Karl Lagerfeld: Proust Questionnaire

The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions designed to reveal one's innermost thoughts. It's name and modern popularity as a form of interview is owed to the responses given by the French writer Marcel Proust, who believed that people must know and understand themselves before they could know or understand others.

As demonstrated on the back page of Vanity Fair each month, the Proust Questionnaire sees interviews with some of the worlds most inspirational and influential people.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
I am perfectly happy as long as I don't ask myself if I am happy...

What is your greatest fear?
To loose my health. A boring subject, but life is more fun when you feel great...

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I got used to even my bad traits. Indifference is one of them...I still fight against it.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
I take people the way they are...with me...but that may be also a part of my indifference.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Manipulative religious hypocrisy.

On what occasion do you lie?
When it makes circumstances easier...

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
I spend my life working on that subject...

What is your greatest regret?
I have little regret for wrongdoings of my past. Just a little remorse sometimes...

What or who is is the greatest love of your life?
My life is not over yet. There is no other way to answer such a question...

What is your current state of mind?
Much more positive than I expected it to be at my age...

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
It may sound strange: myself, or what I did with myself - how I manipulated myself.

What is your most treasured possession?
I fight against possessions. They victimise you...if not, little worthless things I would not mention.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Ill health, unwanted loneliness, and - to be honest - to be poor; or the three together...

Where would you like to live?
New York could be the next step...but I am not a one-place person.

What is your favourite occupation?
My jobs: fashion, photography, publishing books. If not, time with my friends and daydreaming.

What do you most value in your friends?
I take them as they are. Family you get - friends you have to find...up to you to find the right friends without too much questioning.

Who are your favourite writers?
In what language? I like poets best, E. Dickinson (English), R. M. Rilke (German), Mallarmé (French), Leopardi (Italian). I speak no other languages and I don’t believe in translated poetry...

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Virginia Woolf's Orlando...

Who are your heroes in real life?
There are a few, but I cannot mention them. Some people would be surprised not to be on the list - and others would be...perhaps...

What are your favourite names?
Tancrede (for boys), Allegra (for girls).

What is it that you most dislike?
Monday mornings...

How would you like to die?
I hate the idea of death - I prefer to disappear...

Source: Vanity Fair

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