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With talent, longevity and prolific output, Karl Lagerfeld did more than any other designer to shape the look of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Over six decades, five different brands (three at one time) and several collaborations, he has swept the zone from Paris to Dallas to Shanghai, dressing Hollywood, haute couture and the high street.
But why talk about when we can show it? Here are some of the most popular looks from almost all different career stages.
In the year In 1954, Mr. Lagerfeld, a German with no formal fashion training, won the coat category at the prestigious Wallmark Awards — a tough event that allowed him to work as an assistant to couturier Pierre Balmain, one of the judges. After three years at that atelier, while still in his 20s, Mr. Lagerfeld was named director of the Jean Patou brand founded in 1914, the founder known for liberating the female form and creating the perfume Joy.
There, Mr. Lagerfeld created 10 couture collections in five years, laying the groundwork for his own utility in working with petit networks and continuing his ability to happily venture within the confines of structured beauty.
In the year In 1966, Mr. Lagerfeld became the designer of Chloë, one of the first ready-to-wear brands in Paris, first with co-founder Gaby Aghion (whom he first brought in as a freelancer in 1964) before becoming sole designer in 1974. He returned from 1992 to 1997, remaining at the brand until 1983.
Mr. Lagerfeld’s debut at Chloé, a name synonymous with a certain femininity, may surprise many, as it plays with prints and surrealism. But it also reflected his ability to balance luxe elegance and wearability, with a business eye (he never saw “sale” as a dirty word). In the second, he fully embraced bohemianism, and set the tone for what was to come.
In the year The five Fendi sisters, who inherited their family hair business from their parents Adele and Edoardo in 1965, brought in Mr. Lagerfeld to design their ready-to-wear and hair collections.
You might think you’re getting a talented designer, but what you’ve actually got is a lifelong partnership. Anna Fendi’s daughter, Silvia Venturini Fendi, who grew up designing Fendi bags and menswear alongside Mr. Lagerfeld, remembers that even as a child, it was clear that “when Karl came,” something special was happening, and I understood. Pay attention.
Mr. Lagerfeld created the FF logo, which stood for the concept of “fun wool” (as well as Fendi), and then began shaving, dyeing, molding and changing other materials, as well as introducing capsules such as mole. Rabbit and squirrel to high fashion.
With a variety of references, including Fendi’s Roman roots and future, his work on the runway was equally experimental. In the year When LVMH bought the brand in 1999, Mr. Lagerfeld went with it, eventually pioneering the “haute fourrure” line (who’d heard of it before?) ready-to-wear, boldly pro-fur, and public sentiment changed, and other brands challenged the idea of wearing animal skin.
In the year In 1982, Mr. Lagerfeld got the job that would catapult him into the fashion stratosphere: artistic director of Chanel, a brand known at the time mainly for perfume and bourgeois handbags. Following an approach he summed up in the most questionable terms (“Chanel is an institution, and you have to treat an institution like a whore – and then you get something”), he offered a template for a moribund brand. An industry that is still in operation today.
The classic Chanel iconography – the camellia, the pearl, the Maltese cross, the buckle suit – with a high level of humor and irreverence, managed to make the brand a pop culture phenomenon, a symbol of classicism and a symbol of financial heroes. He helped create and popularize the traveling fashion scene, bringing runways to Salzburg, Edinburgh, Shanghai and Havana. I saw viral runway sets like a glacier (sculpted from part of a Swedish glacier), a supermarket and a rocket ship (which actually took off). He made small films with Nicole Kidman and Kristen Stewart; And ultimately helped bring the brand’s annual sales to over $11 billion.
Perhaps tired of working in a style established by others, in 1984, Mr. Lagerfeld founded his own eponymous line. Although it never reached the scale or fame of Chanel or Fendi, and went through several ownership changes, Lagerfeld’s brand reflected his personal style more than any of his other brands. Imagine rock ‘n’ roll with a Teutonic edge, filtered through a monochromatic lens, and you get the idea.
In the year In 2004, Mr. Lagerfeld became the first couture designer to collaborate with a mass-market brand when he signed on to create an H&M collection. First the fashion world was shocked, then fascinated, and after Karl’s line of all-black dresses, portraits and LBDs sold out in seconds, a new genre and approach was born.
Anna Grace Lee And Callie Holterman Contribution reporting.
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