Still fixated on the same-sex marriage debate, Karl Lagerfeld drew this for the first fashion issue of Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin to mark 50 years of Germany and France's Treaty of Friendship. Headlined "A modern marriage," and captioned, "I don't even know if we married because of love," we guessed the woman at left was Marianne, a French national emblem, but we weren't sure about the warrior princess on the right — since Germany is so obviously a man. Alfons Kaiser, the magazine's editor, told the Cut she was Kriemhild, a character in Richard Wagner's operas. Standing behind them are French President François Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Lagerfeld also wrote a few sentences to accompany his artwork, which were roughly translated for us by the mag:
President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel don't have to hide behind the national figures, Marianne and Kriemhild. They have a very modern homosexual marriage already, but why does Marianne look so frightened? You don't have to marry because of love, just love the French people.
Alfons said, "I think it's really a fun depiction of the German-French relationship, which is still a bit difficult, but of course nobody admits it." We ran out of time before we could ask him about this one.
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