Karl Lagerfeld has influenced fashion for more than half a century. He revitalized tweed jackets with ribbons and fringes, combined haute couture dresses with sneakers, discovered future top models, made Claudia Schiffer and later his male muse Baptiste Giabiconi stars and created his own legend. Five years after the Hamburg native’s death on February 19, 2019, more and more books and documentaries are now providing new insights into his life.
‘Karl Lagerfeld: Révélation’ is the name of the latest documentary that was broadcast in France on Canal+ a few weeks ago. It consists of four parts, each lasting just under 45 minutes. Hardly enough for the fashion guru, who died at the age of 85. Because Lagerfeld was a fashion czar, photographer, filmmaker, publisher – and above all, an enigma. Playing with truth and lies, he spent his life reinventing himself. But why?
Different than others
“It seemed essential and natural to me not to be like the others” and “I’m just selling a facade”: quotes from Lagerfeld that begin the four-part documentary. Extensive archive material and the statements of numerous former employees, journalists, models and friends were used to learn more about the life of the couturier with his white powdered ponytail, which was hidden behind his sunglasses throughout his life.
Much of Lagerfeld’s life, who chose France and Paris as his adopted home, was shed new light in the documentary, starting with his childhood, which was already different from that of others. He didn’t play with his classmates of the same age in the schoolyard, but rather drew portraits and dresses for the girls, which is why he was teased early on. As a teenager, he was accompanied on the way home by older students to avoid being beaten up by his classmates.
Even in Paris, where he came in 1952, he isolated himself from the others. In the city of fashion, he spent most of his free time walking the streets of the capital and going to the cinema to work on his French pronunciation. He learned his craft based on the principle of learning by doing, through practice. What followed is well known: a fashion career that he initially began at Balmain, Patou and Chloé before moving to Chanel in 1983, where he designed his dreamy haute couture creations until 2019.
Mother as a key figure
Archive images show a close resemblance between him and his mother Elisabeth, who died in 1978, a key figure in his life. He got his sayings from her. “You look like me, only less good,” she had told him. He also learned to speak quickly because of her. “If you want to talk to me, make an effort or be quiet. Your nonsense doesn’t deserve more time, so speak faster,” he continues quoting her.
Throughout his life he harbored doubts about his age and his origins. We now know that he was born on September 10, 1933, the year the Nazis came to power, and not 1938, a date that was long circulated. As proof of this, the documentary had both the correctly dated birth announcement and the birth certificate in which the second 3 from 1933 was cleverly changed to an 8. Who changed the date remains unclear in the film.
Germans were not welcome in post-war France, which is why Lagerfeld did not want to identify with part of his parents’ past. His father was neither a Danish nor a Swedish baron, but the wealthy founder of the milk brand ‘Glücksklee’, who had worked with the Nazis to keep his business. His mother Elisabeth, a district administrator’s daughter from Münsterland, initially joined the party out of conviction, probably out of enthusiasm for its idea of order, before she is said to have changed her mind in 1941.
A lot was revealed in the documentary, but just as much remains a secret, including his sex life. In an interview with the American lifestyle magazine “Vice,” Lagerfeld said: “I don’t like sleeping with people I really love. I don’t want to sleep with them because sex can’t last.”
The French mini-series ‘Kaiser Karl’ is expected to appear on Disney+ this year with German actor Daniel Brühl in the role of the fashion maestro. As the American streaming service announced, the story begins in the summer of 1972 and is about Lagerfeld’s desire to become the successor to Coco Chanel, who died the year before, then the most successful French fashion designer.
Canadian actor Théodore Pellerin will take on the role of Jacques de Bascher, who is said to have been Lagerfeld’s only great love. The French dandy, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1989, cheated on Lagerfeld with his colleague and rival Yves Saint Laurent. The relationship between the two is said to have been turbulent. Lagerfeld has always remained silent about this. (dpa)