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AFP
Paris
The fashion world was plunged into mourning on Tuesday by the death of legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld, the rapier-witted dandy who ruled over the industry for half a century.
Chanel, the iconic French fashion house he led for nearly four decades, confirmed his passing at the age of 85, prompting an unprecedented outpouring of emotion from designers and celebrities.
Speculation about the state of health of the man they called the “Kaiser” had been rife since he missed Chanel’s Paris haute couture week show last month, with the brand saying he “was tired”.
Lagerfeld left many younger creators in the dust well into his 80s, turning out collections season after season for Fendi and his own label, as well as Chanel.
With his powdered white pony tail, black sunglasses and starched high-collared white shirts, Lagerfeld was as instantly recognisable as his celebrity clients.
Lagerfeld’s friend, supermodel Linda Evangelista, said she was heartbroken, calling him the “great love of my life”.
- Creative stamina -In recent years the prolific German had visibly weakened, even if his extraordinary creative stamina showed little sign of flagging on the catwalk for the three brands he led. Friends had always said that the creator would die with a pencil in his hand, and just last week his own fashion line Karl Lagerfeld was still announcing new design collaborations.
Chanel said the reins of the $20-billion empire had been handed to Lagerfeld’s right-hand woman, his head of studio Virginie Viard.
The designer invited Viard on to the podium with him at the end of two Chanel shows last year to acknowledge how much he relied on a woman he called “my right and left hand” to transform his sketches into glittering reality. In a statement on Tuesday, Chanel said Lagerfeld was “an extraordinary creative individual... a prolific creative mind with endless imagination”.
His longtime muse, Ines de La Fressange, one of the world’s first supermodels, told said that he “never rested on his laurels, never doing the same thing twice.
“I saw him draw surrounded by 15 people. He was the opposite of the great couturier who had to suffer to create. He did nothing but work yet he refused to make it look like work,” she added.
Paris
The fashion world was plunged into mourning on Tuesday by the death of legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld, the rapier-witted dandy who ruled over the industry for half a century.
Chanel, the iconic French fashion house he led for nearly four decades, confirmed his passing at the age of 85, prompting an unprecedented outpouring of emotion from designers and celebrities.
Speculation about the state of health of the man they called the “Kaiser” had been rife since he missed Chanel’s Paris haute couture week show last month, with the brand saying he “was tired”.
Lagerfeld left many younger creators in the dust well into his 80s, turning out collections season after season for Fendi and his own label, as well as Chanel.
With his powdered white pony tail, black sunglasses and starched high-collared white shirts, Lagerfeld was as instantly recognisable as his celebrity clients.
Lagerfeld’s friend, supermodel Linda Evangelista, said she was heartbroken, calling him the “great love of my life”.
- Creative stamina -In recent years the prolific German had visibly weakened, even if his extraordinary creative stamina showed little sign of flagging on the catwalk for the three brands he led. Friends had always said that the creator would die with a pencil in his hand, and just last week his own fashion line Karl Lagerfeld was still announcing new design collaborations.
Chanel said the reins of the $20-billion empire had been handed to Lagerfeld’s right-hand woman, his head of studio Virginie Viard.
The designer invited Viard on to the podium with him at the end of two Chanel shows last year to acknowledge how much he relied on a woman he called “my right and left hand” to transform his sketches into glittering reality. In a statement on Tuesday, Chanel said Lagerfeld was “an extraordinary creative individual... a prolific creative mind with endless imagination”.
His longtime muse, Ines de La Fressange, one of the world’s first supermodels, told said that he “never rested on his laurels, never doing the same thing twice.
“I saw him draw surrounded by 15 people. He was the opposite of the great couturier who had to suffer to create. He did nothing but work yet he refused to make it look like work,” she added.
