Like Aristotle, Karl Lagerfeld Sees Women As Predators

Fashion is becoming more artful. No doubt about it. With an explosion of goddess imagery from Sparta to ancient Greece, fashion is exploring the female psyche as never before. Reading Aristotle is also in fashion here at Anne of Carversville, along with studying the impact of monotheism on women’s lives.

In 2009 I asked if men and women are headed for a rumble. Perhaps the concept is overly dramatic but not when looking at Lagerfeld’s “Prédateurs” for Numero Homme #19. The big head is worn by Baptiste Giabiconi. 

It isn’t the case that Karl Lagerfeld wishes that women would just go away. There aren’t enough transsexual men today to buy his clothes and support the Chanel brand. It’s ironic that a brand launched by one of fashion’s greatest female minds — Coco Chanel — is now the vision of a man who has so little respect for women.

At the same time that Lagerfeld has demanded that women look like boys, with no curves or bust or hips, he celebrates the curves of Baptiste Giabiconi. “I think after the ugly skinny boys of Hedi [Slimane’s] days…some ‘beauty’ was needed, but new beauty.”

In Lagerfeld’s women, curves are not allowed. Only in boys. (Note: this conversation will continue on Sensuality News. See Karl Lagerfeld’s Preferred Vision.)

In the same way that Aristotle was misogynistic, Anne of Carversville suggests that Karl Lagerfled shares an Aristotelian view of women.  Anne has studied Karl’s psychology for many years and agrees that Lagerfeld follows in the great tradition of men who view women as corrupting forces that must be managed by a patriarchal vision.

Here are Karl’s girls Abbey Lee Kershaw, Freja Beha Erichsen and Heidi Mount, presented as predatory, seductive influences on poor Giabiconi. Never fear.

Under Lagerfeld’s keen artistic eye, his protege Baptiste Giabiconi emerges triumphantly in the end — with the bigger head in the last photo. Lagerfeld’s goddess boy-man embodies of both male and female attributes, the ultimate symbol of an Aristotelian logic that categorized women as lesser beings.

This is the Aristotelian Greek view of women (not Plato or Socrates). And we are thrilled to see the imagery expressed so articulately by Karl Lagerfeld for Numero Homme #19. 

Smart Sensuality women are ready to rumble. In the grand tradition of Simone de Bouvoir, we say “bring it on.” Fashion Gone Rogue

More reading:

Karl Lagerfeld’s Preferred Vision | No Women Allowed