People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.
Interpretation
Creativity often requires solitude for rejuvenation and inspiration.
In this quote, Karl Lagerfeld emphasizes the necessity of solitude for individuals in creative fields. He suggests that constant exposure or being in the spotlight can drain creativity, and to truly unleash one's creative potential, one must take time alone to recharge and reflect. This solitude is presented not as a loneliness but as a form of victory, highlighting its importance for the creative process.
In practice
During a talk on artistic processes, one might quote Lagerfeld to highlight the importance of solitude for inspiration.
I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don't have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.
I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.
If I could be reincarnated as a fashion accessory, it would be a shopping bag.
Chic is a kind of mayonnaise, either it tastes, or it doesn't.
Why should I stop working? If I do, I'll die and it'll all be finished. 'm lucky to work in the most perfect of conditions. I can do what I want in all kinds of areas. The expenses are not expenses. I would be stupid to stop that. Work is making a living out of being bored.
Elegance has nothing to do with fashion.
It isn't till now, in the American Century, as we have recklessly dubbed it, that tribal pressures toward conformity have been brought to bear so ruthlessly upon men and women seeking to work creatively.
The principle of Creative Limitations calls for freedom within a circle of obstacles and restricted boundaries. Talent is like a muscle: without something to push against, it atrophies. So we deliberately put obstacles in our path - barriers that will inspire us. We disciple ourselves as to what to do, while we're boundless as to how to do it.
Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.
I don't know where my ideas come from, but I know where they come to. They come to my desk, and if I'm not there, they go away again.
Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world. Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. Without the time and effort invested in getting ready to create, you can be hit by a thunderbolt and it'll just leave you stunned.
Failure is built into creativity... the creative act involves this element of 'newness' and 'experimentalism,' then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure.
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