How Karl Lagerfeld Became Master of the Celebrity Fashion Universe

 

In a joint interview with Lagerfeld published in May 2016 in Harper’s Bazaar, Jenner recalled meeting him for the first time.

“Before I met him, well, when you think of Karl Lagerfeld, someone that amazing, you sort of don’t think they actually exist,” the model said. And she didn’t mind that he wasn’t aware of why she was initially famous.

“We don’t have [Keeping Up With the Kardashians] here,” Lagerfeld said. “I didn’t even know she was in it. I saw it when it was only her sisters and she was, like, a baby.”

“I love that, Kendall said. “That’s so refreshing to me.”

When Lagerfeld didn’t appear to take his customary bow at the end of Chanel’s two shows during Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week in January 2019, it signaled the end of an era.

His death a few weeks later after a private battle with cancer triggered an outpouring of remembrances from the endless list of celebrities, fellow designers and influencers who called him a friend, frenemy or inspiration.

“One day it will be over and I don’t care,” Lagerfeld told T, The New York Times Style Magazine, in 2015. “As my mother used to say, ‘There is one God for everybody and all the religions are shops.'”

Said the man who hasn’t been consigned to history just yet.

(Originally published March 2, 2017, at 12:57 p.m.)