Fashion

When Charlemagne was still little Karl

karl lagerfeld

Today the message finally came: Karl Lagerfeld has passed away at the age of 85. He will be missed. May just wrote about when Charles the Great was still a little Charles...

It buzzes and hums around Karl. We all hope it doesn't happen and I almost wish that that silly Emile Ratelband had succeeded in pushing his passport down by twenty years just because Karl Lagerfeld could do it too and we could enjoy him longer, but that's not the case.

Karl is old. The man is 85, has done nothing for a day since he was fourteen and that takes its toll one day. I love Karl. I have seen him from a distance a hundred times and also really quite up close behold. I even know where he buys his flowers (I'll tell you in a little heart at the bottom of this piece). Nothing but good about the king of fashion, but I can't ignore that he looks a bit less good. He seems a bit broader, a little less well-groomed and oh, how we all gasped when we saw his open mouth in De Telegraaf this week and noticed that quite a few teeth were missing. We won't discuss that further now. Karl is the king. That's why I will now highlight his colorful life. Every day a phase from his extraordinary, long, and successful life.

Chapter 1, the youth

Karl was born and raised in Hamburg, Germany. The family had three children. Thea, from an earlier marriage of Karl's father, his sister Martha, and Karl himself. The Lagerfeldts were doing well. You read that right, because Lagerfeld is actually spelled with a ‘dt’. Karl showed early on that he had business insight because at a very young age he chiseled the 't' from his last name because it sounded more commercial.

Father Lagerfeldt earned his German marks by importing condensed milk to Germany. His mother was a violinist. They were doing well. There was money and time for culture. When Germany fell under the spell of Hitler, the family moved to a remote area so that the news and the situation in Germany seemed to have no hold on them.

From a young age, Karl showed a love for fashion and design. He was always cutting out pictures from fashion magazines. His parents felt that their son was different and needed to follow a different path and supported him when he moved to Paris at the age of fourteen.

It was there in Paris where he participated in a design competition and won in the ‘coat’ category and met another winner. His name was Yves Saint Laurent. There a friendship was born that perhaps changed into something that is the reason Karl Lagerfeld has such unparalleled work ethic.