Karl Lagerfeld poses backstage after the Chanel show as part of Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture on January 21, 2014 in Paris, France.
Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images.
Karl Lagerfeld has died at the age of 85 in Paris, Chanel announced Tuesday. The creative director for the storied brand since 1983, he also worked for Chloé and helmed Fendi and an eponymous line over the course of his career. He was absent from his shows at Paris Fashion Week in January, which was attributed to fatigue in a statement from the company.
Best known for his work revitalizing Chanel and cementing the brand’s iconography in the minds of many, he became a pop-cultural figure, even receiving his own Barbie doll in 2014. He was also known for his signature outfit—a white button-down, tie, black blazer, and sunglasses—and for his prolific output, viewing fashion as pop culture and a business, rather than high art.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, Lagerfeld moved to Paris as a teenager. His career began when he won a contest in 1954, though he had no formal education in art or fashion. After nearly a decade spent in haute couture, including a stint at Balmain, he began to focus on ready-to-wear in the 1960s, eventually becoming the head of Fendi in 1965, and working for Chloé, where he remained until 1982. He was a fixture at his own shows, and became close friends with models and celebrities, especially during the era of supermodels like Christy Turlington and Claudia Schiffer, who appeared in some of his earliest ad campaigns with Chanel.
Chanel has announced that Lagerfeld’s longtime collaborator Virginie Viard will serve as his replacement at the brand. He was working until recently, and his last collection for Fendi, to be shown at at Milan Fashion Week, is still forthcoming. In a statement to Harper’s Bazaar, Chanel co-owner Alan Wertheimer said, “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 re-invent the brand.”
This is a developing story.
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