New biographies, a six-part series with Daniel Brühl and a biopic in which US actor Jared Leto slips into the role of the legendary fashion tsar: Since Karl Lagerfeld’s death more than four years ago, books and films about him have piled up. They are retrospectives and insights into the life of one of the most media-effective, but also most mysterious fashion designers. Lagerfeld would have been 90 years old on September 10th.
White braid, sunglasses and a starched collar: Lagerfeld had stylized himself into an artificial figure and a myth. But who was the real Lagerfeld really? A question that many have been asking since the death on February 19, 2019.
“Lagerfeld had lied about almost everything”
Born in Hamburg, he had always tried to fend off books about his life. In France, for example, the first biography “Kaiser Karl” by Raphaëlle Bacqué was only published three and a half months after his death. Others followed, such as “Karl” by the French Marie Ottavi and “Karl Lagerfeld. A German in Paris” by the German journalist Alfons Kaiser. They revealed surprises. Lagerfeld had lied about almost everything to do with his nationality.
Arriving in Paris at the age of 19, he pretended to be Scandinavian. Germans were not welcomed in post-war France. His father, Otto Lagerfeld, was neither a Danish nor a Swedish baron, but an entrepreneur and founder of the Glücksklee milk brand, who did business with the Nazis, whose party his mother also joined. Lagerfeld also denied the year of his birth for a long time. He wasn’t born in 1938, but in 1933, the year the Nazis came to power.
In late May, Britain’s BBC aired Michael Waldman’s documentary “The Mysterious Mr. Lagerfeld.” The award-winning director brings his friends and enemies in front of the camera. The film also focuses on testimonies from Baptiste Giabiconi, model, musician and once the designer’s muse. The 33-year-old Frenchman tells, among other things, that he had planned adoptions with him, but they failed due to too much bureaucracy.
Giabiconi starred in many of Lagerfeld’s advertising campaigns and became close to Lagerfeld in his later years. But they were not intimate, as he told the filmmaker. Alongside Choupette, the cat whom Lagerfeld adores, Giabiconi is among the potential heirs to the designer’s vast fortune, whose will has yet to be executed. Giabiconi gave the designer the white Birman cat in 2011.
The extravagant private life of Emperor Karl
In “Paradise Now. The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld” William Middleton sheds light on Lagerfeld’s extravagant private life. The author worked as a journalist for several American fashion magazines in Paris, where he met the designer. Lagerfeld was therefore as lavish as his catwalks were spectacular. At a dinner buffet for 900 people in his Paris apartment, the guests are said to have been served by waitresses in the style of the 18th century – with white wigs, red trousers and buckled shoes.
Middleton elaborates on Lagerfeld’s tumultuous relationship with Jacques de Bascher, the love of his life. The French dandy, who died of complications from AIDS in 1989, cheated on Lagerfeld with colleague and rival Yves Saint Laurent.
The long-standing relationship between Lagerfeld and de Bascher is said to have been purely platonic. In an interview with the American lifestyle magazine Vice, Lagerfeld said of his relationships with men: “I don’t like sleeping with people I really love. I don’t want to sleep with them because sex can’t last.”
Two film projects in the distant future
The French mini-series “Kaiser Karl”, as admirers and critics called him, is expected to appear in 2024. It is inspired by the biography of the same name by journalist Raphaëlle Bacqué. As the streaming Disney + announced, the German actor Daniel Brühl will slip into the role of the master.
The story begins in the summer of 1972 and traces Karl Lagerfeld’s quest to succeed Coco Chanel, who had died the year before and was the most successful French couturier at the time. During this period, Yves Saint Laurent was the biggest personality in the fashion industry.
According to Bacqué’s biography, Lagerfeld is said to have eliminated all those who stood in his way in his career. It remains to be seen which spotlight the series will throw on Lagerfeld. More than 2200 extras and 3000 costumes should be on display.
There is no release date for the Lagerfeld biopic with Jared Leto. The American actor first announced the cinematic biography in autumn 2022 in the fashion magazine Women’s Wear Daily. The film aims to deal with key relationships in Karl Lagerfeld’s life. (dpa)