with how your parents raise you.
LB: So, Kendall, Karl was doing his sketching, but what did you want to do when you grew up?
KJ: I’ve always loved animals. I rode horses for 10 years, so I thought I was going to be a professional horseback rider and then a vet. I used to play these vet video games.
KL: 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.
KJ: It’s the opposite for me. My mom was the pushover, and my dad was the strict one.
LB: With the success you both have, how conscious are you of your “brands”?
KL: Unconscious. I don’t wake up thinking, I am a brand, as long as we can make-believe that we are brand-new.
KJ: Same!
LB: How ambitious are you?
KJ: I am very ambitious. I love what I do, I love my job, and I’m OCD.
LB: What makes you happiest?
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KJ: My family and my friends.
KL: To be in good health.
LB: What is your perfect day?
KL: Well, we work hard to make every day perfect.
LB: What is the first thing you do when you get home at night?
KL: I go to bed and wash my face and everything before that.
KJ: I shower.
LB: Karl, do you wear your hair up in bed?
KL: Yes, I put it a little lower. I don’t take showers at night because I take a bath when I wake up. Then I go to bed on the most beautiful Egyptian-cotton antique sheets in the world.
KJ: I take a shower-I live for a shower. Then I get into comfortable clothes and go to bed.
KL: You have to be impeccable-I was always told as a child by my mother that you always have to be impeccable, even when you go to bed.
KJ: You know what they say, dress your best when you go to bed because you don’t know who you’ll see in your dreams. Karl, do you have someone to help you pick out your outfits in the morning?
KL: Oh, no, I do everything. I hate that. I don’t like people to touch me. But there is no kitchen in my house. They bring me food, like at a hotel, for lunch and dinner. Mostly I stay at home from the morning until 5 P.M., and I only go out for fittings and shoots because I work at home. I like to be alone.
KJ: Most days I don’t care what I wear. You’ll find me in yoga pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers almost every day. My job is to wear something nice when I work, so I enjoy doing it then. But when I don’t have to, I’d rather just wear something comfortable.
LB: Kendall, what do you do first when you get home to L.A.?
KJ: Sleep! I fall asleep at 6 P.M. with the jet lag. I hang out with my friends, get food, and drive my car. It’s the little things I miss the most. Like I love being stuck in L.A. traffic. I miss it! I went to Justin Bieber’s concert the other night. [Laughs.] Of course I have the fever! He’s a really good friend of the family’s, so we all went to support him. Kanye went two nights in a row. He’s a huge fan-I was shocked. He was dancing around the whole night, having so much fun.
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LB: Who are you a fan of, music-wise?
KJ: Beyoncé. Oh, my God, are you kidding? I am 100 percent a huge fan of Beyoncé. If I see her, I will faint. I’ve met her before. I just get really nervous and quiet-I just shut up and bow down.
LB: You and Queen Bey are both in L.A. now. Do you get followed by paparazzi all the time?
KJ: Yes, they wait outside my house every single day. It’s so crazy to me because it’s stalking at this point. When I say every day, I’m not kidding. I don’t understand how that is legal. There should be some kind of Sunday off or something.
LB: How do you both deal with your fans?
KL: I’m not very nice to them. Sometimes they can be very aggressive.
KJ: I’d rather someone around me be mean to them. [Laughs.] I’m always trying to be nice to them, but sometimes it’s hard because you’re human, and sometimes you have a bad day. Like if you’re getting into your car and you don’t say hi, all of a sudden you’re so mean. There is a balance, for sure.
LB: Karl, if you had to give Kendall advice on what sort of boy she should go out with, what would it be?
KL: I cannot give her any advice because she doesn’t know who she will meet.
LB: Kendall, do you meet people easily in this world?
KJ: Yes, especially since I started really modeling two years ago and going to all the parties. You meet a lot of people, and my life has changed so much since then.
KL: But don’t they have a kind of distance with you because they’re afraid of how you will be?
KJ: Yeah. [Sighs.] Some people are. I’m not super open to new people. I have a small group of people I trust. I’m very intuitive, so I’m good at feeling out how people are, like if they have bad intentions. Sometimes I’m very closed off, which annoys me, but I think it’s for the best.
KL: It’s safer.
LB: Well, you’re only 20, so you’ve got lots of growing to do.
KJ: I know.
KL: When I was 24, my mother called me and said, “It’s only downhill from now.”
The June/July 2016 issue of Harper’s BAZAAR is available on newsstands May 24.
Hair: Sam McKnight; Makeup: Tom Pecheux; Manicure: Anny Errandonea; Production: Ben Faraday for octopix.fr.
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