The childhood? That was "the biggest waste of my life," Karl Lagerfeld once said, he just wanted to grow up quickly.
In 1933 he was born as the second child of a canned milk manufacturer and his wife Elisabeth in Hamburg-Blankenese, at that time he was still called Lagerfeldt with "dt", the "t" he will later delete, for aesthetic reasons.
Most of his first years are spent on Gut Bissenmoor near Bad Bramstedt, where the Lagerfeldts are waiting for the end of the Second World War. Instead of playing with peers, the boy crawls into the attic, as he will tell later, when he is already famous. There he rummaged in old editions of the satirical magazine "Simplicissimus". Especially the drawings of Olaf Gulbransson and Thomas Theodor Heines fascinate him. He is a loner, he wants to be a cartoonist.
DPA
Maybe he finds on the paper a lightness that distracts him from the strict family home. The father? "A dear man", but mainly busy with his "lucky clover" milk GmbH. The mother? Even 42, when she finally brings the desired heir to the world. The relationship remains distanced throughout life. "She did not feel like kidding, you had to say something adult," the son will remember later, as he always wears his parents' wedding rings on a necklace.
"Germany, let's forget, you have to get out of here."
The little Karl follows the guidelines, develops a taste for tailor-made, tie and monocle. He also wears a braid, which does not go down well with one of his teachers.
At the age of 18, his mother takes him to Paris for the first time. Then it is clear to him: Here he wants to live. Back home he breaks school but studies French fluently. In 1953 he moved to the Seine with his mother, his father stays with the company in Germany. Karl tries to catch up with the Abitur at a private school. It does not work. But he can draw, finds work as a fashion illustrator. Money is not a problem, it comes from Germany.
The rise to become one of the most famous fashion designers in the world begins with the design of a black camel hair coat, with which the 21-year-old Lagerfeld won a prize in 1954 from the International Wool Secretariat. Another youngster wins in the category "evening gown": Yves Saint-Laurent, then 18. The two will remain rivals for a lifetime.
Lagerfeld gets from the mother a cream-colored Mercedes Benz Cabriolet 190 SL, with which he drives almost to death, which is why he can later only chauffeured: Rolls Royce in the country, Bentley in the city.
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Karl Lagerfeld: His life in picturesThe coat and the tailor Lagerfeld are made by Pierre Balmain. Even the more fashionable Cristobal Balenciaga wants to win the young talent for his studio, but Karl is "not so impressed by him". The training leads him to haute couture, hand-crafted custom clothing for the jet set. Soon, however, the young designer has "fed up with being an assistant". He does not feel born for that.
At 25 he becomes Artistic Director with Jean Patou. This is followed by stops at Mario Valentino and Krizia - less haute couture, more ready-to-wear. Then he changes to Chloé as Artistic Director.
After initial criticism, the press soon celebrates him as the "Century Herald Tribune". Overall, he works 34 years for the label. Incidentally, he creates his first perfume and the fur collections for Fendi, founds his first own company and works freely for various fashion houses.
In Paris Lagerfeld also finds the love of his life: Jaques de Bascher, a great seducer and manipulator who is at least equal in vanity and dandyism: "He was the most elegant Frenchman I have ever known."
18 years they are a couple, allegedly without sex. De Bascher is well-known for his promiscuity, and Lagerfeld-financed "Moratoire Noire" are considered SM soirees with up to 1500 guests. An affair of Bascher with Yves Saint Laurent, whom he once locked in a closet, leads to lifelong enmity between the two fashion makers.
Lagerfeld always keeps away from wild sex and drugs, he assures. "I'm very virtuous, but I found Jacque's adventure entertaining," he says once.
His lover is infected with HIV in the 1980s. Lagerfeld remains at his side, accompanying him to the end.
Chief Designer "for life"
Lagerfeld supplies high performance at this time. Since 1983, he has been the creative director of Chanel, which at that time was in a serious crisis. Lagerfeld's variations on the classic Chanel costume bring the turn, decorating it with rhinestones and pearls: old but sexy.
Soon he will be responsible as head designer "for life" all lines of the house. He always shows new ideas, but always based on the style of Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971). Today it is the most famous luxury brand in the world.
There is no standstill, Lagerfeld would not stand it. He designs at least twelve women's collections a year, often more. A workaholic in the pose of a creative Sisyphus: "I'm a fashion nymphomaniac that never reaches orgasm."
Even as a photographer, he succeeds, first begins to scan his own models, later he also works for magazines and published art books. With success: The images of Muse Claudia Schiffer, Princess Caroline of Monaco or pop artist Jeff Koons make Lagerfeld known as a photographer. Later he works regularly with the publisher Gerhard Steidl, who publishes his books in the LSD-Verlag (Lagerfeld, Steidl, Druckerei Verlag).
The designer also adds to his fame by changing to the eccentric provocateur, who always reinvents himself. At the turn of the millennium - his colleague Hedi Slimane has just set the slimfit trend at Dior with his ultra-slim silhouette - the rather heavy-weight fashion designer decrees a new look. Within weeks, he starves 40 kilos down, he wants to be an "ideal hanger" for the designs Slimanes.
Swiping at celebrities
Lagerfeld is hard on himself and on others. He lives by the motto: "I'm only interested in my own opinion." He distributes page swings against celebrities ("Heidi Klum, who is that?") And competitors from Jil Sander to Wolfgang Joop ("International does not know him"). This earns him the reputation of "Karl Lästerfeld". No subject is safe from him: love, life, art, politics - he spreads his opinion on every topic.
In the year before his death he tells the French magazine "Le Point" that he "hates" Angela Merkel for her refugee policy. She wanted to "gain a better image as a pastor's daughter" with their decision to "take in" a million immigrants in Germany, but thus the AfD 2018 paved the way to the Bundestag. Now, "100 of these neo-Nazis sit in parliament" because Merkel "forgot" German history.
Lagerfeld never needs many friends, he does not value family relationships. He has seven godchildren, of whom only two seem to be interested.
After de Bascher's death, there are always men in his life, but as he is he is no longer anyone. Baptiste Giabiconi has long accompanied him as a male muse. There are also rumors about him and his bodyguard Sébastien Jondeau. "It's more than friendship," says Lagerfeld only.
Presumably, Lagerfeld simply buys proximity when he feels like it. "I only like high class escorts", the gala once quotes him. Most of the time he is probably alone, apart from his servants. Three of them - two maids and a personal chef - are all there for Choupette, "the most famous cat in the world".
Lagerfeld's Burma cat is probably the only living thing allowed to go to bed for a long time. During his visits to Lagerfeld for his biography, the social reporter Paul Sahner once noticed that the beds are very narrow. In an interview, Sahner reminds himself, "Then I asked him how to sleep with two of them, and he said that he hates having to sleep with a person in a bed at all." He does not want to see what the morning looks like and he should not see what he looks like. "
Because he is the man with the snow-white hair. The slinky dandy in skintight black pants (by Stouls in the Rue Mont Thabor) and white shirt with a father's collar (copied from the French philosopher Henri Bergson). The star, who hides his face behind a fan, later behind a pair of sunglasses. Celebrated in magazines, talk shows and TV documentaries, jack of all trades for Volkswagen, Cola-Light or the television channel Sky, fashion designer and photographer. He is called "genius", "Charlemagne" or simply as "emperor".
Now he is dead, died in Paris at the age of 85 - he would have corrected himself: 83 years to make himself younger. He was the most important German fashion designer, an icon during his lifetime, a representative of the world of the beautiful and the rich, always styled to the top product. "I am a living label," Karl Lagerfeld called this perhaps the best of his designs.