Time & Perspective Quote by Karl Lagerfeld

Lagerfeld treats beauty like fashion: not a truth to be discovered, but a silhouette to be cut, revised, and eventually retired. By invoking the Belle Epoque, he picks a period synonymous with cultivated glamour and instantly punctures the fantasy that elegance is timeless. The move is slyly democratizing and brutally elitist at once. It tells you you are not wrong for failing to match an old ideal; it also warns you that today’s ideal is already on its way out.

The intent is pragmatic: shift beauty from biology to culture, from destiny to design. In Lagerfeld’s world, “perfect” is a temporary agreement between editors, ateliers, cameras, and money. Time is the ultimate creative director. Trends don’t just change hemlines; they reformat bodies and faces, making “taste” feel natural when it’s actually manufactured.

The subtext carries his signature chill. If beauty is submitted to time, then people are, too. There’s an implied demand to keep up - to update yourself like a brand refresh - and an absolution for the industry’s constant hunger for novelty. It’s not cruelty, he suggests; it’s chronology.

Context matters: Lagerfeld built an empire by resurrecting heritage houses through reinvention, most famously Chanel, turning archival codes into contemporary desire. That makes the quote less a philosophical aside than a business thesis. If beauty changes, the market for “new” can be infinite, and nostalgia becomes just another fabric to cut on the bias.