A friend and apprentice of both Pierre Balmain and Yves Saint Laurent (and lover of the latter), Karl Lagerfeld was always destined for the top of the fashion industry. And when he took over and revitalised the near-dead House of Chanel in 1982, he became the epitome and ultimate fashion designer stereotype – a gaunt, peculiar homosexual with a taste for saying outrageous shit solely to get headlines (a gambit followed closely by the likes of Dolce and Gabbana in his footsteps).
Lagerfeld emblazoned his clothes with verses from the Koran, employed adult film stars as catwalk-strutters and said “if you don’t want your underwear pulled down, don’t become a model”. He may not sit too well with our modern #metoo atmosphere, but at the height of turn-of-the-90s supermodel hysteria he was the perfect ringmaster. A hard worker until the very end, his absence from Paris Haute Couture came too late to show up on our radars, and as a result his death scores points for just one team, who can celebrate along with Lagerfeld’s now-millionaire cat, Choupette.
Karl Lagerfeld
10 September 1933 – 19 February 2019
Died aged 85 (unique pick)