Karl Lagerfeld was an influential and highly controversial German fashion designer. Born in the 1930s to a family of wealthy businessmen in Hamburg Germany, Lagerfeld developed an interest in the arts at an early age, mainly drawing. 

 

Lagerfeld got his start in the fashion industry by entering in a number of design competitions, which drew the eyes of his future mentor Pierre Balmain. Balmain took him as an apprentice for three years. By 1957, Lagerfeld 

became the artistic director for Jean Patou for five years until he left to become a freelance designer in 1962.

 

After freelancing for popular brands like Charles Jourdan, Chloé, Krizia, he was hired by Fendi in 1965 to work on their fur line and then for Chloé a few years later. His work for Chloe propelled into worldwide stardom. Later in the 1980s Lagerfeld was hired by Chanel and with his help he revived the brand, making radical changes to designs.

 

Finally, in 1984, Lagerfeld launched his own brand named after himself. In addition to being a designer, Lagerfeld became a professional caricature artist starting in 2013, and published political cartoons in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

 

Lagerfeld continued releasing clothing lines up until his death in 2019.