Karl Otto Lagerfeld has passed away in Paris on Tuesday, February 19 2019 at the age of 85. He was best known as the creative director of French fashion house Chanel from 1983 until his death. Following health complications in January 2019, Lagerfeld was admitted to the American Hospital of Paris on 18 February. He died there the following morning from complications of pancreatic cancer that he kept farely silent about. He requested no formal funeral with plans for cremation and ashes spread at secret locations along side his mother as well as his late partner Jacques de Bascher. This post is all about Karl and his life.
The Early Years
Born Karl Otto Lagerfeldt in Hamburg, Germany on 9-10-33 (we were birthday twins!) His parents, Christian & Elisabeth, were cultured people whose idea of small talk was to debate the religious philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin over dinner. His father made a fortune in the condensed milk industry and his mother played the violin. In the mid-thirties, as Hitler rose to power, Lagerfeld’s father moved the family to an isolated country estate in northern Germany. Karl, his older sister, and a half sister from his father’s first marriage were raised there during World War Two. As a boy living in the country, Lagerfeld had little exposure to high fashion. He found a book on Paul Poiret (the French designer who, in 1906, created a line of unstructured clothes that liberated women from the corseted constraints of nineteenth-century dresses) and it opened his eyes to the fashion world.
"The only love that I really believe in, is a Mother's love for her children." -Karl Lagerfeld
Karl's Teen years and 20's
Lagerfeld moved to Paris while still in his teens. After he had been there for two years, he saw an advertisement for an international design competition sponsored by an organization called the International Wool Secretariat; he submitted sketches and fabric samples and won in the coat category, for a long overcoat with a high neckline and a plunging V-shaped opening in the back. (Yves Saint Laurent, then seventeen, won for a cocktail dress, and the two became friends.) Lagerfeld was immediately hired in 1955 as a Junior Assistant at Balmain, the haute-couture house. After six months, he was made an Apprentice to Pierre Balmain, but after three years he left—“because I wasn’t born to be an assistant.”
"My thing is to work more than the others to show them how useless they are." -Karl Lagerfeld
In 1958 Karl moved to House of Patou to work as an Artistic Director. This is where Karl designed his first collection under the name "Roland Karl." He produced couture collections in the style of the label’s creator, Jean Patou. During the 1960's He was a fashion stylist for Jean Patou where he designed two haute couture collections a year for five years.
"Don't dress to kill, dress to survive."
-Karl Lagerfeld
Karl in the 1970's
By 1964 Karl quit the Patou house and hired himself out as a freelance ready-to-wear designer. He was soon producing collections simultaneously for French, Italian, English, and German companies, including Chloé (where he became head designer), Krizia, Ballantyne, Cadette, Charles Jourdan, and Mario Valentino. In 1967, he added to his list of clients Fendi, a handbag and fur company based in Rome. He worked for Fendi making five collections a year for the Italian luxury label, until his 2019 death.
"Trendy is the last stage before tacky." -Karl Lagerfeld
Lagerfeld became a fixation of the fashion press, which chronicled his life and style, noting the changes in his home décor, and his habit of dressing in Edwardian collars and ascots, and wearing a monocle. When he moved into the house on the Rue de l’Université in 1977, he did not use electricity in some of the rooms but lit them with candles.
"I don't like standard beauty; there is no beauty without strangeness."
-Karl Lagerfeld
Karl in the 1980's
In 1983 he took over as Chanel's artistic director. The headquarters of Chanel are situated in two adjacent eighteenth-century buildings on the Rue Cambon, in Paris, occupying a labyrinthine suite of rooms on five floors, above a street-level Chanel boutique. Until his death, he was making eight collections a year (both ready-to-wear and haute couture.) In 1987 Lagerfeld integrated the interlocked "CC" of Coco Chanel into an iconic style pattern.
"If you are cheap, nothing helps."
-Karl Lagerfeld
Lagerfeld launched his own label in 1984, which he built around the idea of what he described as "intellectual sexiness." Over the years the brand developed a reputation for quality tailoring with bold ready-to-wear pieces like cardigan jackets in bright colors. In 2005 Lagerfeld sold the label to Tommy Hilfiger.
Karl's Weight Gain and Loss Journey
In the nineties Karl was far plumper and wore a huge wooden fan around his neck. Karl decided to lose a bunch of weight and it was entirely for superficial reasons. Apparently Karl was seized with the desire to “dress differently [and] to wear clothes designed by [Dior Homme’s] Hedi Slimane.” However, he also realized that “these fashions… would require [him] to lose 80 pounds.” In November 2000, he decided he was no longer happy with his physique and said to himself: "You work in fashion and fashion means change. If you don't like your image, you only have to change it." He started a strict diet designed by Dr. Jean-Claude Houdret, he lost all the weight within a year in 2001. Lagerfeld wrote a book about it, entitled The Karl Lagerfeld Diet which was a bestseller in France. He explained: "Fashion is the best motivation for losing weight."
His long-term partner Jacques de Bascher fell ill and died in 1989 of complications relating to HIV, and it was this tragedy that resulted in Lagerfeld piling on weight in grief.
"Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants." -Karl Lagerfeld
Karl's Personal Life
Karl Lagerfeld had a cat named "Choupette" that knows how to use an iPad. Once a friend asked Karl to cat-sit. When they came back to get her, Karl simply said "she will stay." She now has two lady’s maids, one for day and one for night.
An avid reader in four languages—English, French, German, and Italian—Lagerfeld also publishes books; his imprint called "Édition 7L" is a division of the German house Steidl. He opened a bookstore, also called 7L, in space adjoining his photo studio on the Rue Lille. Édition 7L has published forty-one titles, on subjects that range across his many interests: fashion, photography, literature, humor, advertising, music, newspapers, mythology, illustration, and architecture. He had devoted his existence to living as much as possible "in the present" and loved watching trends. Not just in fashion but in art, politics, movies, and music. Lagerfeld even released a two-disk CD called “My Favorite Songs.”
"I am very much down to Earth, just not on this Earth." -Karl Lagerfeld
Karl's Personal Style
Lagerfeld always had white hair because he loved the eighteenth century; everyone had white hair then. His uniform in later life always consisted of black sunglasses and fingerless black biker gloves that bore silver Channel logo grommets. He liked luxuries such as diamond encrusted belt buckles, ties, antique Cartier tie clasps, and more. Lagerfeld was devoted to the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and had been a serious collector of Art Deco. He used his passion for history in the way he dressed, with a mixture of the modern designs. Lagerfeld loved of blending past and present. His home on the Quai Voltaire, on the Left Bank was a purchase of four apartments on two floors of a two-hundred-year-old building overlooking the Louvre. He gutted the place to construct a town house where the upper floor contained furniture/art made after the year 2000. The lower floor Lagerfeld said was his “Old World” and had a large library furnished with pieces from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as from his Art Deco collection.
RIP KARL.
XO, Krista
*If you enjoyed this post, please share it! Photos are from Karl.com and Getty Images.
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