"Embrace the present and invent the future"
Karl Lagerfeld may be gone, but he will never be forgotten. His legacy looms large over the fashion industry, with designers offering homages this season and his final Chanel collection was presented on Tuesday, March 5th, at the Grand Palais.
Karl Otto Lagerfeld (September 10, 1933 - February 19, 2019) was a German creative director, fashion designer, artist, photographer, and caricaturist who lived in Paris. He was known as the creative director of the French fashion house Chanel, a position he held from 1983 until his death, and was also creative director of the Italian fur and leather goods fashion house Fendi, and of his own fashion label. he collaborated on a variety of fashion and art-related projects. He was recognized for his signature white hair, black sunglasses, fingerless gloves and high collars.
As a child, he showed great interest in visual arts, and former schoolmates recalled that he was always making sketches "no matter what we were doing in class". Lagerfeld told in interviews that he learned much more by constantly visiting the Kunsthalle Hamburg museum than he ever did in school. His greatest inspiration came from French artists, and he claimed to have only continued school in order to learn French language so that he could move there. Lagerfeld finished his secondary school at the Lycée Montaigne in Paris, where he majored in drawing and history.
Following health complications in January 2019, Lagerfeld was admitted to the American Hospital of Paris in Parisian suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine on February 18th. He died there the following morning from complications of pancreatic cancer. Lagerfeld requested no formal funeral with plans for cremation and ashes spread at secret locations along side his mother as well as his late partner, Jacques de Bascher.
