Karl Lagerfeld is eating breakfast at a small cafe around the corner from his office.
On the table are several items, all spaced evenly from each other: a spoon; a knife; a fork; two boiled eggs (soft-boiled); a glass of orange juice; a macchiato; toast made from bread so thin it is almost transparent. He watches as a woman runs to get the bus, slips, catches herself, continues running. She makes it just as the bus is pulling away; the driver stops to let her on. But Karl Lagerfeld can only think of the woman’s shoes - small delicate things, like she is wearing two birds on her feet. These shoes, decides Karl Lagerfeld, these shoes hold some terrible secret.
Two weeks later Karl Lagerfeld pores over samples and nothing is right. He takes his anger out on his assistants not with words, but by banishing them from the inner sanctum. They wander lost like wayward doves out in the corridors before finally congregating in the garden to sigh. Karl Lagerfeld does not sigh. He remains as silent as Rodin’s Thinker, poised on his marble plinth, inscrutable. He remains there for ten straight hours until his assistants wander back and stare at him through the door. Is he dead? Amazed? Forgotten?
They fall asleep in a pile.
The next day all is forgiven. Karl Lagerfeld has no time for petty grievances. There are clothes to make, styles to define, lives to change. On a Tuesday, certainly, there is time for contemplation. But a Wednesday, a Wednesday is all about doing.