Karl Lagerfeld
1933 – 2019 · Germany
Known for: The Kaiser of fashion who reinvented Chanel
“Don't be afraid of change. You may lose something good, but you may gain something better.”
Biography
For 36 years, in his white ponytail, dark glasses and fingerless gloves, Karl Lagerfeld was fashion itself. He took a fading Chanel in 1983 and turned it back into the most valuable house in the industry, while designing simultaneously for Fendi and his own label, a workload no one else could survive, sketching hundreds of looks a season by hand.
He was a walking archive, fluent in art, history and four languages, endlessly quotable and endlessly working. When he died, the fashion world mourned a monarch, and his beloved cat Choupette, whom he once said he'd marry if it were legal, inherited a legend's attention along with his memory.