You probably wouldn’t know Karl Lagerfeld by name but we’re sure you’ve come across media that was influenced by him. Ever heard of a little Italian brand called Fendi? How about a brand named Chanel? Lagerfeld was the creative director for both of these global fashion brands for decades.



But why should you care? You’re probably never going to buy a Fendi jacket or a Chanel bag in your life. We might have heard of Lagerfeld before but we never really had any reason to learn more about his life till news of his death went trending on social media and let us tell you this… he was a pretty weird dude but we feel like he lived a pretty interesting, if not awesome, life.


This dude was born in Hamburg, Germany and (not to sound racist but) he really sounded like he was born Hamburg, Germany. Even though he’s actually sort of a genius for being able to teach himself how to speak English and French by the age of six, he still retained his iconic German twang throughout his life. He sounds so stereotypically German that his voice was featured in the fictional radio station in Grand Theft Auto IV called K109 (the numbers are actually his birthday) as a snarky, German radio DJ.


 

His voice wasn’t the only thing iconic about him, though. For years he’d sport the same look (an almost all-black ensemble with huge white collar accents and his signature fingerless gloves).


He has a limited edition (that just means it’s super rare and obviously, super expensive) stuffed bear made in his likeness by a popular stuffed bear brand that we’ve never heard of called Steiff Bear--it’s worth about P200,000 each now.



Being the asshole snarky person that he was, he was never far away from controversy. He loved starting fights with random celebs he didn’t like. He called Adele fat (even though he himself was famously overweight before) and also called Meryll Streep cheap for not wanting to pay for a "gifted" dress she wore at a red carpet. Lagerfeld dodged a piece of tofu thrown by an aggressive animal rights activist. The activist was angry at him for using fur in his Fendi collection. The tofu hit Calvin Klein instead. Lagerfeld later gave in, and decided to use fake fur in his collections.


Many people called this guy a dinosaur of the fashion industry but that doesn’t mean he didn’t dabble in more contemporary collaborations. He recently had a collab with Puma and released a relatively affordable collection with them called KARL X PUMA, featuring loads of highly collectible items including a charming pair of suedes with shades on them.

Photo from Puma South Africa


Being the highest paid creative director in the world, he lived a luxurious life most can only dream of. Even his cat balls harder than you. Choupette (Lagerfeld) has over 177k followers on Instagram and is rumored to get a large portion of her “dad’s” inheritance. Karl Lagerfeld said in his interviews many times that if anything happened to him, he’d want Choupette to be able to live the life she’s accustomed to. That meant being served only meals by sought-after French chefs, personal maids at her beckon-meow, and bodyguards to look after her 24/7.


You might not care about Karl Lagerfeld's death (you're an activist aren't you?) but maybe you should care about how he lived a totally awesome life besides the fact that he was pretty much an asshole to everybody but his cat yet he ironically killed A LOT of other furry animals to create fashionable clothes but whatever.