The fashion world’s hunger for larger-than-life figures glorified the designer. But a cozy new biography shows him to be more business whiz than artist.
PARADISE NOW: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld, by William Middleton
The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019 at 85 (he would have claimed 80), was not known for any particular garments, the way his longtime rival Yves Saint Laurent was for the safari jacket or the Mondrian dress. Lagerfeld rather achieved mega-celebrity status by giving dramatic makeovers to two entities: the esteemed but for a time somewhat moribund house of Chanel, which he took over with a pow in 1983; and his own body.
Years
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