He was an eccentric German-born fashion designer who went on to work for fashion houses like Chanel, Fendi and Dior.
In this episode, it’s time to learn about one of the best-loved designers in fashion history.
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Karl Lagerfeld - one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
[00:00:32] His story is one of incredible creativity, eccentricity, and a talent for seeing the future.
[00:00:39] He enjoyed one of the longest and most successful careers in fashion history, working with some of the most iconic fashion houses in the world, yet it’s also the story of a man who didn’t quite live up to his potential when it came to his own fashion house.
[00:00:55] So, let’s get right into it, and talk about the life and times of Karl Lagerfeld, the man sometimes called “Kaiser Karl” or simply Karl.
[00:01:06] If you’re interested in fashion, the name Karl Lagerfeld probably rings a bell.
[00:01:11] You might be familiar with his signature look - powdered white hair, tied back in a ponytail, dark sunglasses, high white collared shirts, fingerless gloves, and multiple silver rings on both hands.
[00:01:27] You may also know that he was considered responsible for revitalising Chanel, transforming it from a dusty and outdated fashion house to a cultural icon worth over 10 billion dollars.
[00:01:41] But how did this man come to dominate the world of fashion?
[00:01:45] Why was he so influential?
[00:01:48] More importantly, what legacy did he leave us with?
[00:01:52] Well, let’s find out.
[00:01:54] Karl Lagerfeld was born into a wealthy family in Hamburg in Germany, in 1933.
[00:02:02] Interestingly enough, though, he would always claim to have been born later, to try to make people believe that he was younger than he was.
[00:02:11] From a young age, he was a talented artist, and moved to Paris when he was only 14 years old.
[00:02:19] It didn’t take long for his fashion career to take off.
[00:02:24] When he was just 21, he submitted a coat design to an international design competition.
[00:02:30] His design won, and the coat was produced by Pierre Balmain, the Parisian designer who founded what would become the now-iconic label, Balmain.
[00:02:42] Afterwards, Balmain offered him a job as his assistant - and so began his apprenticeship in the world of luxury fashion.
[00:02:51] Lagerfeld, however, wouldn’t be the only fashion designer to come out of this 1954 competition.
[00:02:58] A Frenchman two years younger than Lagerfeld would win the cocktail dress category, and this man would go on to have a lifelong friendship and rivalry with the German.
[00:03:10] The Frenchman’s name was Yves Saint Laurent.
[00:03:14] But while Yves Saint Laurent’s career first went in a haute couture direction, Lagerfeld was more interested in a different sort of designing: he wanted to be a ready-to-wear designer of high-end clothes.
[00:03:28] To briefly explain the difference, haute couture, or “high fashion”, if you directly translate it from the French, involves creating specially tailored clothing for each individual.
[00:03:41] For each piece of clothing, there is a great deal of time, attention, and skill that goes into it.
[00:03:47] Everything is custom-made, and is traditionally constructed by hand, from the beginning to the end.
[00:03:55] The clothes are typically constructed from high quality and often unusual fabric, and the result of this is a beautiful piece of clothing with a suitably large price tag.
[00:04:08] Ready-to-wear-clothing, which is what Karl Lagerfeld wanted to design, is the opposite, at least in some respects.
[00:04:16] The design is created, different sizes are designed, small, medium and large, and then it’s mass produced, or at least multiple versions of the same piece of clothing are made.
[00:04:28] It’s how almost all clothes are now made and sold, and allows normal people with normal sized wallets to buy and wear the clothes they want.
[00:04:38] Sure, Lagerfeld’s dream wasn’t to design plain white t-shirts to be sold for a few Euros, but he wanted to design clothes that were ready-to-wear, or “off the peg”.
[00:04:51] As a high-end fashion designer, Lagerfeld’s decision to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear clothes was seen as unusual, bold, and maybe even foolish.
[00:05:04] It simply wasn’t what was done - the clothes weren’t as exclusive, and it was believed that you were less likely to win critical acclaim.
[00:05:15] Some designers also thought that ready-to-wear clothing gave them less creative freedom.
[00:05:22] Lagerfeld, however, felt differently.
[00:05:25] He chose to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear precisely because he thought it would give him more creative freedom.
[00:05:35] Now, this might seem counterintuitive.
[00:05:39] You would think that designing for just one person, as you do with haute couture, might allow for more creative freedom, more self expression, as you don’t need to worry about things like people of slightly different sizes wearing the same clothes, or about more practical aspects of fashion design.
[00:05:59] But Lagerfeld believed that culturally and stylistically, haute couture was more restrictive.
[00:06:07] He said that haute couture was stuck in the past, it was too traditional.
[00:06:12] He wanted more room to play, to experiment.
[00:06:16] So, in 1962, when he was not yet even 30, Lagerfeld moved away from working exclusively in couture houses.
[00:06:26] By doing so, he freed himself up to experiment more with his designs - and as we’ll see, it was this risk-taking, innovative approach to fashion that would make him so influential later on in his career.
[00:06:41] In 1964, he moved from Paris to Rome to study art history, to pursue what would become a lifelong preoccupation with the romance of the old world - especially of 18th century France.
[00:06:56] And while he was studying in Rome, he worked on a freelance basis for some of the biggest names in fashion - a few you might know, like Chloé, Valentino and Charles Jourdan.
[00:07:08] This work started to get him noticed, and in 1965 he would embark on his longest ever collaboration with the Italian fashion house, Fendi.
[00:07:19] This was a collaboration that would last 54 years, and would be called “fashion’s greatest love story”.
[00:07:27] In fact, if you have heard of Fendi, it’s likely in no small part due to the work of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:07:35] His designs for Fendi were often very unconventional, very risky.
[00:07:41] He pioneered the use of rabbit and squirrel fur in his designs - and this had never been done in fashion before.
[00:07:49] He also started to use fur in everyday garments. Before that, fur was only typically worn on formal occasions.
[00:07:58] But these risks paid off. With his creative direction, Lagerfeld helped bring Fendi from a small, family run business into the premier name in luxury furs.
[00:08:11] It would be only the first of many successes, all very different stylistically.
[00:08:17] See, unlike many of his contemporaries, Lagerfeld didn’t really have a signature style as a designer, and he wasn’t known for any one kind of design.
[00:08:29] Instead, he was celebrated for being a visionary creator - someone who could see the direction fashion was going in, and was able to adapt, and invent, to keep up.
[00:08:42] Nowhere was this more needed than in the case of Chanel.
[00:08:46] The house of Chanel had been in slow decline after the death of its legendary founder, Coco, in 1971.
[00:08:55] It was criticised as becoming irrelevant, unable to stay culturally important in the modern world.
[00:09:02] So, in 1982, Lagerfeld, then about to turn 50, was asked to help modernise the label.
[00:09:11] In an interview, he said that everyone told him not to take the job.
[00:09:16] They told him that the house of Chanel was “dead, it will never come back”.
[00:09:21] But he was a man who liked a challenge, and he took the job.
[00:09:26] He elevated classic Chanel looks, and made them look something that was more relevant to the times.
[00:09:33] Now, when you think of Chanel, you might be thinking of its iconic branding - the letter C, interlocked, back to back.
[00:09:42] That was Lagerfeld’s invention.
[00:09:44] He monogrammed this logo onto everything - on bags, on belts, on jewellery.
[00:09:50] And in so doing, he made the interlocked Cs one of the most recognisable designs in the world of high fashion.
[00:09:59] What’s more, he revamped all of the classic Chanel designs - the little black dress, the skirts and jackets.
[00:10:07] He injected something new into them, and was instrumental in bringing Chanel back to relevance, turning it into one of the largest luxury brands in the world.
[00:10:18] And in terms of where he got his inspiration from, his answer would have been “anywhere and everywhere”.
[00:10:25] It could be the French aristocracy of the 18th century, but it could equally be from a child he saw playing on the street.
[00:10:34] He was one of the very first designers to understand that fashion didn’t always come from above, that the latest trends didn’t come from exclusive, high fashion ateliers, and could instead come from unexpected places.
[00:10:49] For example, he recognized the increasing popularity of hip-hop as an important influence in couture - and so he introduced athleisure to the designs at Chanel.
[00:11:01] So, in this way, he blurred the lines between what was considered high and low fashion.
[00:11:09] He was also the first luxury fashion designer to collaborate with fast fashion retailers. In 2004, he collaborated with the Swedish high-street brand H&M on a hugely successful ready-to-wear collection.
[00:11:23] Nowadays, these kinds of collaborations tend to be extremely popular and typically sell out in hours, and Lagerfeld was the first to do this kind of collaboration.
[00:11:35] Now, another important factor in Lagerfeld’s creative philosophy and success was that he was early to understand the importance of technology and social media when it comes to fashion and the latest trends.
[00:11:49] He designed his sets for fashion shows with an awareness of how Instagrammable they might be, so they were specially designed to look amazing in a photo or a video.
[00:12:00] When you walked into one of Lagerfeld’s runway shows, you would never know what to expect.
[00:12:06] You might see models on roller skates, or carrying surfboards. You might see a set that looks like a supermarket, with fully stocked shelves. You might see a fake beach, complete with waves that lap across the sand.
[00:12:21] Lagerfeld knew that people were taking photos of the sets and posting them on social media, so he made the backdrops as visually stunning as he could.
[00:12:31] Now, when it comes to his personal life, it's certainly fair to say that he was an eccentric.
[00:12:37] Famously, he was a big fan of the iPod - but he didn’t have just one or two.
[00:12:43] He had literally hundreds of iPods in his personal collection, all loaded with different kinds of music, so he would pick one up and press play, with his favourite playlists pre-loaded.
[00:12:56] And his own design work was not limited to fashion.
[00:13:00] He designed everything - from pianos to a hotel with his name on it, in Macau.
[00:13:06] He owned a bookshop in Paris, and had his own personal library, which is estimated to contain more than 300,000 volumes.
[00:13:17] He was also an avid photographer, and filmed advertising campaigns for Chanel and Fendi as well as for his own Lagerfeld label.
[00:13:26] As you might expect for such a high-end fashion designer, he also lived a life of considerable luxury.
[00:13:34] He didn’t really drink alcohol, because he said it made him sleepy.
[00:13:38] But he did have another vice, one that no doubt his dentist didn’t approve of.
[00:13:45] From the minute he woke up until the minute he went to sleep, he would constantly drink Diet Coke.
[00:13:52] Not out of a can or a bottle, of course. No. No way.
[00:13:56] His assistant said that Lagerfeld drank Coke only out of crystal Baccarat glasses, and that his Coke had to be refilled every 30 minutes.
[00:14:07] The eccentricities didn’t stop there.
[00:14:10] Lagerfeld had always said that his closest companion was his cat, Choupette.
[00:14:17] Choupette had, and still has, in fact over 100,000 followers on Instagram - and in interviews, he said that if he could marry his cat, he would.
[00:14:28] Choupette was said to have two personal maids to tend to her needs, and most shockingly, Lagerfeld said in an interview that Choupette earned 3 million euros for participating in two commercial projects in 2014.
[00:14:44] He never married, and had an 18-year relationship with a man, a French aristocrat called Jacques de Bascher.
[00:14:52] But despite being gay himself, Lagerfeld spoke out against same-sex marriage, saying he thought it was wrong.
[00:15:00] Clearly, this confused many and rubbed people up the wrong way.
[00:15:05] But Lagerfeld was never afraid to speak his mind, even when he had controversial viewpoints.
[00:15:11] He offended people when he spoke out against the #MeToo movement, when he said that he thought the singer Adele was too fat, and when he suggested that it was a mistake for Germany to accept Syrian immigrants.
[00:15:26] While he might not have cared much about speaking his mind and rubbing someone up the wrong way, Lagerfeld took extreme care to never be seen publicly looking anything less than perfect, than immaculate.
[00:15:41] If you’ve seen pictures of him, you’ll remember him with perfect white hair in a ponytail, normally with black sunglasses, high white collared shirts, and fingerless gloves.
[00:15:53] According to his assistant, his skincare regime included covering himself from head to toe, twice a day, in La Prairie - which is one of the most expensive creams in the world, and contains caviar, platinum and gold.
[00:16:09] In the year 2000, shortly before his 70th birthday, he went on a famous diet that caused him to lose 42 kilos in 13 months
[00:16:19] During this diet, he ate only 1200 calories a day… and washed it all down with lots and lots of, well you might have guessed it, Diet Coke.
[00:16:31] And his motivation for losing all of this weight wasn’t for health reasons or anything like that.
[00:16:37] It was, as with everything to do with Lagerfeld, related to fashion.
[00:16:42] He said that one of the reasons he wanted to lose weight was so that he could wear certain clothes - specifically suits by the Dior Homme line.
[00:16:52] And this brings us on to, perhaps, one of the most interesting and unexpected things about Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:17:00] He had created his own “Karl Lagerfeld” ready-to-wear fashion label in 1984. It did do ok, and was eventually sold to Tommy Hilfinger.
[00:17:12] But he was much more famous for working for other labels, and indeed, the reason he wanted to lose so much weight wasn’t because he wanted to wear suits from the House of Karl Lagerfeld, but from Dior.
[00:17:26] All this being said, while the House of Karl Lagerfeld was not his defining legacy, the name of Karl Lagerfeld has left an astounding legacy on the world of fashion.
[00:17:39] He spent 54 years at Fendi, and 36 at Chanel.
[00:17:44] He died in February of 2019, aged 85, and tributes poured in from some of the biggest names in fashion.
[00:17:53] His designs were revolutionary, his character larger than life, his sense of the future unmatched.
[00:18:01] He was a man whose motto was, very aptly, “embrace the present and invent the future”.
[00:18:09] OK then, that is it for today’s episode, on the life and legacy of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:18:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:21] If you would consider yourself a fashionista, what do you think of the designs and work of Karl Lagerfeld?
[00:18:27] How do you think he compares to some of the other great designers of the 20th and 21st centuries?
[00:18:33] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:37] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:45] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:50] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Karl Lagerfeld - one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
[00:00:32] His story is one of incredible creativity, eccentricity, and a talent for seeing the future.
[00:00:39] He enjoyed one of the longest and most successful careers in fashion history, working with some of the most iconic fashion houses in the world, yet it’s also the story of a man who didn’t quite live up to his potential when it came to his own fashion house.
[00:00:55] So, let’s get right into it, and talk about the life and times of Karl Lagerfeld, the man sometimes called “Kaiser Karl” or simply Karl.
[00:01:06] If you’re interested in fashion, the name Karl Lagerfeld probably rings a bell.
[00:01:11] You might be familiar with his signature look - powdered white hair, tied back in a ponytail, dark sunglasses, high white collared shirts, fingerless gloves, and multiple silver rings on both hands.
[00:01:27] You may also know that he was considered responsible for revitalising Chanel, transforming it from a dusty and outdated fashion house to a cultural icon worth over 10 billion dollars.
[00:01:41] But how did this man come to dominate the world of fashion?
[00:01:45] Why was he so influential?
[00:01:48] More importantly, what legacy did he leave us with?
[00:01:52] Well, let’s find out.
[00:01:54] Karl Lagerfeld was born into a wealthy family in Hamburg in Germany, in 1933.
[00:02:02] Interestingly enough, though, he would always claim to have been born later, to try to make people believe that he was younger than he was.
[00:02:11] From a young age, he was a talented artist, and moved to Paris when he was only 14 years old.
[00:02:19] It didn’t take long for his fashion career to take off.
[00:02:24] When he was just 21, he submitted a coat design to an international design competition.
[00:02:30] His design won, and the coat was produced by Pierre Balmain, the Parisian designer who founded what would become the now-iconic label, Balmain.
[00:02:42] Afterwards, Balmain offered him a job as his assistant - and so began his apprenticeship in the world of luxury fashion.
[00:02:51] Lagerfeld, however, wouldn’t be the only fashion designer to come out of this 1954 competition.
[00:02:58] A Frenchman two years younger than Lagerfeld would win the cocktail dress category, and this man would go on to have a lifelong friendship and rivalry with the German.
[00:03:10] The Frenchman’s name was Yves Saint Laurent.
[00:03:14] But while Yves Saint Laurent’s career first went in a haute couture direction, Lagerfeld was more interested in a different sort of designing: he wanted to be a ready-to-wear designer of high-end clothes.
[00:03:28] To briefly explain the difference, haute couture, or “high fashion”, if you directly translate it from the French, involves creating specially tailored clothing for each individual.
[00:03:41] For each piece of clothing, there is a great deal of time, attention, and skill that goes into it.
[00:03:47] Everything is custom-made, and is traditionally constructed by hand, from the beginning to the end.
[00:03:55] The clothes are typically constructed from high quality and often unusual fabric, and the result of this is a beautiful piece of clothing with a suitably large price tag.
[00:04:08] Ready-to-wear-clothing, which is what Karl Lagerfeld wanted to design, is the opposite, at least in some respects.
[00:04:16] The design is created, different sizes are designed, small, medium and large, and then it’s mass produced, or at least multiple versions of the same piece of clothing are made.
[00:04:28] It’s how almost all clothes are now made and sold, and allows normal people with normal sized wallets to buy and wear the clothes they want.
[00:04:38] Sure, Lagerfeld’s dream wasn’t to design plain white t-shirts to be sold for a few Euros, but he wanted to design clothes that were ready-to-wear, or “off the peg”.
[00:04:51] As a high-end fashion designer, Lagerfeld’s decision to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear clothes was seen as unusual, bold, and maybe even foolish.
[00:05:04] It simply wasn’t what was done - the clothes weren’t as exclusive, and it was believed that you were less likely to win critical acclaim.
[00:05:15] Some designers also thought that ready-to-wear clothing gave them less creative freedom.
[00:05:22] Lagerfeld, however, felt differently.
[00:05:25] He chose to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear precisely because he thought it would give him more creative freedom.
[00:05:35] Now, this might seem counterintuitive.
[00:05:39] You would think that designing for just one person, as you do with haute couture, might allow for more creative freedom, more self expression, as you don’t need to worry about things like people of slightly different sizes wearing the same clothes, or about more practical aspects of fashion design.
[00:05:59] But Lagerfeld believed that culturally and stylistically, haute couture was more restrictive.
[00:06:07] He said that haute couture was stuck in the past, it was too traditional.
[00:06:12] He wanted more room to play, to experiment.
[00:06:16] So, in 1962, when he was not yet even 30, Lagerfeld moved away from working exclusively in couture houses.
[00:06:26] By doing so, he freed himself up to experiment more with his designs - and as we’ll see, it was this risk-taking, innovative approach to fashion that would make him so influential later on in his career.
[00:06:41] In 1964, he moved from Paris to Rome to study art history, to pursue what would become a lifelong preoccupation with the romance of the old world - especially of 18th century France.
[00:06:56] And while he was studying in Rome, he worked on a freelance basis for some of the biggest names in fashion - a few you might know, like Chloé, Valentino and Charles Jourdan.
[00:07:08] This work started to get him noticed, and in 1965 he would embark on his longest ever collaboration with the Italian fashion house, Fendi.
[00:07:19] This was a collaboration that would last 54 years, and would be called “fashion’s greatest love story”.
[00:07:27] In fact, if you have heard of Fendi, it’s likely in no small part due to the work of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:07:35] His designs for Fendi were often very unconventional, very risky.
[00:07:41] He pioneered the use of rabbit and squirrel fur in his designs - and this had never been done in fashion before.
[00:07:49] He also started to use fur in everyday garments. Before that, fur was only typically worn on formal occasions.
[00:07:58] But these risks paid off. With his creative direction, Lagerfeld helped bring Fendi from a small, family run business into the premier name in luxury furs.
[00:08:11] It would be only the first of many successes, all very different stylistically.
[00:08:17] See, unlike many of his contemporaries, Lagerfeld didn’t really have a signature style as a designer, and he wasn’t known for any one kind of design.
[00:08:29] Instead, he was celebrated for being a visionary creator - someone who could see the direction fashion was going in, and was able to adapt, and invent, to keep up.
[00:08:42] Nowhere was this more needed than in the case of Chanel.
[00:08:46] The house of Chanel had been in slow decline after the death of its legendary founder, Coco, in 1971.
[00:08:55] It was criticised as becoming irrelevant, unable to stay culturally important in the modern world.
[00:09:02] So, in 1982, Lagerfeld, then about to turn 50, was asked to help modernise the label.
[00:09:11] In an interview, he said that everyone told him not to take the job.
[00:09:16] They told him that the house of Chanel was “dead, it will never come back”.
[00:09:21] But he was a man who liked a challenge, and he took the job.
[00:09:26] He elevated classic Chanel looks, and made them look something that was more relevant to the times.
[00:09:33] Now, when you think of Chanel, you might be thinking of its iconic branding - the letter C, interlocked, back to back.
[00:09:42] That was Lagerfeld’s invention.
[00:09:44] He monogrammed this logo onto everything - on bags, on belts, on jewellery.
[00:09:50] And in so doing, he made the interlocked Cs one of the most recognisable designs in the world of high fashion.
[00:09:59] What’s more, he revamped all of the classic Chanel designs - the little black dress, the skirts and jackets.
[00:10:07] He injected something new into them, and was instrumental in bringing Chanel back to relevance, turning it into one of the largest luxury brands in the world.
[00:10:18] And in terms of where he got his inspiration from, his answer would have been “anywhere and everywhere”.
[00:10:25] It could be the French aristocracy of the 18th century, but it could equally be from a child he saw playing on the street.
[00:10:34] He was one of the very first designers to understand that fashion didn’t always come from above, that the latest trends didn’t come from exclusive, high fashion ateliers, and could instead come from unexpected places.
[00:10:49] For example, he recognized the increasing popularity of hip-hop as an important influence in couture - and so he introduced athleisure to the designs at Chanel.
[00:11:01] So, in this way, he blurred the lines between what was considered high and low fashion.
[00:11:09] He was also the first luxury fashion designer to collaborate with fast fashion retailers. In 2004, he collaborated with the Swedish high-street brand H&M on a hugely successful ready-to-wear collection.
[00:11:23] Nowadays, these kinds of collaborations tend to be extremely popular and typically sell out in hours, and Lagerfeld was the first to do this kind of collaboration.
[00:11:35] Now, another important factor in Lagerfeld’s creative philosophy and success was that he was early to understand the importance of technology and social media when it comes to fashion and the latest trends.
[00:11:49] He designed his sets for fashion shows with an awareness of how Instagrammable they might be, so they were specially designed to look amazing in a photo or a video.
[00:12:00] When you walked into one of Lagerfeld’s runway shows, you would never know what to expect.
[00:12:06] You might see models on roller skates, or carrying surfboards. You might see a set that looks like a supermarket, with fully stocked shelves. You might see a fake beach, complete with waves that lap across the sand.
[00:12:21] Lagerfeld knew that people were taking photos of the sets and posting them on social media, so he made the backdrops as visually stunning as he could.
[00:12:31] Now, when it comes to his personal life, it's certainly fair to say that he was an eccentric.
[00:12:37] Famously, he was a big fan of the iPod - but he didn’t have just one or two.
[00:12:43] He had literally hundreds of iPods in his personal collection, all loaded with different kinds of music, so he would pick one up and press play, with his favourite playlists pre-loaded.
[00:12:56] And his own design work was not limited to fashion.
[00:13:00] He designed everything - from pianos to a hotel with his name on it, in Macau.
[00:13:06] He owned a bookshop in Paris, and had his own personal library, which is estimated to contain more than 300,000 volumes.
[00:13:17] He was also an avid photographer, and filmed advertising campaigns for Chanel and Fendi as well as for his own Lagerfeld label.
[00:13:26] As you might expect for such a high-end fashion designer, he also lived a life of considerable luxury.
[00:13:34] He didn’t really drink alcohol, because he said it made him sleepy.
[00:13:38] But he did have another vice, one that no doubt his dentist didn’t approve of.
[00:13:45] From the minute he woke up until the minute he went to sleep, he would constantly drink Diet Coke.
[00:13:52] Not out of a can or a bottle, of course. No. No way.
[00:13:56] His assistant said that Lagerfeld drank Coke only out of crystal Baccarat glasses, and that his Coke had to be refilled every 30 minutes.
[00:14:07] The eccentricities didn’t stop there.
[00:14:10] Lagerfeld had always said that his closest companion was his cat, Choupette.
[00:14:17] Choupette had, and still has, in fact over 100,000 followers on Instagram - and in interviews, he said that if he could marry his cat, he would.
[00:14:28] Choupette was said to have two personal maids to tend to her needs, and most shockingly, Lagerfeld said in an interview that Choupette earned 3 million euros for participating in two commercial projects in 2014.
[00:14:44] He never married, and had an 18-year relationship with a man, a French aristocrat called Jacques de Bascher.
[00:14:52] But despite being gay himself, Lagerfeld spoke out against same-sex marriage, saying he thought it was wrong.
[00:15:00] Clearly, this confused many and rubbed people up the wrong way.
[00:15:05] But Lagerfeld was never afraid to speak his mind, even when he had controversial viewpoints.
[00:15:11] He offended people when he spoke out against the #MeToo movement, when he said that he thought the singer Adele was too fat, and when he suggested that it was a mistake for Germany to accept Syrian immigrants.
[00:15:26] While he might not have cared much about speaking his mind and rubbing someone up the wrong way, Lagerfeld took extreme care to never be seen publicly looking anything less than perfect, than immaculate.
[00:15:41] If you’ve seen pictures of him, you’ll remember him with perfect white hair in a ponytail, normally with black sunglasses, high white collared shirts, and fingerless gloves.
[00:15:53] According to his assistant, his skincare regime included covering himself from head to toe, twice a day, in La Prairie - which is one of the most expensive creams in the world, and contains caviar, platinum and gold.
[00:16:09] In the year 2000, shortly before his 70th birthday, he went on a famous diet that caused him to lose 42 kilos in 13 months
[00:16:19] During this diet, he ate only 1200 calories a day… and washed it all down with lots and lots of, well you might have guessed it, Diet Coke.
[00:16:31] And his motivation for losing all of this weight wasn’t for health reasons or anything like that.
[00:16:37] It was, as with everything to do with Lagerfeld, related to fashion.
[00:16:42] He said that one of the reasons he wanted to lose weight was so that he could wear certain clothes - specifically suits by the Dior Homme line.
[00:16:52] And this brings us on to, perhaps, one of the most interesting and unexpected things about Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:17:00] He had created his own “Karl Lagerfeld” ready-to-wear fashion label in 1984. It did do ok, and was eventually sold to Tommy Hilfinger.
[00:17:12] But he was much more famous for working for other labels, and indeed, the reason he wanted to lose so much weight wasn’t because he wanted to wear suits from the House of Karl Lagerfeld, but from Dior.
[00:17:26] All this being said, while the House of Karl Lagerfeld was not his defining legacy, the name of Karl Lagerfeld has left an astounding legacy on the world of fashion.
[00:17:39] He spent 54 years at Fendi, and 36 at Chanel.
[00:17:44] He died in February of 2019, aged 85, and tributes poured in from some of the biggest names in fashion.
[00:17:53] His designs were revolutionary, his character larger than life, his sense of the future unmatched.
[00:18:01] He was a man whose motto was, very aptly, “embrace the present and invent the future”.
[00:18:09] OK then, that is it for today’s episode, on the life and legacy of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:18:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:21] If you would consider yourself a fashionista, what do you think of the designs and work of Karl Lagerfeld?
[00:18:27] How do you think he compares to some of the other great designers of the 20th and 21st centuries?
[00:18:33] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:37] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:45] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:50] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about Karl Lagerfeld - one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
[00:00:32] His story is one of incredible creativity, eccentricity, and a talent for seeing the future.
[00:00:39] He enjoyed one of the longest and most successful careers in fashion history, working with some of the most iconic fashion houses in the world, yet it’s also the story of a man who didn’t quite live up to his potential when it came to his own fashion house.
[00:00:55] So, let’s get right into it, and talk about the life and times of Karl Lagerfeld, the man sometimes called “Kaiser Karl” or simply Karl.
[00:01:06] If you’re interested in fashion, the name Karl Lagerfeld probably rings a bell.
[00:01:11] You might be familiar with his signature look - powdered white hair, tied back in a ponytail, dark sunglasses, high white collared shirts, fingerless gloves, and multiple silver rings on both hands.
[00:01:27] You may also know that he was considered responsible for revitalising Chanel, transforming it from a dusty and outdated fashion house to a cultural icon worth over 10 billion dollars.
[00:01:41] But how did this man come to dominate the world of fashion?
[00:01:45] Why was he so influential?
[00:01:48] More importantly, what legacy did he leave us with?
[00:01:52] Well, let’s find out.
[00:01:54] Karl Lagerfeld was born into a wealthy family in Hamburg in Germany, in 1933.
[00:02:02] Interestingly enough, though, he would always claim to have been born later, to try to make people believe that he was younger than he was.
[00:02:11] From a young age, he was a talented artist, and moved to Paris when he was only 14 years old.
[00:02:19] It didn’t take long for his fashion career to take off.
[00:02:24] When he was just 21, he submitted a coat design to an international design competition.
[00:02:30] His design won, and the coat was produced by Pierre Balmain, the Parisian designer who founded what would become the now-iconic label, Balmain.
[00:02:42] Afterwards, Balmain offered him a job as his assistant - and so began his apprenticeship in the world of luxury fashion.
[00:02:51] Lagerfeld, however, wouldn’t be the only fashion designer to come out of this 1954 competition.
[00:02:58] A Frenchman two years younger than Lagerfeld would win the cocktail dress category, and this man would go on to have a lifelong friendship and rivalry with the German.
[00:03:10] The Frenchman’s name was Yves Saint Laurent.
[00:03:14] But while Yves Saint Laurent’s career first went in a haute couture direction, Lagerfeld was more interested in a different sort of designing: he wanted to be a ready-to-wear designer of high-end clothes.
[00:03:28] To briefly explain the difference, haute couture, or “high fashion”, if you directly translate it from the French, involves creating specially tailored clothing for each individual.
[00:03:41] For each piece of clothing, there is a great deal of time, attention, and skill that goes into it.
[00:03:47] Everything is custom-made, and is traditionally constructed by hand, from the beginning to the end.
[00:03:55] The clothes are typically constructed from high quality and often unusual fabric, and the result of this is a beautiful piece of clothing with a suitably large price tag.
[00:04:08] Ready-to-wear-clothing, which is what Karl Lagerfeld wanted to design, is the opposite, at least in some respects.
[00:04:16] The design is created, different sizes are designed, small, medium and large, and then it’s mass produced, or at least multiple versions of the same piece of clothing are made.
[00:04:28] It’s how almost all clothes are now made and sold, and allows normal people with normal sized wallets to buy and wear the clothes they want.
[00:04:38] Sure, Lagerfeld’s dream wasn’t to design plain white t-shirts to be sold for a few Euros, but he wanted to design clothes that were ready-to-wear, or “off the peg”.
[00:04:51] As a high-end fashion designer, Lagerfeld’s decision to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear clothes was seen as unusual, bold, and maybe even foolish.
[00:05:04] It simply wasn’t what was done - the clothes weren’t as exclusive, and it was believed that you were less likely to win critical acclaim.
[00:05:15] Some designers also thought that ready-to-wear clothing gave them less creative freedom.
[00:05:22] Lagerfeld, however, felt differently.
[00:05:25] He chose to move from haute couture to ready-to-wear precisely because he thought it would give him more creative freedom.
[00:05:35] Now, this might seem counterintuitive.
[00:05:39] You would think that designing for just one person, as you do with haute couture, might allow for more creative freedom, more self expression, as you don’t need to worry about things like people of slightly different sizes wearing the same clothes, or about more practical aspects of fashion design.
[00:05:59] But Lagerfeld believed that culturally and stylistically, haute couture was more restrictive.
[00:06:07] He said that haute couture was stuck in the past, it was too traditional.
[00:06:12] He wanted more room to play, to experiment.
[00:06:16] So, in 1962, when he was not yet even 30, Lagerfeld moved away from working exclusively in couture houses.
[00:06:26] By doing so, he freed himself up to experiment more with his designs - and as we’ll see, it was this risk-taking, innovative approach to fashion that would make him so influential later on in his career.
[00:06:41] In 1964, he moved from Paris to Rome to study art history, to pursue what would become a lifelong preoccupation with the romance of the old world - especially of 18th century France.
[00:06:56] And while he was studying in Rome, he worked on a freelance basis for some of the biggest names in fashion - a few you might know, like Chloé, Valentino and Charles Jourdan.
[00:07:08] This work started to get him noticed, and in 1965 he would embark on his longest ever collaboration with the Italian fashion house, Fendi.
[00:07:19] This was a collaboration that would last 54 years, and would be called “fashion’s greatest love story”.
[00:07:27] In fact, if you have heard of Fendi, it’s likely in no small part due to the work of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:07:35] His designs for Fendi were often very unconventional, very risky.
[00:07:41] He pioneered the use of rabbit and squirrel fur in his designs - and this had never been done in fashion before.
[00:07:49] He also started to use fur in everyday garments. Before that, fur was only typically worn on formal occasions.
[00:07:58] But these risks paid off. With his creative direction, Lagerfeld helped bring Fendi from a small, family run business into the premier name in luxury furs.
[00:08:11] It would be only the first of many successes, all very different stylistically.
[00:08:17] See, unlike many of his contemporaries, Lagerfeld didn’t really have a signature style as a designer, and he wasn’t known for any one kind of design.
[00:08:29] Instead, he was celebrated for being a visionary creator - someone who could see the direction fashion was going in, and was able to adapt, and invent, to keep up.
[00:08:42] Nowhere was this more needed than in the case of Chanel.
[00:08:46] The house of Chanel had been in slow decline after the death of its legendary founder, Coco, in 1971.
[00:08:55] It was criticised as becoming irrelevant, unable to stay culturally important in the modern world.
[00:09:02] So, in 1982, Lagerfeld, then about to turn 50, was asked to help modernise the label.
[00:09:11] In an interview, he said that everyone told him not to take the job.
[00:09:16] They told him that the house of Chanel was “dead, it will never come back”.
[00:09:21] But he was a man who liked a challenge, and he took the job.
[00:09:26] He elevated classic Chanel looks, and made them look something that was more relevant to the times.
[00:09:33] Now, when you think of Chanel, you might be thinking of its iconic branding - the letter C, interlocked, back to back.
[00:09:42] That was Lagerfeld’s invention.
[00:09:44] He monogrammed this logo onto everything - on bags, on belts, on jewellery.
[00:09:50] And in so doing, he made the interlocked Cs one of the most recognisable designs in the world of high fashion.
[00:09:59] What’s more, he revamped all of the classic Chanel designs - the little black dress, the skirts and jackets.
[00:10:07] He injected something new into them, and was instrumental in bringing Chanel back to relevance, turning it into one of the largest luxury brands in the world.
[00:10:18] And in terms of where he got his inspiration from, his answer would have been “anywhere and everywhere”.
[00:10:25] It could be the French aristocracy of the 18th century, but it could equally be from a child he saw playing on the street.
[00:10:34] He was one of the very first designers to understand that fashion didn’t always come from above, that the latest trends didn’t come from exclusive, high fashion ateliers, and could instead come from unexpected places.
[00:10:49] For example, he recognized the increasing popularity of hip-hop as an important influence in couture - and so he introduced athleisure to the designs at Chanel.
[00:11:01] So, in this way, he blurred the lines between what was considered high and low fashion.
[00:11:09] He was also the first luxury fashion designer to collaborate with fast fashion retailers. In 2004, he collaborated with the Swedish high-street brand H&M on a hugely successful ready-to-wear collection.
[00:11:23] Nowadays, these kinds of collaborations tend to be extremely popular and typically sell out in hours, and Lagerfeld was the first to do this kind of collaboration.
[00:11:35] Now, another important factor in Lagerfeld’s creative philosophy and success was that he was early to understand the importance of technology and social media when it comes to fashion and the latest trends.
[00:11:49] He designed his sets for fashion shows with an awareness of how Instagrammable they might be, so they were specially designed to look amazing in a photo or a video.
[00:12:00] When you walked into one of Lagerfeld’s runway shows, you would never know what to expect.
[00:12:06] You might see models on roller skates, or carrying surfboards. You might see a set that looks like a supermarket, with fully stocked shelves. You might see a fake beach, complete with waves that lap across the sand.
[00:12:21] Lagerfeld knew that people were taking photos of the sets and posting them on social media, so he made the backdrops as visually stunning as he could.
[00:12:31] Now, when it comes to his personal life, it's certainly fair to say that he was an eccentric.
[00:12:37] Famously, he was a big fan of the iPod - but he didn’t have just one or two.
[00:12:43] He had literally hundreds of iPods in his personal collection, all loaded with different kinds of music, so he would pick one up and press play, with his favourite playlists pre-loaded.
[00:12:56] And his own design work was not limited to fashion.
[00:13:00] He designed everything - from pianos to a hotel with his name on it, in Macau.
[00:13:06] He owned a bookshop in Paris, and had his own personal library, which is estimated to contain more than 300,000 volumes.
[00:13:17] He was also an avid photographer, and filmed advertising campaigns for Chanel and Fendi as well as for his own Lagerfeld label.
[00:13:26] As you might expect for such a high-end fashion designer, he also lived a life of considerable luxury.
[00:13:34] He didn’t really drink alcohol, because he said it made him sleepy.
[00:13:38] But he did have another vice, one that no doubt his dentist didn’t approve of.
[00:13:45] From the minute he woke up until the minute he went to sleep, he would constantly drink Diet Coke.
[00:13:52] Not out of a can or a bottle, of course. No. No way.
[00:13:56] His assistant said that Lagerfeld drank Coke only out of crystal Baccarat glasses, and that his Coke had to be refilled every 30 minutes.
[00:14:07] The eccentricities didn’t stop there.
[00:14:10] Lagerfeld had always said that his closest companion was his cat, Choupette.
[00:14:17] Choupette had, and still has, in fact over 100,000 followers on Instagram - and in interviews, he said that if he could marry his cat, he would.
[00:14:28] Choupette was said to have two personal maids to tend to her needs, and most shockingly, Lagerfeld said in an interview that Choupette earned 3 million euros for participating in two commercial projects in 2014.
[00:14:44] He never married, and had an 18-year relationship with a man, a French aristocrat called Jacques de Bascher.
[00:14:52] But despite being gay himself, Lagerfeld spoke out against same-sex marriage, saying he thought it was wrong.
[00:15:00] Clearly, this confused many and rubbed people up the wrong way.
[00:15:05] But Lagerfeld was never afraid to speak his mind, even when he had controversial viewpoints.
[00:15:11] He offended people when he spoke out against the #MeToo movement, when he said that he thought the singer Adele was too fat, and when he suggested that it was a mistake for Germany to accept Syrian immigrants.
[00:15:26] While he might not have cared much about speaking his mind and rubbing someone up the wrong way, Lagerfeld took extreme care to never be seen publicly looking anything less than perfect, than immaculate.
[00:15:41] If you’ve seen pictures of him, you’ll remember him with perfect white hair in a ponytail, normally with black sunglasses, high white collared shirts, and fingerless gloves.
[00:15:53] According to his assistant, his skincare regime included covering himself from head to toe, twice a day, in La Prairie - which is one of the most expensive creams in the world, and contains caviar, platinum and gold.
[00:16:09] In the year 2000, shortly before his 70th birthday, he went on a famous diet that caused him to lose 42 kilos in 13 months
[00:16:19] During this diet, he ate only 1200 calories a day… and washed it all down with lots and lots of, well you might have guessed it, Diet Coke.
[00:16:31] And his motivation for losing all of this weight wasn’t for health reasons or anything like that.
[00:16:37] It was, as with everything to do with Lagerfeld, related to fashion.
[00:16:42] He said that one of the reasons he wanted to lose weight was so that he could wear certain clothes - specifically suits by the Dior Homme line.
[00:16:52] And this brings us on to, perhaps, one of the most interesting and unexpected things about Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:17:00] He had created his own “Karl Lagerfeld” ready-to-wear fashion label in 1984. It did do ok, and was eventually sold to Tommy Hilfinger.
[00:17:12] But he was much more famous for working for other labels, and indeed, the reason he wanted to lose so much weight wasn’t because he wanted to wear suits from the House of Karl Lagerfeld, but from Dior.
[00:17:26] All this being said, while the House of Karl Lagerfeld was not his defining legacy, the name of Karl Lagerfeld has left an astounding legacy on the world of fashion.
[00:17:39] He spent 54 years at Fendi, and 36 at Chanel.
[00:17:44] He died in February of 2019, aged 85, and tributes poured in from some of the biggest names in fashion.
[00:17:53] His designs were revolutionary, his character larger than life, his sense of the future unmatched.
[00:18:01] He was a man whose motto was, very aptly, “embrace the present and invent the future”.
[00:18:09] OK then, that is it for today’s episode, on the life and legacy of Karl Lagerfeld.
[00:18:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:18:21] If you would consider yourself a fashionista, what do you think of the designs and work of Karl Lagerfeld?
[00:18:27] How do you think he compares to some of the other great designers of the 20th and 21st centuries?
[00:18:33] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:18:37] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:18:45] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:18:50] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
