“My problem as a child was that I was bored to death because I wanted to be a grown-up person,” he said in a 2011 interview with the U.K.’s Independent newspaper. Lagerfeld had an older sister, Martha, and a half-sister, Thea. His parents were Elisabeth Bahlmann, who was Swedish, and Otto Lagerfeldt, who made a fortune producing condensed milk in France and selling it in Germany. Lagerfeld’s year of birth is sometimes given as 1938, a discrepancy that he refused to solve in interviews. 10, 1933, in Hamburg, he later dropped the final letter in his surname to make his fashion brand more marketable. first lady Michelle Obama’s hairstyle, and the body weight of English singer Adele.īorn Karl Lagerfeldt on Sept. His public comments also betrayed a willingness to offend anyone, taking aim at German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s choice of pants, U.S. He once gave an entire interview to Harper’s Bazaar about his cat, Choupette, with whom he shared a special bond, and said he avoided having children because it “makes you look 100 years old” when they become adults. Lagerfeld, who shed 90 pounds so he could wear slimmer clothing in his 60s, was often portrayed as eccentric for his rigorous diet and unusual behavior. He considered the shirt the most important fashion item defended Fendi’s use of fur against the protests of animal-rights activists and said that wearing sweatpants is a sign “you lost control of your life.” Vogue crowned him the “unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment” in 1997. 1 designer at Chanel, whose headquarters are two 18th-century buildings on Paris’s Rue Cambon. I had to go from what Chanel was to what it should be, could be, what it had been to something else.”Īn accomplished photographer who counted Helmut Newton and Andy Warhol as friends, Lagerfeld was the No. “What I do Coco would have hated,” Lagerfeld said in The World According to Karl, a 2013 book of his quotes. He set about reviving the French maker of perfume and accessories with a modern look on its ready-to-wear lines, helping it become one of the industry’s most successful companies.

The Paris-based fashion guru, who earned the nickname “Kaiser Karl” for an uncompromising approach to his work, joined Chanel in 1983, more than a decade after the death of founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. I think she’s absolutely divine.” ‘Kaiser Karl’ “If one is allowed to have a weakness for an actress, that is not a crime. Kidman is my favorite,” Lagerfeld said in a 2002 interview on Larry King Live.

The world according to karl book