Karl Lagerfeld/Lagerfeld Collection
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'I do success very well'
(Filed: 22/12/2004)
At 66 – or is it 71? – Karl Lagerfeld is still the world's most prolific fashion designer. But what he really wants is to dress The Queen in black, writes Olga Craig
Karl Lagerfeld's fine-nibbed felt pen scratches across the surface of the sketch pad that sits, neatly aligned, in the centre of his immaculately tidy desk. It's just below a row of marbles, just to the right of his collection of fake gems and mother-of-pearl. (The glitter and colours inspire him, he says.)
Prince of couture: Lagerfeld with an admiring Nicole Kidman
His brow is puckered, his gaze intense, as he draws the outline of a woman, her arms akimbo, her hips swung provocatively to the side. Mr Lagerfeld, perhaps the world's most famous haute couture designer, is sketching me. Or, rather, he is designing an outfit for me. It will, he says, be perfect for my figure.
As his surprisingly small, ring-bedecked hand flits across the paper, he tells me: "This is right for you. Long, elegant lines. And with high heels, of course. Always the high heels."
"I am only five foot one," I say. "And what is wrong with that?" he asks, in his clipped, German accent, as he reaches for a thicker pen and colours in the suit with bold, sweeping strokes.
"For a woman, that is fine. You are skinny. But you must always wear the high heels. But think what it would be like for a man. So short. Impossible."
"Voilà," he says, signing his sketch with a flourish and pushing it across the table. "This is perfect for you. Perhaps you could wear it with that, it is rather fine," he says, pointing to a chunky brown leather belt I am wearing. I am flattered. The belt cost me a paltry £10 in a street market. And he is Karl Lagerfeld.
The image he has drawn is of a bone-thin, slinky woman. She is how I would like to look, though in reality she bears no resemblance to me - and her arms, if unfurled, would stretch to below her knees. "Hmm, I'm rather fatter than that," I venture, conscious that I have introduced the "fat" word.
It is, I have heard, a touchy subject. Mr Lagerfeld is the designer who, to the astonishment of the haute couture world, recently designed a collection for H&M, the Swedish high street label which sells dresses to the masses for an average price of £60 - significantly less than the cost of an haute couture buttonhole.
Days after the launch he berated the company for committing the cardinal fashion sin: making his clothes in sizes large enough to fit all their customers.
"What I didn't like was that certain fashion sizes were made bigger," he said afterwards. "What I created was fashion for slim, slender people." Vowing never to work for the company again, he sniffed: "The incomprehensible decisions made by the management in Stockholm have removed any desire I had to do something like that again." Since the average British woman is a size 16, H&M was horrified and asked Lagerfeld to apologise. He did not.
He ignores my comment.
"Perhaps you could wear this with a white shirt underneath, but you must have it in black," he says, gazing again at his sketch. "Black is your colour." It is something, he tells me, I have in common with our Queen.
"She should wear black, I would love to dress your Queen in black," he says. "I know, I know, she must wear the pastels, for the photographers. But she could look so elegant in black. She was, you know, so cute, a beauty in fact, as a young woman."
Black is also very slimming, I say, still hoping to draw him on the H&M spat. Mr Lagerfeld seems unruffled, although he admits that being fat is "not nice".
"Those who are undisciplined become fat. There is something distasteful about their inability to control themselves. To be thin takes control and rigour," he says.
*
Quick draw: Lagerfeld's sketch of Olga Craig
His evident reluctance to be drawn any further on the subject suggests that he is trying to stay out of trouble.
This may be because Lagerfeld, whose couture customers include Nicole Kidman and Jerry Hall, is yet again wedded to another company far lowlier than his own. Last Monday, the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, the brash, sporty American clothes label that used to be ridiculed by the fashion elite in the 1990s, announced it had acquired the trademarks of Karl Lagerfeld.
Although neither will disclose what Hilfiger paid for the trademarks - Karl Lagerfeld, Lagerfeld Gallery, KL and Lagerfeld - Lagerfeld had been searching for a buyer for two years. So think plenty of cash.
He is fabulously wealthy already, with three houses to his name at the last count and the kind of insatiable shopping habit - furniture, art, rare books - which makes auction houses very happy. The Lagerfeld labels never disclose their turnover, so there is no way for outsiders to know their worth.
The union is likely to make him richer still. When Lagerfeld did his one-off designs for H&M, his creations sold out of the Paris stores in one morning after fans queued overnight to snap them up. The response of the New York stock market has been another indicator. The shares of Hilfiger stock rose by almost four per cent following Monday's announcement.
He will, he says, be leaving the business side of things to Hilfiger's executives. "I can design an empire-line dress, but not an empire," he explains.
Didn't he feel that he might, shall we say, debase his reputation by linking his brand to Hilfiger?
"Do you mean did I burn my fingers with H&M?" he smiles. "No. And in doing it I proved that I can do both sides - haute couture and, um, um, this type." He doesn't say down-market but I assume it's what he means.
He insists the marriage will not affect his work as chief designer for Chanel and Fendi. "And America is buzzing at the moment, I love its creative energies," he says.
Big market, I agree, but also big people.
"Yes, it is true, America is a country full of big fat people," he concedes.
"People come in all shapes and sizes. I was against big once, but not now."
This strikes me as contradictory, but I suspect that beneath the carefully maintained façade of grandeur there's an acute financial pragmatism.
Lagerfeld may claim to tolerate all shapes and sizes, but he certainly doesn't accept his own. Three years ago he lost six of his 16 stone in little more than a year - now he doesn't allow his weight to go above nine-and-a-half stone. He is wasp-waisted, although I notice the swell of a slightly rounded tummy above his Hedi Slimane (Dior Homme) trousers.
"No, I am not horrified at how I once looked," he says. "That was in the past." (This is a favourite, oft-repeated phrase. Lagerfeld uses it when he does not wish to discuss something.)
"I just wanted a different look, to wear Hedi Slimane's narrow-cut clothes. So I dieted. I now eat only steamed fish, steamed vegetables, lots of fruit. Some meat.
"I have breakfast at eight, lunch at 1pm. I eat because otherwise I would faint. But I don't much care for it. It is rigorous but, no, I am not a control freak." There is nothing, he insists, that he craves. And he never cooks.
At Christmas he will have his usual fare, no unwanted festive calories.
"It is a Saturday, a working day. It will be like no other. Christmas is for children, and I don't like children," he says.
"Other people's are fine. But not for me. I have never felt the need to be part of a family unit. Also, imagine if I had a child and he was mediocre. I would hate that. Then again, if he was better than me I might hate that too."
He does not like his weight to drop below 60 kilos (nine stone) "because my face caves in, I look too old". It is understandable why, in the youth-obsessed world of fashion, Lagerfeld should yearn to look younger. He says he is 66 but if a German newspaper, which claims to have checked his birth certificate, is to be believed, he is actually 71.
No matter, he still looks younger than his years. "This morning I was 59 kilos," he says.
"I weigh myself most mornings. It is right that we should all look after ourselves. Women these days go to so much more trouble, quite rightly, to look after their appearance. If they want cosmetic surgery, why not?"
Would he consider it?
"Oh everyone said I had liposuction, but I didn't. Nor have I had a face-lift." His hand moves to his powdered white hair, pulled back in his trademark ponytail. "Anyway, with my hairline, a lift would show," he declares.
Lagerfeld is heavily tanned and his skin is surprisingly fresh; he is an extremely attractive man. Although his body is too thin, his dieting has left him with chiselled cheekbones.*
"I rarely exercise - I am too lazy," he jokes. "I dance the occasional tango for exercise."
Ballroom dancing is a legacy from Lagerfeld's youth. So, too, is body building.
"Oh I would never do that again," he shudders. "Those big muscley biceps - ugh." A look of intense distaste crosses his face. We are back, it seems, to big, to fat.
He was thin, he tells me, as a child. Lagerfeld was born in Germany and raised on a large family estate near the Danish border, but moved to Paris when he was 14.
He was the son of an elderly industrialist who made his fortune introducing condensed milk to Europe, and a somewhat eccentric mother who specialised in criticism. Usually of Karl. She once tore up his diaries, saying that the world did not need to know how stupid he could be.
"My childhood was wonderful," he says when I query this. "She was right to be critical. I needed it. I never resented it - it was never mean or malicious. I always knew I was loved."
This may be true, and certainly to this day he wears his parents' wedding rings on a chain around his neck. But it's also true that his mother waited a fortnight before telling him that his father had died - "I know you don't like funerals," she told him - and wrote a letter before her own death, banning her son from seeing her in her coffin or attending her funeral.
He insists she was right to do this. "I would do the same. I do not want people to look at me after my death. I don't want to be seen without control."
Lagerfeld is clearly obsessed by his looks. That he should want to control his appearance, even after death, does not surprise me. I was informed before our meeting there was absolutely no chance of bringing a photographer to the interview.
Instead Caroline, his private assistant, has a selection of pictures. In many of them Lagerfeld can be seen holding his right hand tightly at waist level. This is because he takes the pictures himself, in a mirror. Then the tiny camera he is holding is airbrushed out on a computer. Photography, he explains, is an abiding passion, his second career.
One wonders where he finds the time. He is easily the most prolific designer in the world, creating two collections a year for both Chanel and Fendi, two of the most powerful couture houses on the planet. He was born, he says, with a pencil in his hand. "To me designing is like breathing, I could not not do it."
He is currently working on his March collection which, he says, will centre on 18th-century gowns. "Not the big dresses, though," he tells me.
His idea of relaxation, a word he seems to dislike, is to lie in his bath listening to his iPod. One of his 70 iPods, that is.
"I have some white ones but lots of metallic pinks, blues. I have had every single CD I have downloaded. I enjoy gadgets."
Isn't 70 rather excessive?
"If I like something I like to have a lot of it," he says dismissively. "Eccentric? Perhaps I am. But then I know only how I am, not how others are. I never compare, I never compete."
His other great joy is shopping. "I love the festive excitement of the streets. I'm somebody who likes to buy clothes. And I am not happy in anything but Dior. Sometimes I buy other designers, but I give them to friends. As a gift for myself? Another chrome ring perhaps?"
Where, I ask in astonishment, would he put it? Each of his stubby fingers is adorned. The rings are so chunky one can barely see his fingers: at a distance his hands look like miniature metallic adjuncts.
"I wear my cuffs long, so there is no room for bracelets," he says, by way of explanation. "I have 300 rings; I choose which ones to wear each morning. He reels off their provenance: some are Dior; one, interestingly, is H&M.
"People were happy with my clothes for them, they will be happy with my Hilfiger designs, too," he says. "I do success very well."
from telegraph.co.uk
(Filed: 22/12/2004)
At 66 – or is it 71? – Karl Lagerfeld is still the world's most prolific fashion designer. But what he really wants is to dress The Queen in black, writes Olga Craig
Karl Lagerfeld's fine-nibbed felt pen scratches across the surface of the sketch pad that sits, neatly aligned, in the centre of his immaculately tidy desk. It's just below a row of marbles, just to the right of his collection of fake gems and mother-of-pearl. (The glitter and colours inspire him, he says.)
Prince of couture: Lagerfeld with an admiring Nicole Kidman
His brow is puckered, his gaze intense, as he draws the outline of a woman, her arms akimbo, her hips swung provocatively to the side. Mr Lagerfeld, perhaps the world's most famous haute couture designer, is sketching me. Or, rather, he is designing an outfit for me. It will, he says, be perfect for my figure.
As his surprisingly small, ring-bedecked hand flits across the paper, he tells me: "This is right for you. Long, elegant lines. And with high heels, of course. Always the high heels."
"I am only five foot one," I say. "And what is wrong with that?" he asks, in his clipped, German accent, as he reaches for a thicker pen and colours in the suit with bold, sweeping strokes.
"For a woman, that is fine. You are skinny. But you must always wear the high heels. But think what it would be like for a man. So short. Impossible."
"Voilà," he says, signing his sketch with a flourish and pushing it across the table. "This is perfect for you. Perhaps you could wear it with that, it is rather fine," he says, pointing to a chunky brown leather belt I am wearing. I am flattered. The belt cost me a paltry £10 in a street market. And he is Karl Lagerfeld.
The image he has drawn is of a bone-thin, slinky woman. She is how I would like to look, though in reality she bears no resemblance to me - and her arms, if unfurled, would stretch to below her knees. "Hmm, I'm rather fatter than that," I venture, conscious that I have introduced the "fat" word.
It is, I have heard, a touchy subject. Mr Lagerfeld is the designer who, to the astonishment of the haute couture world, recently designed a collection for H&M, the Swedish high street label which sells dresses to the masses for an average price of £60 - significantly less than the cost of an haute couture buttonhole.
Days after the launch he berated the company for committing the cardinal fashion sin: making his clothes in sizes large enough to fit all their customers.
"What I didn't like was that certain fashion sizes were made bigger," he said afterwards. "What I created was fashion for slim, slender people." Vowing never to work for the company again, he sniffed: "The incomprehensible decisions made by the management in Stockholm have removed any desire I had to do something like that again." Since the average British woman is a size 16, H&M was horrified and asked Lagerfeld to apologise. He did not.
He ignores my comment.
"Perhaps you could wear this with a white shirt underneath, but you must have it in black," he says, gazing again at his sketch. "Black is your colour." It is something, he tells me, I have in common with our Queen.
"She should wear black, I would love to dress your Queen in black," he says. "I know, I know, she must wear the pastels, for the photographers. But she could look so elegant in black. She was, you know, so cute, a beauty in fact, as a young woman."
Black is also very slimming, I say, still hoping to draw him on the H&M spat. Mr Lagerfeld seems unruffled, although he admits that being fat is "not nice".
"Those who are undisciplined become fat. There is something distasteful about their inability to control themselves. To be thin takes control and rigour," he says.
*
Quick draw: Lagerfeld's sketch of Olga Craig
His evident reluctance to be drawn any further on the subject suggests that he is trying to stay out of trouble.
This may be because Lagerfeld, whose couture customers include Nicole Kidman and Jerry Hall, is yet again wedded to another company far lowlier than his own. Last Monday, the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, the brash, sporty American clothes label that used to be ridiculed by the fashion elite in the 1990s, announced it had acquired the trademarks of Karl Lagerfeld.
Although neither will disclose what Hilfiger paid for the trademarks - Karl Lagerfeld, Lagerfeld Gallery, KL and Lagerfeld - Lagerfeld had been searching for a buyer for two years. So think plenty of cash.
He is fabulously wealthy already, with three houses to his name at the last count and the kind of insatiable shopping habit - furniture, art, rare books - which makes auction houses very happy. The Lagerfeld labels never disclose their turnover, so there is no way for outsiders to know their worth.
The union is likely to make him richer still. When Lagerfeld did his one-off designs for H&M, his creations sold out of the Paris stores in one morning after fans queued overnight to snap them up. The response of the New York stock market has been another indicator. The shares of Hilfiger stock rose by almost four per cent following Monday's announcement.
He will, he says, be leaving the business side of things to Hilfiger's executives. "I can design an empire-line dress, but not an empire," he explains.
Didn't he feel that he might, shall we say, debase his reputation by linking his brand to Hilfiger?
"Do you mean did I burn my fingers with H&M?" he smiles. "No. And in doing it I proved that I can do both sides - haute couture and, um, um, this type." He doesn't say down-market but I assume it's what he means.
He insists the marriage will not affect his work as chief designer for Chanel and Fendi. "And America is buzzing at the moment, I love its creative energies," he says.
Big market, I agree, but also big people.
"Yes, it is true, America is a country full of big fat people," he concedes.
"People come in all shapes and sizes. I was against big once, but not now."
This strikes me as contradictory, but I suspect that beneath the carefully maintained façade of grandeur there's an acute financial pragmatism.
Lagerfeld may claim to tolerate all shapes and sizes, but he certainly doesn't accept his own. Three years ago he lost six of his 16 stone in little more than a year - now he doesn't allow his weight to go above nine-and-a-half stone. He is wasp-waisted, although I notice the swell of a slightly rounded tummy above his Hedi Slimane (Dior Homme) trousers.
"No, I am not horrified at how I once looked," he says. "That was in the past." (This is a favourite, oft-repeated phrase. Lagerfeld uses it when he does not wish to discuss something.)
"I just wanted a different look, to wear Hedi Slimane's narrow-cut clothes. So I dieted. I now eat only steamed fish, steamed vegetables, lots of fruit. Some meat.
"I have breakfast at eight, lunch at 1pm. I eat because otherwise I would faint. But I don't much care for it. It is rigorous but, no, I am not a control freak." There is nothing, he insists, that he craves. And he never cooks.
At Christmas he will have his usual fare, no unwanted festive calories.
"It is a Saturday, a working day. It will be like no other. Christmas is for children, and I don't like children," he says.
"Other people's are fine. But not for me. I have never felt the need to be part of a family unit. Also, imagine if I had a child and he was mediocre. I would hate that. Then again, if he was better than me I might hate that too."
He does not like his weight to drop below 60 kilos (nine stone) "because my face caves in, I look too old". It is understandable why, in the youth-obsessed world of fashion, Lagerfeld should yearn to look younger. He says he is 66 but if a German newspaper, which claims to have checked his birth certificate, is to be believed, he is actually 71.
No matter, he still looks younger than his years. "This morning I was 59 kilos," he says.
"I weigh myself most mornings. It is right that we should all look after ourselves. Women these days go to so much more trouble, quite rightly, to look after their appearance. If they want cosmetic surgery, why not?"
Would he consider it?
"Oh everyone said I had liposuction, but I didn't. Nor have I had a face-lift." His hand moves to his powdered white hair, pulled back in his trademark ponytail. "Anyway, with my hairline, a lift would show," he declares.
Lagerfeld is heavily tanned and his skin is surprisingly fresh; he is an extremely attractive man. Although his body is too thin, his dieting has left him with chiselled cheekbones.*
"I rarely exercise - I am too lazy," he jokes. "I dance the occasional tango for exercise."
Ballroom dancing is a legacy from Lagerfeld's youth. So, too, is body building.
"Oh I would never do that again," he shudders. "Those big muscley biceps - ugh." A look of intense distaste crosses his face. We are back, it seems, to big, to fat.
He was thin, he tells me, as a child. Lagerfeld was born in Germany and raised on a large family estate near the Danish border, but moved to Paris when he was 14.
He was the son of an elderly industrialist who made his fortune introducing condensed milk to Europe, and a somewhat eccentric mother who specialised in criticism. Usually of Karl. She once tore up his diaries, saying that the world did not need to know how stupid he could be.
"My childhood was wonderful," he says when I query this. "She was right to be critical. I needed it. I never resented it - it was never mean or malicious. I always knew I was loved."
This may be true, and certainly to this day he wears his parents' wedding rings on a chain around his neck. But it's also true that his mother waited a fortnight before telling him that his father had died - "I know you don't like funerals," she told him - and wrote a letter before her own death, banning her son from seeing her in her coffin or attending her funeral.
He insists she was right to do this. "I would do the same. I do not want people to look at me after my death. I don't want to be seen without control."
Lagerfeld is clearly obsessed by his looks. That he should want to control his appearance, even after death, does not surprise me. I was informed before our meeting there was absolutely no chance of bringing a photographer to the interview.
Instead Caroline, his private assistant, has a selection of pictures. In many of them Lagerfeld can be seen holding his right hand tightly at waist level. This is because he takes the pictures himself, in a mirror. Then the tiny camera he is holding is airbrushed out on a computer. Photography, he explains, is an abiding passion, his second career.
One wonders where he finds the time. He is easily the most prolific designer in the world, creating two collections a year for both Chanel and Fendi, two of the most powerful couture houses on the planet. He was born, he says, with a pencil in his hand. "To me designing is like breathing, I could not not do it."
He is currently working on his March collection which, he says, will centre on 18th-century gowns. "Not the big dresses, though," he tells me.
His idea of relaxation, a word he seems to dislike, is to lie in his bath listening to his iPod. One of his 70 iPods, that is.
"I have some white ones but lots of metallic pinks, blues. I have had every single CD I have downloaded. I enjoy gadgets."
Isn't 70 rather excessive?
"If I like something I like to have a lot of it," he says dismissively. "Eccentric? Perhaps I am. But then I know only how I am, not how others are. I never compare, I never compete."
His other great joy is shopping. "I love the festive excitement of the streets. I'm somebody who likes to buy clothes. And I am not happy in anything but Dior. Sometimes I buy other designers, but I give them to friends. As a gift for myself? Another chrome ring perhaps?"
Where, I ask in astonishment, would he put it? Each of his stubby fingers is adorned. The rings are so chunky one can barely see his fingers: at a distance his hands look like miniature metallic adjuncts.
"I wear my cuffs long, so there is no room for bracelets," he says, by way of explanation. "I have 300 rings; I choose which ones to wear each morning. He reels off their provenance: some are Dior; one, interestingly, is H&M.
"People were happy with my clothes for them, they will be happy with my Hilfiger designs, too," he says. "I do success very well."
from telegraph.co.uk
Last edited by a moderator:
....really interesting reading.mikeijames
no tom ford, no thanks.
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those pictures are so hilarious simply bc hilfiger's just the type of person i could see the lagerfeld dismissing in a heartbeat....with a flap of his fan 
LOL, 'No Tommy, that's too cheap', I think the main problem with Lagerfeld Gallery is the lack of advertising and distribution. Karl proved to be very succesful at Chanel, Fendi etc. and the publicity worked there. They say they like eachother... it's probably Tommy's way to get some class and talent in the company.mikeijames said:those pictures are so hilarious simply bc hilfiger's just the type of person i could see the lagerfeld dismissing in a heartbeat....with a flap of his fan
mikeijames
no tom ford, no thanks.
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Alura said:
i know exactly what you mean...reminds me of the p. diddy-zac posen union.
Did anyone read the Tom Ford/Karl Lagerfeld interview in Numéro? It was a very nice read, two friends chatting together. Tom sort of announced he will make a comeback in fashion on day while Karl was playing a bit of a father figure for him 
. Tom said Karl should get a romance... haha.
. Tom said Karl should get a romance... haha.Morningstar
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I'm dying to read that article (Tom & Karl). The two of them are my fashion idols. Anyone willing to post it up?
Also, what does everyone expect the pricing to be on Lagerfelds collection now that he's been bought by TH?
Also, what does everyone expect the pricing to be on Lagerfelds collection now that he's been bought by TH?
MeLagerfeld
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Karl Lagerfeld BIO
Born in Hamburg in 1938, Karl Lagerfeld emigrated to Paris at the age of 14. He was to go on to become one of the most celebrated designers this century has seen.
In 1955, at the age of just 17, Lagerfeld was awarded a position at Pierre Balmain, after winning a competition sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat (the coat he had designed for the contest was later put into production by Balmain). In 1958, he left to take up a job with Jean Patou, which gave him an invaluable knowledge of couture but apparently very little pleasure. After just one year, he quit to work as a freelance designer for such fashion houses as Krizia, Charles Jourdan and Valentino. By 1964, he had grown so disillusioned with the world of haute couture that he left Paris altogether to study art in Italy.
In 1967, Lagerfeld returned to fashion, joining Fendi as a design consultant. In the Seventies, however, his name was more closely associated with the house of Chloe, where he was given carte blanche to produce exquisite floaty and feminine ready-to-wear collections which claimed to rival contemporary couture. His 1972 Deco collection, which consisted of black and white prints and clever bias-cutting, brought him worldwide acclaim. He produced his last collection for Chloe - now designed by Phoebe Philo - in 1983 to move to Chanel (though he did return briefly in 1993, to replace outgoing designer Martine Sitbon).
At the same time as taking on the title of director of collections and ready-to-wear at Chanel, Lagerfeld launched his own-name label, now synonymous with strong tailoring, combining easy-to-wear cardigan jackets in his favourite bright colours and softly shaped knitwear to create what he describes as "intellectual sexiness". Meanwhile his designs for the super-chic French fashion house, a fusion of pre-war Chanel and contemporary trends, carried the label to the pinnacle of high fashion in the Eighties and Nineties. Notable moments of his career at Chanel include teaming the traditional box jacket with denim mini skirts in 1991, combining club-influenced black fishnet bodystockings with the traditional Chanel camellia placed cheekily over the breasts and matching hefty lace-up boots with flowing georgette skirts and leather jackets. By 1997, Vogue had crowned him the "unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment".
Despite moving from label to label, Lagerfeld has managed to retain a sense of his own style throughout his career. His success lies in an ability to make a bold statement and he is never afraid to try something new. He has also maintained a sense of humour throughout his designing that has produced such legendary pieces as a shower-dress, with beaded water streaming down the front; a car-dress with a radiator grille and fender, and a multitude of outstandingly eccentric hats, from armchairs to cream cakes, translating Chanel trademarks such as the quilted handbag into a range of seasonal must-haves, including the handbag earring, the handbag hat, the doll-sized shoulder bag, the quilted hip bag, the quilted Alice band and the outsize baguette bag.
He also enjoys a range of outside interests, including languages (he speaks fluent German, English, French and Italian and has expressed a desire to learn Spanish), illustration, antiques and photography (he was responsible for producing Visionaire 23: The Emperor's New Clothes, a series of nude portraits, starring South African model David Miller) and describes himself as an "intelligent opportunistic" and "professional dilettante". As he told US Vogue in 1988: "What I enjoy about the job is the job."
Born in Hamburg in 1938, Karl Lagerfeld emigrated to Paris at the age of 14. He was to go on to become one of the most celebrated designers this century has seen.
In 1955, at the age of just 17, Lagerfeld was awarded a position at Pierre Balmain, after winning a competition sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat (the coat he had designed for the contest was later put into production by Balmain). In 1958, he left to take up a job with Jean Patou, which gave him an invaluable knowledge of couture but apparently very little pleasure. After just one year, he quit to work as a freelance designer for such fashion houses as Krizia, Charles Jourdan and Valentino. By 1964, he had grown so disillusioned with the world of haute couture that he left Paris altogether to study art in Italy.
In 1967, Lagerfeld returned to fashion, joining Fendi as a design consultant. In the Seventies, however, his name was more closely associated with the house of Chloe, where he was given carte blanche to produce exquisite floaty and feminine ready-to-wear collections which claimed to rival contemporary couture. His 1972 Deco collection, which consisted of black and white prints and clever bias-cutting, brought him worldwide acclaim. He produced his last collection for Chloe - now designed by Phoebe Philo - in 1983 to move to Chanel (though he did return briefly in 1993, to replace outgoing designer Martine Sitbon).
At the same time as taking on the title of director of collections and ready-to-wear at Chanel, Lagerfeld launched his own-name label, now synonymous with strong tailoring, combining easy-to-wear cardigan jackets in his favourite bright colours and softly shaped knitwear to create what he describes as "intellectual sexiness". Meanwhile his designs for the super-chic French fashion house, a fusion of pre-war Chanel and contemporary trends, carried the label to the pinnacle of high fashion in the Eighties and Nineties. Notable moments of his career at Chanel include teaming the traditional box jacket with denim mini skirts in 1991, combining club-influenced black fishnet bodystockings with the traditional Chanel camellia placed cheekily over the breasts and matching hefty lace-up boots with flowing georgette skirts and leather jackets. By 1997, Vogue had crowned him the "unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment".
Despite moving from label to label, Lagerfeld has managed to retain a sense of his own style throughout his career. His success lies in an ability to make a bold statement and he is never afraid to try something new. He has also maintained a sense of humour throughout his designing that has produced such legendary pieces as a shower-dress, with beaded water streaming down the front; a car-dress with a radiator grille and fender, and a multitude of outstandingly eccentric hats, from armchairs to cream cakes, translating Chanel trademarks such as the quilted handbag into a range of seasonal must-haves, including the handbag earring, the handbag hat, the doll-sized shoulder bag, the quilted hip bag, the quilted Alice band and the outsize baguette bag.
He also enjoys a range of outside interests, including languages (he speaks fluent German, English, French and Italian and has expressed a desire to learn Spanish), illustration, antiques and photography (he was responsible for producing Visionaire 23: The Emperor's New Clothes, a series of nude portraits, starring South African model David Miller) and describes himself as an "intelligent opportunistic" and "professional dilettante". As he told US Vogue in 1988: "What I enjoy about the job is the job."
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MeLagerfeld
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lady grey said:
im sharing in the chat
purplelucrezia
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Couldn't you try to ignore him?AlexN said:
Missoni~Heiress
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spunky old man 
