Being Conchita

by Conchita Wurst

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OFF TO CANNES!

  ‘And whatever I’ve got to do,

  I’ve got a lovely day to do it in, that’s true’

  FROM THE MUSICAL CALL ME MADAM

  Cannes, the pearl of the Côte d’Azur: when it’s the annual International Film Festival, everyone wants to go; when it’s the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, everyone wants to go; when it’s the world’s biggest music fair – Midem, le Marché international de l’édition musicale – then, of course, everyone wants to go. Luckily, when the 2014 amfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala was held, everyone wanted to go to Cannes as well.

  The organisation amfAR is the world’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of HIV/AIDS research. The amount of work still to be done in this area is revealed by some staggering statistics. There are currently 35 million people living with HIV world-wide, of whom one-tenth are younger than 15. Each year, more than 2 million people will become infected, with 1.5 million deaths. Just one-third of all those infected have access to antiretroviral therapy. This isn’t a problem that’s confined to far-off countries: it’s also happening right on our doorstep. The number of HIV-infected people, both hetero- and homosexual, is on the rise in Western Europe. So, when all those prominent people line up to attend the amfAR gala, what’s it all about? It’s quite simple: AIDS research costs a lot of money, and this gala raises a lot of money.

  When Life Ball founder Gery Keszler invited me to attend, I agreed straight away. One of the first people I bumped into was American actress Rosario Dawson. She’s appeared in films such as Men in Black, Sin City, Percy Jackson and Alexander, but what I particularly like is her serious commitment to a considerable number of charitable organizations, such as Oxfam and Amnesty International. Rosario is a good example of how you can give something back if you have made it to the top. Still, to pave the way for a redistribution of resources, to support the poor and the sick, to refuse to look the other way – does this really require being in fabulous surroundings in one of the most beautiful regions of the world? Since this is all still new to me, I’m allowed to ask myself such questions. The setting for the gala was the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc, which is in Cap d’Antibes, east of Cannes. It was truly beautiful. At first I had no idea where to look: the car park itself was a feast for the eye, never mind the 140-year-old hotel. Luckily, Gery was at my side and immediately took me under his wing. Even though we were dressed up to the nines, we set out across the park, climbing over rocks and running across fields until, all of a sudden, we were standing on a steep cliff overlooking the sea. Now at least it was clear why they call it La Grande Bleue: as far as the eye could see, water sparkled in the glistening sunshine, flecked with snowy-white.

  ‘Those are the yachts of the guests’, said Gery. ‘Come on! We don’t want to miss anyone.’

  It was a Who’s Who of world stars. On one side, there was the former French president’s wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, standing next to John Travolta. On the other, there was a small gathering that included Sharon Stone, Justin Bieber, Catherine Deneuve, Kylie Minogue, Bar Refaeli, Chris Tucker and Dita Von Teese. If I couldn’t recognise a face, Gery would help me out.

  ‘That’s Harvey Weinstein’, he muttered. ‘One of Hollywood’s most influential film producers. Pulp Fiction, The English Patient, Gangs of New York, Sin City and Django Unchained.’ He then pointed to an elegant figure dressed all in silver:

  ‘And that is …’

  ‘Carine Roitfeld’, I said. Perhaps I even gave a brief, not particularly ladylike whistle through my teeth. For ten years, Carine had been editor-in-chief of Vogue Paris, the world’s most important fashion magazine. Here at the Ball she was running a fashion show called ‘The Red Collection’, a compilation of the finest designer items from the top fashion labels, all in bright red. They were auctioned off at the end of the evening and raised $5 million for the charity. English artist Damien Hirst’s gilded skeleton of a mammoth brought in another $11 million. At the close of the event, the proud organizers made an emotional announcement: ‘A new record! We’ve raised a total of $35 million.’

  This figure provided the answer to whether events like this should be held in such magnificent surroundings: yes, definitely. It attracts the people you need to make things happen big time. The $35 million that were raised are equivalent to keeping alive the hope that a little more progress might be made in HIV research. I let myself be carried along by the throng of people, surprised and touched that I was being allowed to take part. Then something started to happen that at first I couldn’t quite believe: stars I knew from the cinema, from television, from the stage, were asking if they could possibly have their photo taken with me. The first few times I replied: ‘You’re asking me? I’m the one who should be asking you!’ After that, I restricted myself to ‘Of course!’ Suddenly, the lady in silver was in front of me asking the same question. This time I replied: ‘Enchantée, Madame Roitfeld, heureuse de vous connaître, only too glad to take a photo.’

  And that was how we got chatting. Over the course of our conversation, I noticed Carine surveying me with attentive glances. During her years working at Vogue, she had created a type of woman with a totally new look, a style she called erotic-porno-chic: sexy, elegant, lots of eyeliner, a diva who knows what she wants and what she’s capable of. A strong woman, which was exactly what Carine herself proved herself to be very shortly afterwards. A stranger in a dinner jacket joined us. Gery had disappeared into the crowd of people, so I never got to find out who this person was. The stranger passed on greetings to me from Karl Lagerfeld, who regretted he could not be here, but who, he said, would like to work with me at some later stage. At this point, Carine interrupted the man’s flow of words.

  ‘Would you like meet Karl?’ she asked me, and, without waiting for a reply, she linked her arm through mine: ‘I’m your new best friend and I’m the one who’ll introduce you to him.’

  We now made an abrupt about turn, something Carine was able to accomplish despite her incredibly tall high heels – her golden rule is ten centimetres during the day, and higher in the evening. For that matter, the heels I was wearing weren’t exactly short, either. We left the man in the dinner jacket standing there. After all, it’s a known fact that whenever someone claims they will introduce X to Y, nothing ever happens. Carine Roitfeld is different. She’s a woman who gets things done. Two days later, I got a phone call to fix a date with her and Karl Lagerfeld. I was overwhelmed! Karl Lagerfeld provides the two letters that mean everything in the world of fashion – KL. No more is necessary.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  KL & CR

  ‘Ring out the old, bring in the new’

  FROM THE MUSICAL SUNSET BOULEVARD

  ‘I’m no generation’s child,’ Karl Lagerfeld once said. ‘I belong nowhere and can fit in anywhere.’

  What a relaxed attitude from a man who, despite having achieved everything, still buzzes with ideas from one day to the next. He was and still is a fashion designer for Pierre Balmain, Jean Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel and, of course, his own label. He works as a costumier for theatre and opera. He’s a perfumer, designer, bookseller, publisher, photographer: a universal genius who says of himself, ‘I’ve always drawn despite never having had an art teacher. I was born with a pencil in my hand. I learned it all by myself.’

  There are clearly more of these people out there than we think: people who teach themselves and are forever motivated. People who were often – perhaps for that very reason – teased at school. Karl was branded the Glückskuh – the ‘lucky cow’ – as his father owned the Glücksklee condensed-milk factory (Glücksklee is the German word for four-leaf clover). Frequently, such people go their own way in life and refuse to be confined to a single box. Karl is another person in my life who’s partial to traditional fragrances in his nostrils, with menthol and eau de cologne, as well as with Lanvin Arpège, a perfume created in 1927, which his mother wore and with which she eve
n sprinkled the curtains in her home. ‘The whole house smelled wonderful,’ he recalled, and, of course, it reminded me of my grandmother and I immediately felt at ease in his presence.

  Anyone visiting his premises in Paris for the first time would certainly be surprised to see so many books on view. There might be 300,000 of them, estimates Karl, who told me that, by the age of six, he’d already read classics of German literature such as Die Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann and Die Nibelungen with illustrations by Moritz von Schwind and Schnorr von Carolsfeld. He was thrilled to meet me: ‘Now we can talk German together, that’s fantastic!’ Everything had already been set up, and Carine gave me a final debrief. For her magazine, CR Fashion Book, I was to pose in front of the camera with the New Zealand model Ashleigh Good. The face of Prada and Chanel, Ashleigh has frequently worked with Karl. Yet this was something new even for her: a photo session while five months pregnant.

  ‘We’ll call the photos,’ said Carine, with a slight smile on her face, ‘“The New Normal.”’ It’s a name you could only come up with if you’re someone who thinks in unconventional terms, as there was nothing at all ‘normal’ about these photos – partly because I presented a Conchita I had actually intended to keep to myself: without makeup, vulnerable, yet strong. Little Tom from Bad Mitterndorf, now matured into a grown man, with beard, long hair and well-defined muscles. I wouldn’t have done that shoot with anyone except Karl Lagerfeld, someone in whom I had complete trust. One of the shots called for me to pose on Ashleigh’s lap – I was so, so cautious. What a wonderful radiance shines from a pregnant woman! No, in the end there was nothing ‘normal’ about those photos: exceptional and brave, they suit both me and Ashleigh. A year before, she’d appeared alongside Kati Nescher in the spring 2013 Chanel haute couture collection as a lesbian bride. That’s also one of the purposes of the fashion industry: to show us that there’s more out there than just standardised lifestyles, which so often don’t work.

  For me, it was a pleasure working with Karl. He’s a workaholic, and anyone with as many projects on the go as he has can’t afford to waste time. His assistants – including Anny Errandonea, with whom I was now getting along like a house on fire – know which things are important. In the studio, Karim was in control of everything: he did the lighting, he focused the camera, while Karl shot one photo after another. Going about his work with total confidence, he told me: ‘You need to know what you can do, otherwise you’re better off leaving it alone.’ Sounds simple, but it’s more difficult to put into practice than you think. It’s a mindset that probably only bears fruit once you’ve got Karl’s experience and can think as quickly as him, while still being fun to be with and never losing touch, always keeping your feet on the ground. He’s a true role model! While he shot the photos, Carine made sure the outfits were in the right place at the right time. She had everything under control and would keep calling out for more: ‘The Rick Owens skirt,’ she shouted, ‘with the Givenchy veil!’ During a break, she told me about her plans for the CR Fashion Book and her passion for Céline Dion. ‘By the age of 20, she’d already brought out 14 albums, won 15 Félix music awards, and had three platinum and four gold discs under her belt. Despite that, she was unknown in the USA – because she sang in French.’

  We talked about English being the world language, and I told her that, after ‘Rise Like a Phoenix’, my next song would also be in English.

  ‘Go for it,’ she encouraged me. ‘It’s the right decision.’

  I went on to tell her how I had once followed in Céline’s footsteps. ‘It was a moment that steered my life in a new direction,’ I began. I was on my way to Die Große Chance, the talent show on Austrian TV. After spending hours on my makeup, I had taken one last look in the mirror before leaving the house. I was happy with the way I looked, even though, by my current standards, I wasn’t made up at all. Arriving in front of the TV studios, I found a few hundred people waiting out there. All of them talented, all of them ready to give their best. I hesitated a moment before joining the queue.

  ‘That moment,’ Carine chipped in, ‘was your point of no return, right?’

  The throng of fellow hopefuls was daunting, and there were some who actually gave up and went home. Yes, joining that queue had been my personal point of no return. ‘For Céline, it was the moment she brought out her first album in English,’ said Carine. ‘It went platinum in the USA, and the single ‘Where Does My Heart Beat Now’ jumped to number 4. And yet she remained true to herself.’ That’s what I especially like about her international career. ‘The same year, she was set to receive the Félix Award for best anglophone artist, but she turned it down, saying that she was a francophone singer and always would be. Elle est courageuse. She’s very brave. Very true to herself. What was it like as you followed in her footsteps?’

  ‘To begin with, it meant waiting,’ I said, returning to my story. ‘Waiting, waiting, waiting, as usual where TV is concerned. Then it was finally my turn to perform in front of the preliminary judges. They asked me to perform a song so they could make a decision. If they gave it the thumbs down, that would mean the end for me. If they liked it, I was still in with a chance of singing in front of the real judges.’ So I sang ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ from the musical Dreamgirls, about a 1960s girl group, The Dreamettes, taking part in a talent show. It’s based on the true story of the Supremes and the incomparable Diana Ross. The idea of singing a song about a talent show at a talent show appealed to me, and it obviously also went down well with the preliminary judges. I was still in the race.

  ‘Then there was another long wait, but finally it was my turn. This time I sang Céline’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, perhaps her greatest hit. The song was written for the James Cameron movie Titanic, and apparently Céline didn’t even want to be the one to sing it at first – which just goes to show that everyone has their points of no return in life. She changed her mind, the film became one of the biggest cinema hits of all time and the song itself won both a Grammy and an Oscar. What more could you ask for? Anyway, the day I sang it, the same song gave my career a helping hand, because the judges were won over, giving me a standing ovation, something you don’t get every day from people in that position. That put me in the final, which, of course, meant a lot more hanging around. I remember spending the evening with friends over a drink in Café Blaustern, somewhat stunned by how far I’d got.’

  ‘Back then, had you already thought about where Conchita might go from there?’ asked Carine.

  ‘To be honest, no,’ I replied. ‘Sometimes I still can’t quite believe it.’

  Although Carine’s not the ‘let me take you in my arms’ type, that’s just what she now did – before immediately bellowing out yet more instructions to her assistants: ‘Get me the Walter Steiger shoes! The Chantal Thomass stockings! The Prada dress! The Scott Stevenson bodysuit!’

  We carried on working. Have I mentioned how strenuous it is to be a model? As the day drew to a close, I was just as tired as after the talent show. Yet there was one big difference: it felt much more like I was being me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MY LIFE AS A NOMAD

  ‘Who can explain it,

  Who can tell you why,

  Fools give you reasons,

  Wise men never try.’

  FROM THE MUSICAL SOUTH PACIFIC

  Max Schruff was the name of my English teacher at school in Bad Mitterndorf. Anyone with a name like that has got be a little bit strict. And so he was. Every Friday he’d give us a vocabulary test, and if we’d been asleep at our desks from Monday to Thursday, we were in trouble. Perhaps the reason why my teacher was so into discipline was that he’d had to fight his way back after a sporting accident. People who do that are always keen to pass on their experiences. Max Schruff taught me a lot and I’m still grateful to him, because, without English, I wouldn’t be where I am now. For me, the question of whether or not we make Europe a success depends on our ability to communicate with each other
across national borders. Ultimately, prejudice stems from a failure to talk and to understand.

  When I recently appeared in front of the European Parliament, I was again made aware of this peculiar fact about Europe: the Parliament has twenty-four official languages. In order of year of national accession, they are: German, French, Italian, Dutch, Danish, English, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Finnish, Swedish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, Czech, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Irish, Romanian and Croatian. Under the European constitution, all documents must be translated into all official languages – a huge task. But it’s the only way to make sure that MEPs and staff are able to follow the Parliament’s work and read all the documents.

  Yet when it comes to speaking, it’s usually English that takes over. The reason is obvious: English is the international language of our age. I once learned that it’s the world’s most frequently spoken language and that over eighty per cent of electronically stored information is in English. In short, we’d be lost without English – which reminds me of Max Schruff. There are unlikely to be many pupils – and I was no exception – who think they’ll one day get to chat to the UN Secretary-General or appear on a UK talk show. And it’s equally unlikely that many teachers would get very far by trying to make their pupils believe that that’s exactly what will one day happen to them, saying: ‘It’s life you’re learning for, not school’. So there must be another approach, like the one Max Schruff used.

  These thoughts went through my mind when the BBC invited me on The One Show. Chatting spontaneously with national celebrities on live TV in a foreign language is an art in itself. I did well enough to make presenter Alex Jones forget that I came from faraway Austria. I couldn’t help but smile, witnessing once again how useful those much-hated Friday vocabulary tests really were. That same day, I’d already been interviewed by a host of radio stations, TV channels and newspapers when, all of a sudden, there she was sitting next to me: Sophie Ellis-Bextor. She was also a guest on The One Show. If I’d been a little drowsy beforehand, I was now once again wide awake. I used to listen to Sophie Ellis-Bextor as a teenager in the Green Cave while working on new designs. She’s a wonderful songwriter. I remember how excited I was when her last album came out. Called Wanderlust, it used one of the few German words that have made it into the English language (alongside autobahn and bratwurst).