Design deity was a totem of haute couture
KARL Lagerfeld enjoyed the stature of a god among mortals in the world of fashion, where he stayed on top for well over half of a century and up to his death, at an age almost nobody apart from himself knew with totheday precision.
The German designer was best known for his association with France’s Chanel, dating back to 1983. The brand, the legend now goes, risked becoming the preserve of monied grannies before he arrived, slashing hemlines and adding glitz to the prim tweed suits of what is now one of the world’s most valuable couture houses.
But Lagerfeld, who simultaneously churned out collections for LVMH’s Fendi and his eponymous label — an unheardof feat in fashion — was almost a brand in his own right.
Sporting dark suits, white, ponytailed hair and tinted sunglasses in his later years that made him instantly recognisable, an irreverent wit was also part of a carefully crafted persona.
‘‘I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that,’’ runs one legendary quote attributed to him, and often recycled to convey the person he liked to play. ‘‘It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long.’’
His artistic instincts, business acumen and commensurate ego combined to commercially triumphant effect in the rarefied world of high fashion, where he was revered and feared in similar proportions by competitors and topmodels.
A refusal to look to the past was one of his biggest assets, those who knew him said.
The designer mingled with the young and trendy until the last, pairing up with 17yearold catwalk darling Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford, for a collaboration released by his Karl Lagerfeld brand in 2018.
His cat Choupette moved with the times too: the whitehaired Birman, described by her social network minders as ‘‘daughter of Karl Otto Lagerfeld’’, has more than 100,000 Instagram followers and a publishing deal.
Yet Lagerfeld, who died on February 19, aged 85, also stood out as a craftsman. An accomplished photographer, he drew his own designs by hand, an increasingly rare phenomenon in fashion. Behind the facade, he was known for his erudition and penchant for literature, and he devoured the world’s leading newspapers daily.
Though he long enjoyed befuddling interviewers by citing different years of birth, the one deemed the most reliable is September 10, 1933.
Lagerfeld — dubbed ‘‘Kaiser Karl’’ and ‘‘Fashion Meister’’ among a host of media monikers — was born in Hamburg to a German mother and a Swedish father who imported condensed milk.
He spent early childhood tucked away from war in the 1200acre family estate in Bavaria, and had a French tutor.
The big breakthrough came shortly after a move to Paris when, in 1954, he drew a wool coat that won a prize and landed him an apprenticeship with designer Pierre Balmain.
Yves Saint Laurent, who went on to found his namesake label, won the dress prize. The two became fierce competitors and even rivals in love at one point, chasing the affections of late Parisian society figure Jacques de Bascher.
Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, became the enfant cheri of high society and Lagerfeld leader of a wildchild younger group.
He first found real success in the mid1960s with Chloe, the fashion label now owned by Switzerland’s Richemont and to which he was connected off and on until 1997.
But it was Chanel that propelled him to rockstar status, as he sexed up the brand and lifted its profile with grandiose runway shows. In the past year these have featured a fullscale beach and an enormous replica ship.
Lagerfeld was as harsh with his fashion models as he was searingly critical of anyone he considered ‘‘not trendy’’.
He fired his closest female friend, former Chanel model Ines de la Fressange, in 1999 after she agreed to pose as Marianne, France’s national symbol, without asking him first.
Occasionally his sharp tongue has stirred controversies, though he also had a flair for a good soundbite.
‘‘I’m a kind of fashion nymphomaniac who never gets an orgasm,’’ he said in 1984, asked about what he felt after a fashion show.
In a rare climbdown, he halfapologised to Oscarwinner movie actress Meryl Streep after once suggesting she had refused to wear a dress designed by him at an awards ceremony in favour of another she wanted to be paid to wear.
Lagerfeld, who moonlighted as a cartoonist in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, took a dig at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s prorefugee stance in a 2017 sketch that blamed her for helping a farright party gain parliamentary seats.
The designer was not afraid of breaking the mould within oftenpompous couture circles. He teamed up with high street brand H&M in 2004 for limited edition collections, a move that raised eyebrows and was then quickly copied by others.
His appearance changed over the years along with his affectations, such as a fan he at one time carried and fluttered incessantly.
Known to adore Diet Coke, Lagerfeld said he shed weight in the early 2000s to fit into the razorthin suits brought in by Christian Dior’s then menswear designer Hedi Slimane.
In rare moments when he was not working, Lagerfeld retired to one of his many homes in Paris, Germany, Italy or
Monaco, all of them lavish carbon copies of 18thcentury interiors. — Reuters