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The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld died in Paris at the age of 85, sources confirmed Chanel.
Chanel's artistic director had seemed more and more fragile in recent seasons and would have had health problems in recent weeks.
For the first time in decades, Lagerfeld did not show up at Chanel's couture show in Paris in January, which the company attributes to its fatigue.
Rest in peace: Karl Lagerfeld died in France at age 85, according to Paris Match magazine
Lagerfeld – nicknamed "Karl Kaiser" and & # 39; Fashion Meister & # 39; – appreciated the stature of a god among the mortals in the fashion world, where he remained at the top for more than half a century and until his death.
Son of a German mother and a Swedish father, born in Hamburg, he left his country of origin for France and the capital of fashion – Paris – at the age of 20 years. He is best known for his badociation with Chanel, which dates back to 1983.
But Lagerfeld, who simultaneously created collections for Fendi of LVMH and his eponymous label – an unprecedented feat for fashion – was almost a brand in itself.
He wore dark suits, white hair, ponytail hair and tinted sunglbades that made him instantly recognizable. An unthinking mind was also part of a carefully crafted character.
"I'm like a caricature of myself and I love it," launches a legendary quote attributed to him that is often recycled to represent the person he loved to play with. "It's like a mask. And for me, the carnival of Venice lasts all year.
His artistic instincts, sharp business acumen and ego combine to create a triumphant commercial effect in the rarefied world of haute couture, where he is revered and feared in the same way by his competitors and his big models.
The designer has mingled with the young and fashionable until the end, by badociating with the Kaia Gerber Footbridge, aged 17, daughter of Cindy Crawford, for a collaboration published by its brand Karl Lagerfeld in 2018.
Her cat, Choupette, has also evolved with the times: White-haired Burmese, described by her social media hosts as "Karl Otto Lagerfeld's daughter," has more than 100,000 followers on the Instagram photo network and a publishing contract.
Yet Lagerfeld also stands out as a craftsman. An accomplished photographer, he draws his own drawings by hand, a phenomenon that is increasingly rare in fashion. Behind the facade, he was known for his erudition and penchant for literature, and devoured the daily life of the world's leading newspapers.
Although he had long enjoyed scrambling the investigators by citing different years of birth, the one that was deemed the most reliable is September 10, 1933.
He spent his early childhood away from the war in the 1200-acre family estate in Bavaria and had a tutor in French.
The big breakthrough comes shortly after his move to Paris. In 1954, he designed a wool coat that won an award and offered him an apprenticeship with designer Pierre Balmain.
Yves Saint Laurent, who then founded his eponymous label, won the dress award. The two became ferocious competitors and even love rivals at one point, chasing the affections of late Parisian society, Jacques de Bascher.
Died in 2008, Saint Laurent became the cherished child of high society and Lagerfeld at the head of a group of younger and wilder children.
He first experienced real success in the mid-1960s with Chloe, the fashion brand that now belongs to the Swiss company Richemont and to which it was intermittently connected until 1997.
But it was Chanel who propelled him to the status of rock star, while he has baded the brand and he has strengthened his profile with grand parades. During the past year, it was a large-scale beach and a huge replica of a ship.
Lagerfeld was as severe with his models as he was severely critical of those he considered "not fashionable".
He fired his best friend, former model Chanel Inès de la Fressange, in 1999 after agreeing to pose as Marianne, national symbol of France, without asking him beforehand.
From time to time, his acute tongue fanned controversy, although he also had the flair for a good sentence.
"I am a kind of fashion nymphomaniac who has never bad," he said in 1984, asking what he felt after a fashion show.
In 2012, he said about the singer Adele: "She is a bit too big, but she has a beautiful face and a voice divine".
After the 2011 royal wedding between the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge, he said that Kate had a "beautiful figure", but that her sister Pippa Middleton "struggled".
"I do not like the face of the sister. She should only show him back.
When speaking about Russia, he said: "If I were a woman in Russia, I would be a bad, because men are very ugly."
Lagerfeld, who worked as a draftsman in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, took a look at Chancellor Angela Merkel's stance in a sketch in 2017 in a skit accusing her of helping a party. from the far right to win seats in parliament.
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