|
|
|
|
| Birth Name(s) : Karl Lagerfeld |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
|
Partner:
|
| Profession:
N/A |
| << Add Karl Lagerfeld To Your Favorites |
|
Full Karl Lagerfeld Biography
Karl-Otto Lagerfeld was born 10 September 1933 in Hamburg, although Lagerfeld has long asserted that he was born in 1938. The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag has quoted his former teacher and classmates as confirming the earlier date. His older sister, Martha Christiane (a.k.a. Christel), was born first in 1931. Lagerfeld also has an older half-sister, Thea, from his father's first marriage. His original name was Lagerfeldt (with the "t"), but later changed it to Lagerfeld as "it sounds more commercial."
Though Lagerfeld has stated that his father was Swedish, journalist Alicia Drake in "The Beautiful Fall" (Little, Brown, 2006) established that Karl's father, Otto Lagerfeld, who made his fortune introducing condensed milk to Germany, was indeed German. According to Drake, Lagerfeld's mother, the former Elisabeth Bahlmann, was a lingerie saleswoman in Berlin when she met her husband and married him in 1930.
Karl Lagerfeld emigrated to Paris in 1953. In 1955, at the age of 22, Lagerfeld was awarded a position as an apprentice at Pierre Balmain, after winning a competition for a coat sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat. He told a reporter a few years later, "I won on coats, but actually I like designing coats least of all. What I really love are little black dresses." Yves Saint Laurent also won the contest for a dress award. "Yves was working for Dior. Other young people I knew were working for Balenciaga, whom they thought was God, but I wasn't so impressed," he recalled in 1976..
His skirts for the Spring 1960 season were the shortest in Paris, and the collection was not well received. Carrie Donovan said it "looked like clever and immensely salable ready-to-wear, not couture." And in his Fall 1960 collection he designed special little hats, pancake shaped circles of satin, which hung on the cheek. He called them "slaps in the face." Karl's collection were said to be well received, but were not groundbreaking. "I became bored there, too, and I quit and tried to go back to school, but that didn't work, so I spent two years mostly on beaches – I guess I studied life."
After leaving Patou in 1962, he immediately launched himself as a freelance designer, working with brands such as Mario Valentino, Repetto, and the supermarket chain Monoprix.
With money from his wealthy family, he set up a small shop in Paris. At this time, he would often consult with Madame Zereakian, Christian Dior's Turkish fortune teller. Lagerfeld later said, "She told me I'd succeed in fashion and perfume."
In 1963 he began designing for Tiziani, a Roman couture house founded that year by a man named Evan Richards (b. 1924) of Jacksboro, Texas. It began as couture and then branched out into ready-to-wear, bearing the label "Tiziani-Roma -- Made in England." Lagerfeld and Richards sketched the first collection in 1963 together. "When they wound up with 90 outfits, Tiziani threw caution and invitations to the winds, borrowed Catherine the Great's jewels from Harry Winston, and opened his salon with a three-night wingding," according to one report in 1969. Lagerfeld designed for the company until 1969. Elizabeth Taylor was a fan of the label (she referred to Evan as "Evan Tiziani") and began wearing it in August 1966. Gina Lollobrigida, Doris Duke and Principessa Borghese were also customers while Lagerfeld was designing the line. He was replaced in 1969 with Guy Douvier.
In 1964 he began freelancing for Chloe in Paris, which would become one of his most important positions. At first he designed just a few pieces a season, but he eventually began designing the whole collection.
His Chloe collection for Spring 1973 (shown in October 1972) garnered headlines for offering something both "high fashion and high camp." He showed loose Spencer jackets and printed silk shirt jackets. He designed something he called a "surprise" skirt, which was ankle-length, pleated silk, so loose that it hid the fact it was actually pants. "It seems that wearing these skirts is an extraordinary sensation," he told a report at the time. He also designed a look inspired by Carmen Miranda, which consisted of minibra dresses with very short skirts, and long dresses with bra tops and scarf shawls.
At the time, he had also been maintaining a design contract with the Japanese firm Isetan, to create collections for both men and women through 30 licenses; had a lingerie line in the US, produced by Eve Stillmann; was designing shoes for Charles Jourdan, sweaters for Ballantyne, and worked with Trevira as a fashion adviser.
He has produced legendary pieces like the shower-dress, with beaded water streaming down the front; a car-dress with a radiator grille and fender, and a multitude of outstandingly eccentric hats.
Lagerfeld, along with Calvin Klein, was the target of a pieing by PETA in 2001 at a fashion premiere at Lincoln Center in New York City
The designer was also the subject of a French reality series called Signé Chanel in 2005. The show covered the creation of his Fall/Winter 2004-2005 Chanel couture collection. It aired on Sundance Channel in the United States during the fall of 2006.
On December 18, 2006, Karl Lagerfeld announced the launch of a new collection for men and women dubbed K Karl Lagerfeld. The collection will include fitted T-shirts and a wide range of jeans. |
|
|
| Add Karl Lagerfeld Biography (SuperUSERS) + |
| Add Karl Lagerfeld Review/Comment
|
| << Back to the Karl Lagerfeld Homepage |
|
