Who is Karl Lagerfeld? A Look into the Life of a Fashion Icon

Publish date: 2024-06-26

Karl Otto Lagerfeld was a German fashion designer, creative director, artist, and photographer. He was born in September 1933 and pἀssed away on February 19, 2019.

Lagerfeld entered the fashion industry in the 1950s and has since worked for Balmain, Patou, and Chloé in addition to joining Chanel in 1983. From 1983 until his deἀth in 2001, he served as Chanel’s creative director, a position in which he was responsible for all of the company’s artistic endeavors.

He had a crucial role in reviving the Chanel name and restoring the company to its former prominence as a global leader in the fashion industry. In addition to running his own namesake fashion label, Karl Lagerfeld also oversaw creative direction for the Italian fur and leather goods business Fendi.

He worked with several talented artists and fashion designers over his career. The fashion business and designers all around the world owe a great deal to Lagerfeld, whose legacy and vision endure.

Where was Karl Lagerfeld Born?

Lagerfeld was born to Elisabeth (née Bahlmann) and Otto Lagerfeld, a businessman, on September 10, 1933, in Hamburg. His maternal grandfather, Karl Bahlmann, was a local politician for the Catholic Centre Party, and his father owned a business that produced and imported evaporated milk.

Lagerfeld frequently lied about his age and family history, even saying he was born in a different year. He said his parents were “Elisabeth of Germany” and “Otto Ludwig Lagerfeldt” from Sweden, and that he was born in 1938. These rumors have been debunked once and for all by the fact that his father was born and raised in Germany, not Sweden.

Elisabeth Bahlmann, his mother, was the daughter of a middle-class local politician, but there is no evidence that she ever identified as “Elisabeth of Germany.” He always claimed that nobody knew his actual birthday. Lagerfeld said he was born “neither in 1933 nor 1938” during a television interview in France in February 2009.

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Karl Lagerfeld Controversies

Lagerfeld’s career was marked by numerous controversies, including accusations that he was fatphobic, anti-Islam, and opposed the Me Too movement. Despite apologies from the designer and the fashion brand, Lagerfeld’s inclusion of a phrase from the Qur’an in his spring 1994 couture collection for Chanel caused great controversy.

The Indonesian Muslim Scholars Council in Jakarta threatened to register formal protests with the government of Lagerfeld’s native Germany after the 1994 couture presentation in Paris. The artist expressed regret and explained that he had misread the source material regarding the Taj Mahal and stolen the design and the phrases from a love poem.

Karl Lagerfeld Personal Life

White hair, black eyeglasses, fingerless gloves, and high, starched, detachable collars were Lagerfeld trademarks.

Lagerfeld claimed that his 18-year friendship with the French aristocrat, model, and socialite Jacques de Bascher (1951-1989) was strictly platonic. “I infinitely loved that boy,” Lagerfeld was quoted as saying about de Bascher. “but I had no physical contact with him.”

His physical attractiveness naturally captivated me. Furthermore, De Bascher had an affair with couturier Yves Saint-Laurent, prompting Saint-Laurent’s former lover and business partner Pierre Bergé to accuse Lagerfeld of plotting to bring down the rival fashion house. Lagerfeld stayed on a cot by De Bascher’s side in the hospital room where he died from AIDS in 1989.

Tabloids said that after Lagerfeld’s deἀth, his ash*s were going to be combined with those of de Bascher and his mother’s urn.

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