46 Facts About Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Otto Lagerfeld was a German fashion designer.

Karl Lagerfeld was instrumental in revitalizing the Chanel brand, helping it regain its position as one of the top fashion houses in the world.

Karl Lagerfeld was creative director of the Italian fur and leather goods fashion house Fendi, as well as his own eponymous fashion label.

Karl Lagerfeld was recognised for his signature white hair, black sunglasses, fingerless gloves, and high, starched, detachable collars.

Karl Lagerfeld was born on September 10,1933, in Hamburg, to Elisabeth and businessman Otto Karl Lagerfeld.

Karl Lagerfeld's father owned a company that produced and imported evaporated milk; his maternal grandfather, Karl Bahlmann, was a local politician for the Catholic Centre Party.

When Karl Lagerfeld's mother met his father, she was a lingerie saleswoman from Berlin.

Karl Lagerfeld was known to misrepresent his birth year, claiming to be younger than his actual age, and to misrepresent his parents' background.

Karl Lagerfeld's older sister, Martha Christiane "Christel," was born in 1931.

Karl Lagerfeld had an older half-sister, Theodora Dorothea "Thea," from his father's first marriage.

Karl Lagerfeld's family was mainly shielded from the deprivations of World War II due to his father being a member of the Nazi party and his business interests in Germany through the firm Glucksklee-Milch GmbH.

Karl Lagerfeld's father had been in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake.

Karl Lagerfeld's mindset followed two main strands, which can be termed Baroque and Bildung.

Apart from the many Rococo affiliations of Karl Lagerfeld's fashion design, personal style, and interior decorating, Karl Lagerfeld was a skilled photographer who actively participated in all of the marketing and media campaigns for each of the brands.

Karl Lagerfeld evoked the Rococo in his art-photography, as for instance, in his series of photos inspired by Daphnis and Chloe, which suggest the painterly pastorals done by eighteenth-century French artists like Francois Boucher.

In 1954, Karl Lagerfeld submitted a dress design to the International Wool Secretariat's design competition that presaged the chemise dresses that would be introduced by Givenchy and Balenciaga in 1957.

In 1955, after living in Paris for two years, Karl Lagerfeld entered a coat design competition sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat.

Karl Lagerfeld won the coat category and befriended Yves Saint Laurent, who won the dress category, and was after hired by Pierre Balmain.

Karl Lagerfeld worked as Balmain's assistant, and later apprentice, for three years.

In 1958, Karl Lagerfeld became the artistic director for Jean Patou.

Karl Lagerfeld continued producing outfits in the shoulder pads-tight skirts-stiletto heels direction into the eighties, joining other similar designers in shortening the skirts of the look even as high as mini length, though his hemlines could range as low as the ankle.

Alongside these styles, he showed softer, more comfortable clothing, particularly in 1981-'82, when a brief revival of somewhat mid-seventies-looking long dirndl skirts and shawls appeared on runways and Karl Lagerfeld touted the gossamer weightlessness he had perfected in the seventies, although he did like to place corsets and girdles over it by that time.

Karl Lagerfeld integrated the interlocked "CC" monogram of Coco Chanel into a style pattern for the House of Chanel.

Karl Lagerfeld changed the Chanel silhouette that had prevailed since the early 1960s, making it more eighties by padding the shoulder, shortening and tightening the skirt, raising the heel, and enlarging or miniaturizing the jewelry and purses, all controversial moves, especially the short skirts, as Mlle.

Karl Lagerfeld flourished in the plethora of historical revivals of the eighties, from the shoulder-padded 1940s-50s revivals beginning in 1978 and continuing through the eighties, to the 1950s pouf skirts, 1860s crinolines, and hoops of the mid-eighties, now often showgirl-short.

Karl Lagerfeld participated in it all, for both his namesake line and Chanel.

In 2002, Karl Lagerfeld asked Renzo Rosso, the founder of Diesel, to collaborate with him on a special denim collection for the Karl Lagerfeld Gallery.

Karl Lagerfeld represents creativity, tradition and challenge, and the fact that he thought of Diesel for this collaboration is a great gift and acknowledgement of our reputation as the pret-a-porter of casual wear.

In December 2006, Lagerfeld announced the launch of a new collection for men and women dubbed K Karl Lagerfeld, which included fitted T-shirts and a wide range of jeans.

In 2012 Karl Lagerfeld released his photo-book The Little Black Jacket which featured entertainers, models, and friends of his.

In November 2015, Karl Lagerfeld was presented with the Outstanding Achievement Award at the British Fashion Awards.

Karl Lagerfeld was recognized for his signature white hair, black sunglasses, fingerless gloves, and high, starched detachable collars.

De Bascher died of AIDS in 1989 while Karl Lagerfeld stayed on a cot at his bedside in his hospital room during the final stages of his illness.

From 2007, Karl Lagerfeld owned an 1820s house in Paris in Quai Voltaire decorated in modern and Art Deco style.

Karl Lagerfeld owned a red point Birman cat named Choupette, which, in June 2013, he indicated he would marry, if it were legal.

Karl Lagerfeld promoted it on Larry King Live and other television shows.

Karl Lagerfeld was a passionate book collector and amassed one of the largest personal libraries in the world.

Karl Lagerfeld died there the following morning from complications of pancreatic cancer.

Karl Lagerfeld requested no formal funeral with plans for cremation and ashes spread at secret locations alongside his mother as well as his late partner, Jacques de Bascher.

In 2023 his biography, PARADISE NOW: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld written by William Middleton, was published by HarperCollins.

Karl Lagerfeld was a supporter of the use of fur in fashion, although he himself did not wear fur and hardly ate meat.

Karl Lagerfeld is simply too heavy and has too big a bust.

Karl Lagerfeld later caused another controversy, on 31 July 2012, when he criticised Pippa Middleton, the sister of Catherine, Princess of Wales, for her looks.

Karl Lagerfeld's caricature drawing Harvey Schweinstein, that shows film producer Harvey Weinstein as a pig, was criticised as antisemitic and dehumanizing.

In May 2018, during an interview with French newspaper Le Point, Karl Lagerfeld mentioned that he was contemplating giving up his German citizenship due to the one million Muslim immigrants that had been accepted into Germany by Merkel, a decision to which he attributed the increase in neo-Nazism in the country.

Karl Lagerfeld said in 2007 that his controversial persona was an act.