Legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld dies at the age of 85

The creative director of Chanel was believed to be unwell after he missed a haute couture show in January

The annual Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute ball, better known as the Met Gala or Met Ball, has unveiled the theme for its 2023 event — and it's in honour of late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. Photo: Net-a-Porter

Lagerfeld at the Chanel spring/summer haute couture show in 2009. Reuters

Lagerfeld with model Stella Tennant during Chanel's Metiers d'Art show in 2011. Reuters

A look from the Chanel haute couture autumn/winter show for 2015-2016, designed by Lagerfeld. Photo: Chanel

A behind-the-scenes look at Chanel’s autumn/winter haute couture 2016-2017 collection by Lagerfeld. Photo: Olivier Saillant

A model during the Chanel haute couture autumn/winter 2018-2019 show. Getty Images

A beachside setting was built in central Paris for Lagerfeld's spring/summer 2019 collection for Chanel. Photo: Chanel

Lagerfeld with models after a show in 2011. Stephen Lock for The National

Stella Tennant wears a look by Lagerfeld for Chanel's 1997 autumn/winter haute couture collection. AFP

Models wearing tweed and plastic heads walk the runway in Chanel's spring/summer 2017 collection. Photo: Chanel

Lagerfeld with Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell at the finale of his Chanel 1997 spring/summer show in Paris. AP

Cara Delevingne wears a look from Lagerfeld's autumn/winter 2019-2020 collection for Chanel. EPA

Pink was prominent in Lagerfeld's Chanel cruise collection 2018. Getty Images

Model Antonina Vasylchenko wears Look 42 at the Chanel 2014 spring/summer haute couture show in Paris. Photo: Chanel

At the age of 21, Lagerfeld won first prize in the coat category at the Fashion Design Competition in Paris, on December 11, 1954. Getty Images

Lagerfeld is seen with model Ines de la Fressange in this photo taken on March 13, 1987. AFP

Lagerfeld in France, circa 1960. Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

In 1983, Lagerfeld joined Chanel as its chief artistic director. A year later, on March 5, 1984, he completed his haute couture collection in the Chanel studio on rue Cambon in Paris. Getty Images

Lagerfeld in 1958. Getty Images

The designer with two models, circa 1984. Getty Images

Lagerfeld and model Lily-Rose Depp after Chanel's haute couture show in January 2017. EPA

Lagerfeld with model Cara Delevingne, one of his many muses, at Paris Fashion Week in 2014. Getty Images

Model Kendall Jenner and Lagerfeld at the Chanel show in Paris in 2015. Photo: Olivier Saillant

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative designer of Chanel, Fendi and his own label, died in Paris on Tuesday. He was 85.

The German-born designer's health had been the subject of speculation for some time, after Lagerfeld missed the final bow for the first time at Chanel's haute couture show last month.

"Mr Lagerfeld, artistic director of Chanel, who was feeling tired, asked Virginie Viard, director of the creative studio of the house of Chanel, to represent him," an official said at the time.

Lagerfeld's death was confirmed by Chanel, who credited the designer with "reinventing the brand’s codes created by Gabrielle Chanel".

“Thanks to his creative genius, generosity and exceptional intuition, Karl Lagerfeld was ahead of his time, which widely contributed to the house of Chanel's success throughout the world," said the label's chief executive, Alain Wertheimer.

"Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand.”

Viard, Lagerfeld’s closest collaborator for more than 30 years, will continue the legacy of Chanel and Lagerfeld, Mr Wertheimer said.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH, which owns Fendi, called Lagerfeld "a creative genius who helped to make Paris the fashion capital of the world".

"We owe him a great deal. His taste and talent were the most exceptional I have ever known," Mr Arnault said.

"I will always remember his immense imagination, his ability to conceive new trends for every season, his inexhaustible energy, the virtuosity of his drawings, his carefully guarded independence, his encyclopaedic culture, and his unique wit and eloquence."

Lagerfeld, who also worked as a photographer and artist, was born in Hambury in 1933, the son of a businessman and his wife, and first moved to Paris as a schoolboy.

He broke into the fashion industry as assistant to Pierre Balmain after winning a design competition in 1954, and later worked at Jean Patou and Chloe.

He was best known for his association with France's Chanel, starting in1983.

The brand, the legend says, was at risk of becoming the preserve of rich older women before he arrived. He slashed hemlines and added glitz to the prim tweed suits of what is now one of the world's most valuable couture houses.

The designer mingled with the young and trendy until the last, pairing up with 17-year-old catwalk darling Kaia Gerber, daughter of Cindy Crawford, for a collaboration released by his Karl Lagerfeld brand in 2018.

His cat Choupette moved with the times too. The white-haired Birman, described by her social network minders as "daughter of Karl Otto Lagerfeld", has more than 100,000 Instagram photo-network followers and a publishing deal.

The man behind the glasses

Lagerfeld, who simultaneously churned out collections for LVMH's Fendi and his eponymous label – a feat unheard of in fashion – was almost a brand in his own right.

Sporting dark suits, white, pony-tailed hair and tinted sunglasses in his later years that made him instantly recognisable, an irreverent wit was also part of a carefully crafted persona.

"I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that," runs one quote attributed to him, and often recycled to convey the person he liked to play. "It is like a mask. And for me the Carnival of Venice lasts all year long."

Armed with an acerbic wit, Lagerfeld often found himself in trouble, famously insulting singer Adele for not being a size 10 (he apologised by sending her armfuls of Chanel bags).

Last year, he courted controversy by claiming that the presence of Muslim migrants in Germany was an affront to Jewish Holocaust victims, and was widely criticised for his racist, Islamophobic stance.

But ultimately, Lagerfeld will be remembered as a craftsman. An accomplished photographer, he drew his own designs by hand, an increasingly rare phenomenon in fashion.

Behind the facade, he was known for his erudition and penchant for literature, and he read the world's leading newspapers every day.