Karl Lagerfeld - Designer

[brandon J pierre]

Somehow I still think they'll mess this up...

Just remembering:
View attachment 1217950

oh no

 

[Deleted member 116957]

Apparently this is the first known sketch of Karl's, too cute not to share: "The earliest known drawing by Lagerfeld—from 1942, the year he turned 9—shows him taking a nap in his room, his bedside table crowded with books."



Oh, and he had Yves digitally removed from this photo of Victoire Doutreleau and him in Deauville:



(W posted an excerpt of the new Karl bio Paradise Now by William Middleton. I'm reading it now, somehow my local bookstore got it 2 weeks early. It's pretty good, so far.)

wmagazine

 

[Deleted member 116957]

Move over Jared Leto, Daniel Brühl has been cast as Karl for the Disney+ Karl series..

 

[Squizree]

I hate the way the world glorifies him. He was not a nice man.

 

[susseinmcswanny]

A lot of good artists were @ssholes

 

[Squizree]

A lot of good artists were @ssholes

Yet rarely portrayed accurately that way. He did more harm than good, in my opinion.

 

[susseinmcswanny]

Yet rarely portrayed accurately that way. He did more harm than good, in my opinion.

Really? For me the good far outweighs the bad. What makes you feel so?

 

[Squizree]

Really? For me the good far outweighs the bad. What makes you feel so?

He just reeked of arrogance and privilege. Racism wasn't unknown to him, and I think he played a large role in the unhealthy weight trends of the 90s/00s.

 

[gazebo]

He just reeked of arrogance and privilege. Racism wasn't unknown to him, and I think he played a large role in the unhealthy weight trends of the 90s/00s.

Exactly, and those were the good ol' days, when fashion was actually fashion.

 

[Lola701]

Hopefully people will understand that humans are not a monolith. He was a good man to some, he made dream others and his work is celebrated as it should.
His little controversies mattered only to people who cared. A lot of people didn’t…

 

[tricotineacetat]

He just reeked of arrogance and privilege. Racism wasn't unknown to him, and I think he played a large role in the unhealthy weight trends of the 90s/00s.

Not sure people who lived the majority of their lives in another period of time should be judged (even more so their artistic work, which is an entity separate from their personal point of views) by the standards of today's thinking. Karl Lagerfeld lived a priviliged life without a doubt, but while he lived to see the 'black lives matter' and 'me too' movements that shaped the social conversations today, by that time he was already at a late point of his career.

 

[LadyJunon]

In truth, Karl Lagerfeld's issue was just that he was a man from another time, which is reasonable since he was born in the 30s, started designing in the 50s, took up Fendi in the 60s and Chanel in the 80s.

Being considered "outmoded" is inevitable for someone who been living and working for so long. It's happened to the couturiers of yore and it will happen to an overwhelming majority of the "progressive" designers of today.

His 50+ years at Fendi and his 30+ years and Chanel could actually be considered a testament to his modernity and timelessness in work, especially in an era of designers being replaced every 3-5 years. It doesn't excuse his actions, but it says something.

 

[Lola701]

In truth, Karl Lagerfeld's issue was just that he was a man from another time, which is reasonable since he was born in the 30s, started designing in the 50s, took up Fendi in the 60s and Chanel in the 80s.

Being considered "outmoded" is inevitable for someone who been living and working for so long. It's happened to the couturiers of yore and it will happen to an overwhelming majority of the "progressive" designers of today.

His 50+ years at Fendi and his 30+ years and Chanel could actually be considered a testament to his modernity and timelessness in work, especially in an era of designers being replaced every 3-5 years. It doesn't excuse his actions, but it says something.

You are right but more than that we as a culture have to stop about being so inflatuated by celebrity culture that we expect them to be perfect or to be quote and quote « good ».
I think that anytime somebody tries to voice his opinion, when asked, he put himself in danger.
What I hated the most about some of Karl’s controversies was that his opinion was never challenged. After all he was interviewed by journalists and talk shows hosts. When he made an amalgam out of the story of his German friend who welcomed a Syrian refugee, who had antisemetic views, and turned that out into a point that could be seen as islamophobic…He needed to be challenged. You can be challenged at any age.
Considering that he had a multicultural circle and was a man of his time even if his references dated back from another time, he still needed that. But it’s human nature. We all need to be challenge at some point and I’m sure we all have some very conservative pov on some topics…

But as I said earlier, the opinion of Karl Lagerfeld only mattered to some. And tbh a lot of people didn’t care…Except maybe to the editors of the Dailymail.

And a lot of people will tell you that he was a good man. But this is based on how the treated people as a whole. There are celebrated fashion figures or people in the entertainment who are complete jerk but because they don’t have sensationalist interviews nobody can have definitive opinions about them.

 

[bc collector]

I hate the way the world glorifies him. He was not a nice man.

It's funny, you speak as if you knew him personally.
In which way he was racist? Any specific example?
Judging from his various biographies (I read the one by Alfons Kaiser), I did not get the feeling of a racist person, especially if we consider the times he lived in. One of his longtime collaborators was Eric Wright, who is black (he's now at Tiffany's); his lifelong (well, kind of) friendship with ALT is further proof to the opposite. His court embraced everybody who had talent or personality (Antonio Lopez, Pat Cleveland...).

I think the problem with Lagerfeld - problem for others, not me - was that he did not give a s**t to what other people thought of him. It was his haute-bourgeois upbringing, probably, or the fact that he always had money and could afford not to care...or simply that he was deeply intelligent and saw the ridiculousness of many of the cultural battles waged around fashion, inclusivity to start with. He was not afraid to voice his opinion, was not eager to please anybody but himself...I understand that, in an era of self-righteous conformity like ours, that can appear outrageous, but I would not be surprised if he comes up as an interesting subject for a movie or a tv-series. Who else, if not him? Virgil?!? Pleaze...

 

[kasper!]

Hating someone you know in person and hating someone because of their twisted image presented by the media is TOTALLY different....

 

[Squizree]

He was not afraid to voice his opinion, was not eager to please anybody but himself.

This line of reasoning has been, and STILL IS, used to justify all kinds of hate. But celebrities and the fashion crowd are almost always immune from the same criticism because they sell us the fantasy.

A very quick Google search will show you how well documented his racial bigotry is and how ruthless he was towards heavier women, and the ridiculous things he had to say about anorexia. ANYONE else would have been labelled a misogynistic c**t and his career completely dragged.

I'm not telling you to not enjoy his work. Just recognize that many turn the blind eye because they can't accept that someone who created so much beauty can have such degenerate ideas. In fact, the fashion/luxury industry, as a whole, generally gets a pass, when in reality it's one of the most destructive industries on the planet.

 

[bc collector]

Just recognize that many turn the blind eye because they can't accept that someone who created so much beauty can have such degenerate ideas

Really, I don't want to be dragged into this controversy because it can only end badly. Spare me the hassle, please.

Only, the very choice of adjective you picked up ("degenerate"...uh la la!) makes me think that you liberally apply the patent of racist/hater to any form of opposition to the current tropes of the woke thinking.
One might think that Karl was dead-pan and frank on the border of insensitiveness (something that I believe he deeply enjoyed) but that DOES NOT make him a racist. His life, not some reported interview, attests to it.

 

[Squizree]

His life, not some reported interview, attests to it.

I'm definitely gonna use this excuse next time my favorite celebrity is an ***hole.

 

[Deleted member 116957]

Fashion is the wrong industry to look for saints and heroes in, tbh. Karl gets a lot of the criticism, but… he’s hardly the worst of his generation. Sorry to say!

 

[Squizree]

Fashion is the wrong industry to look for saints and heroes in, tbh. Karl gets a lot of the criticism, but… he’s hardly the worst of his generation. Sorry to say!

Obviously. My point is the industry almost always gets a pass while others don't, because they cater to our fantasies the way that fashion and luxury does. People are happy to ignore the social, economic, and environmental destruction the industry ACTYIVELY continues to cause, but then turn around and whine about wealth inequality and corporate greed - when that's the very thing propping up the whole industry. Karl Lagerfeld is an example of this kind of cherrypicking. He was just "from another generation" who made pretty clothes and "made women feel beautiful".