There’s a documentary about Karl Lagerfeld coming out on German TV. It’s a four-hour chunk of destination television called Mode Als Religion (Fashion as Religion), drawing a parallel between — yup! — fashion and religion. The journalist behind it, Martina Nuen, believes the same principles that lead the religious sort also guide the fashion set. Basically, magazines are bibles, models are angels, consumers are the faithful, and Karl Lagerfeld is the pope. He sort of looks the part, if popes wore shades. 

Lagerfeld was followed around on his daily schedule for a year and four months, so naturally reams and reams of pithy aphorisms were immortalized on camera. WWD caught a screening and jotted down a few of them, but only this one takes the Karlism…

“The only pope I thought was chic was Pius XII. Even though he may not be remembered for his popularity, I thought he was elegant. And Pope John XXIII was the most charismatic; you can keep all the others.” Do we have to?

But wait, who’s god?

Previously in Keeping Up With the Karlisms