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Karl Lagerfeld once created a hypermarket-sized ‘Chanel Shopping Centre’ to show off his ready-to-wear collection. It featured aisle upon aisle of luxury foods labelled ‘one for the price of two’.
Immediately after models had paraded through the aisles, guests raided the shelves. Singer Rihanna posed in a shopping cart and actress Keira Knightley looked on amazed.
“Luxury should be worn like you’re going to the supermarket. It’s the pop art of the 21st century,” Karl said, his eyes barely visible behind his enigmatic shades.
The show was the type of presentation that came to define much of Karl’s six-decade career at the top of fashion.
When Chanel fell into decline following Coco Chanel’s death in the 1970s, its new owners looked for a larger-than-life designer to wake up the house from its creative coma. The German-born Karl, a contemporary of Yves Saint Laurent with a strict ponytail and tight collar, was just the man.
As Chanel creative director from 1983 until his death last week, he quickly transformed the house into a billion-dollar industry leader, a position it retains today.
Karl, who had been poached from Chloe, used his creative scalpel to modernise the house’s signature skirt suits and tweed in the 1980s as the house expanded internationally, opening some 40 boutiques around the world in that decade.
His work ethic was legendary. Beyond Chanel, he also began working with Italian fashion house Fendi in 1965 and held the top job at the LVMH-owned brand since 1977.
Yet Karl will be remembered as much for his showmanship, eccentric personality and acid tongue as for his youthful designs.
Donning sunglasses and gloves, he evolved into ‘Kaiser Karl’ – a nickname that referred to his demanding character, put-downs and uncompromising standards.
“Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants,” he once declared.
The sheer ambition of his fashion shows was legendary, and they became especially influential in an age in which images are beamed around the world at the click of a button.
His Chanel collections were invariably the biggest on the Paris Fashion Week calendar. Chanel, it was said, put the ‘show’ in fashion show.
Karl was also an anachronism, dressing in a punk, baroque-style and defying political correctness almost proudly.
He got into hot water for calling singer Adele ‘a little too fat’. In another interview, he created a furore by criticising reality TV celebrity Kim Kardashian as being too flashy with her money in Paris following her 2016 robbery. Despite the sharp remarks, Karl remained surprisingly warm in person and always kept a sparkle in his eye. Jokes were delivered with a smile, even when they were clearly derogatory.
Evidence of his generous spirit could be seen in his relationships with reporters. Well into his 80s, he was unique in Paris for holding interviews for over an hour following each Chanel show. He would flit seamlessly between English, French, Italian and his native German.
The love of his life, his cat Choupette, was also testament to his kind, if eccentric, heart. He wore her likeness as a pendant at one show and acknowledged that she had at least two maids.
She is spoiled, ‘much more than a child could be’, he said in 2013, revealing that he took her to the vet nearly every 10 days. Like a proud parent, Karl told a magazine that Choupette earned more than $3 million in 2014 alone for advertising campaigns.
In recent seasons, Karl looked increasingly frail. When he failed to take his usual bow at the house’s January couture collection, sadness filled the faces of fashion writers, some of whom had grown grey covering his long career.
Milan Fashion Week has proved to be a running tribute to Karl. French designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac, who made his debut as creative director for the iconic Italian knitwear fashion company Benetton, said he hoped to emulate at Benetton what Karl did at Fendi and Chanel: keep himself in the background ‘to reveal the DNA of the houses’.
