Today, May 1, is the annual Met Gala, which is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” concept, which was introduced in September of last year, promises to “examine the life” of the late fashion designer’s legacy.
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The discourse surrounding Lagerfeld has reached a fever pitch in the time following the announcement that the late designer was the inspiration for this year’s Met Gala, ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’, an exhibit that will feature 150 of Lagerfeld’s designs, alongside his original sketches.
Lagerfeld, the iconoclastic designer best known for being at the helm of Chanel for over three decades, as well as designing for Fendi and his own eponymous label, was famous for his innovative designs, his fantastical fashion shows, and his branding genius, both personally and professionally.
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Equally infamous were Lagerfeld’s incisive tongue and apparent lack of restraint, both of which he used frequently and on a variety of subjects.
Lagerfeld showed no remorse in disparaging bodies, especially women’s bodies, despite the fashion industry’s longstanding criticism for its lack of diversity, particularly when it comes to larger bodies or color. Lagerfeld frequently offered uninvited criticisms of other public figures like Adele, whom he called “too fat,” and Heidi Klum, whom he called “too heavy,” while mocking movements like body positivity and making outrageous claims that anorexia was not as serious as it was made out to be.
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Here are 5 controversial statements made by Karl Lagerfeld :
“No one wants to see curvy women”
In an interview with the German Focus magazine stated – “These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly.”
“No one wants to see curvy women,” he added.
“If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model!”
In an interview with Numero Magazine, Lagerfeld talking about the #MeToo said – “What shocks me most in all of this are the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened. I read somewhere that now you must ask a model if she is comfortable with posing. Its simply too much, from now on, as a designer, you can’t do anything. If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent. They’re recruiting even!”
“Kate Middleton’s sister was pretty and she was sweet, but she was stupid”
Lagerfeld once criticized the sister of Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton.
“Kate Middleton has a nice silhouette and she is the right girl for that boy … On the other hand, her sister struggles. I don’t like the sister’s face. She should only show her back,” Lagerfeld said of Pippa Middleton, Kate Middleton’s younger sister.
“She was pretty and she was sweet, but she was stupid,” he added.
“Ugly feminist”
In a 2009 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, he stated that Coco Chanel “wasn’t ugly enough to be a feminist.”
“The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust”
Lagerfeld provoked uproar when he criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for welcoming refugees escaping war.
“One cannot — even if there are decades between them — kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place,” he said on the French chat show Salut les Terriens! in 2017. “I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said, “The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust,” he explained.