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Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld stilisierte sich selbst zum lebenden Logo und zu einem Mythos der Modewelt. Was aber steckt hinter dieser überlebensgroßen, charismatischen Figur, die trotz aller Kommunikationslust die eigene Lebensgeschichte geheim hielt? In dieser Graphic Novel kommt man dem Menschen Lagerfeld durch Simon Schwartz' kongeniale bildliche Umsetzung sehr dem frühreifen Jungen, der lieber auf dem Dachboden zeichnete, als mit Altersgenossen zu spielen; dem Sohn, der mit seinen Eltern stritt, aber nie von ihnen loskam; dem spitzzüngigen Konkurrenten von Yves Saint Laurent, den er am Ende überstrahlte; dem weltgewandten Genie in Paris, das mit preußischer Disziplin arbeitete; und dem Partner von Jacques de Bascher, der großen Liebe seines Lebens.
108 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 31, 2025
So richtig doll mochte ich Karl Lagerfeld ja nicht. Aber irgendwie hat er mir auch Respekt eingeflößt. Er war undiplomatisch, gerade heraus und hat sich eigentlich nur um sich selbst gekümmert. Wer möchte nicht am liebsten genauso das gleiche tun? Wenn man dazu noch sein Geld mit Mode verdient, nur von schönen Dingen umgeben ist und sich alles erlauben kann, was man möchte - müsste doch das Paradies sein….
Er wuchs als Sohn des industriellen Lagerfeld auf der die Marke Glücksklee sein eigen nannte. Eigentlich fehlt es ihm an nichts, außer an Liebe. Seine Mutter, eine harte und kalte Person konnte ihn erst, als er schon sehr erfolgreich war näher an sich ran lassen. Lagerfelds Leben war geprägt von Beziehungen, die auf Distanz blieben. Er wollte es so oder kannte es nicht anders.
Dass er Okkultem nicht abgeneigt war, wusste ich bisher nicht und auch, dass er angeblich keine intimen Beziehungen pflegte – wer‘s glaubt!?
Simon Schwarz hat mich schon mit mehreren Graphic Novels begeistert und auch diese ist wieder sehr ansprechend gezeichnet. Der durchaus informative Text hat mir die Kunstfigur Lagerfeld noch mal transparenter gemacht. Verstehen kann ich jetzt irgendwie schon, warum er so geworden ist, wie wir ihn kennen. Dass hier vieles auf seinen eigenen Aussagen beruht, hat mich nicht wirklich gestört. Wenn er so wollte, dass wir ihn so sehen – warum nicht?
Dass er ein Genie auf seinem Gebiet war, will wohl keiner abstreiten. Er hat großes geschaffen und besonders die Sanierung von Chanel geht einzig und allein auf seine Kappe. Dass er nebenbei auch noch alles technische drumherum selber gemacht hat, ist ein weiterer Mosaikstein in seiner Autonomie, und liegt sicherlich in der Unfähigkeit begründet, Kompromisse einzugehen. Unglaublich, wie viel Zeit er in seine Berufung investiert hat.
Amüsant fand ich auch, wie die Katze zu ihm gekommen ist. Muss auch gleich noch mal googeln, was aus ihr geworden ist.
Eine ansprechende Graphic Novel, die ich in einem Rutsch durchgelesen habe. So muss das sein.
Er wuchs als Sohn des industriellen Lagerfeld auf der die Marke Glücksklee sein eigen nannte. Eigentlich fehlt es ihm an nichts, außer an Liebe. Seine Mutter, eine harte und kalte Person konnte ihn erst, als er schon sehr erfolgreich war näher an sich ran lassen. Lagerfelds Leben war geprägt von Beziehungen, die auf Distanz blieben. Er wollte es so oder kannte es nicht anders.
Dass er Okkultem nicht abgeneigt war, wusste ich bisher nicht und auch, dass er angeblich keine intimen Beziehungen pflegte – wer‘s glaubt!?
Simon Schwarz hat mich schon mit mehreren Graphic Novels begeistert und auch diese ist wieder sehr ansprechend gezeichnet. Der durchaus informative Text hat mir die Kunstfigur Lagerfeld noch mal transparenter gemacht. Verstehen kann ich jetzt irgendwie schon, warum er so geworden ist, wie wir ihn kennen. Dass hier vieles auf seinen eigenen Aussagen beruht, hat mich nicht wirklich gestört. Wenn er so wollte, dass wir ihn so sehen – warum nicht?
Dass er ein Genie auf seinem Gebiet war, will wohl keiner abstreiten. Er hat großes geschaffen und besonders die Sanierung von Chanel geht einzig und allein auf seine Kappe. Dass er nebenbei auch noch alles technische drumherum selber gemacht hat, ist ein weiterer Mosaikstein in seiner Autonomie, und liegt sicherlich in der Unfähigkeit begründet, Kompromisse einzugehen. Unglaublich, wie viel Zeit er in seine Berufung investiert hat.
Amüsant fand ich auch, wie die Katze zu ihm gekommen ist. Muss auch gleich noch mal googeln, was aus ihr geworden ist.
Eine ansprechende Graphic Novel, die ich in einem Rutsch durchgelesen habe. So muss das sein.
July 27, 2026
Full disclosure: Karl Lagerfeld is a problematic fave.
There's something suspicious about there being two (mediocre) Karl Lagerfeld graphic novels, that are basically the same. Alfons Kaiser does base this graphic novel on his own biography of Karl Lagerfeld. There's such an effort to make him into a sort of tragic-lite figure due to his "relationships" and upbringing, but what gets lost is his incredible drive, his awful, wicked sense of humour, and all the crazy anecdotes that his actual biographies are filled with. They're surface-level introductions to Karl and are so boring.
There were some odd moments, too... like why would Alfons Kaiser (who wrote an actual biography about Karl) focus on certain things. I lost it when I got to the double-page discussing how bad his carbon footprint would have been? LOL. Okay... like... there really had to be a shot of a personal jet, a garbage dump, and Greta Thunberg protesting? What? Really? His CARBON FOOTPRINT is hardly the most problematic aspect of Karl Lagerfeld lmao. Also, did they really have to include an image of Karl with FLAMES in front of his sunglasses with the caption saying that he had Chloe burn all his archival drawings? Bizarre!! Which reminds me, what's missing is also... interesting. Weird that they had an entire page about the Fendi sisters and totally ignored Gaby Aghion who founded Chloe (who has such an INCREDIBLE story!!!), it didn't even say her name once!! Also, not including his sisters was weird.
There's something suspicious about there being two (mediocre) Karl Lagerfeld graphic novels, that are basically the same. Alfons Kaiser does base this graphic novel on his own biography of Karl Lagerfeld. There's such an effort to make him into a sort of tragic-lite figure due to his "relationships" and upbringing, but what gets lost is his incredible drive, his awful, wicked sense of humour, and all the crazy anecdotes that his actual biographies are filled with. They're surface-level introductions to Karl and are so boring.
There were some odd moments, too... like why would Alfons Kaiser (who wrote an actual biography about Karl) focus on certain things. I lost it when I got to the double-page discussing how bad his carbon footprint would have been? LOL. Okay... like... there really had to be a shot of a personal jet, a garbage dump, and Greta Thunberg protesting? What? Really? His CARBON FOOTPRINT is hardly the most problematic aspect of Karl Lagerfeld lmao. Also, did they really have to include an image of Karl with FLAMES in front of his sunglasses with the caption saying that he had Chloe burn all his archival drawings? Bizarre!! Which reminds me, what's missing is also... interesting. Weird that they had an entire page about the Fendi sisters and totally ignored Gaby Aghion who founded Chloe (who has such an INCREDIBLE story!!!), it didn't even say her name once!! Also, not including his sisters was weird.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
No Seams Showing
Alfons Kaiser and Simon Schwartz trace the making of Karl Lagerfeld’s immaculate public self – and the human difficulty tucked neatly inside it
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 3rd, 2026
At the Grand Palais memorial in June 2019, the fashion crowd got what Karl Lagerfeld had spent a lifetime perfecting: finish, pageantry, and the impression that nothing human had snagged on the hem. What it did not get was Karl Lagerfeld. “Karl Lagerfeld: An Illustrated Biography,” written by Alfons Kaiser and illustrated by Simon Schwartz, opens with exactly that absent center – a stage-managed vacancy – and then spends the rest of its pages asking what, exactly, had stood in for the man for so long. Not genius alone. Not merely clothes. A person edited, starched, powdered, dark-glassed, and tightened into a trademarked silhouette.
The subtitle offers biography’s old stage illusion: pull off the gloves and there, supposedly, is the man. Kaiser and Schwartz give us something less confessional and more exacting. They do not prise Lagerfeld open and sort his feelings into tidy piles. They keep noticing how much labor went into sealing him. Their subject is less hidden core than maintained finish: the high collar, the black glasses, the powdered ponytail, the drastic weight loss, the aphoristic wit, the industrial output, the public manner that made him seem both everywhere and untouchable by design. The real question is not who he “really was,” but how the thing called Karl Lagerfeld got assembled – and what had to be packed away for the assembly to hold.
That question hangs the rooms before anyone enters them: memorial first, origins second, clerical afterlife last. We do not move toward revelation so much as back through layers of finish. The family pages cut with the hard clean bite of dressmaker’s shears. Otto Lagerfeld – businessman, globe-trotter, wartime prisoner in Russia, later founder of the Glücksklee milk empire – gives his son a lineage of movement, salesmanship, and strategic tidying-up. Elisabeth Lagerfeld, née Bahlmann, contributes chill, class pride, and a taste for the lacquered insult. Her remarks land like small knives with expensive handles. Out of that household comes a child who is gifted, aloof, vain enough to be interesting, and already halfway out of the room.
Kaiser is just as dry-eyed with the record as he is cool with the gossip. Lagerfeld later shaved years off his age and blurred the less flattering corners of his origin story. Kaiser keeps nicking that legend with archive steel. He was born in 1933, not in the younger year he preferred. His parents were Nazi sympathizers. Their place in that history is neither inflated into melodrama nor politely dusted away. This is the book’s best reflex: let the legend strike its pose, then drag it back to the file. The method matters because the book is not trying to win a game of revelation. It is trying to show how revelation itself can be foiled by polish, repetition, and ruthless self-editing.
In 1949 the book finally catches. The teenage Karl attends a Christian Dior show in Hamburg and sees, not just clothes, but an exit disguised as glamour. Fashion arrives as a way of living in the next sentence instead of the last one – a future away from provincial boredom, inherited embarrassment, postwar German heaviness, and the family business. Paris begins to matter less as geography than as permission. It is the place where he can become younger than he is, more cosmopolitan than he is, less German than he is, and eventually more image than man.
Paris speeds the pages up without warming them. Lagerfeld studies French obsessively, walks the city like a self-appointed inspector, hides in movie theaters to tune his accent, lies about his age, and enters the trade through a competition that places him beside Yves Saint Laurent. Kaiser sketches the rivalry with brisk, unfussy malice. The two young designers are mirrors with different timing. Yves blazes early. Karl lingers, collecting technique, grievance, and operating system. Here the book stops being merely well-made and starts thinking. It treats rivalry not as glittery garnish but as one of the ways Lagerfeld learns how public selves are built: by contrast, by timing, by watching another man get there first.
The real pivot is not fame but workflow. At Pierre Balmain he learns discipline. At Jean Patou he gains title without satisfaction. Then comes freelance multiplicity. Lagerfeld begins working across houses, cities, and decades, and Kaiser is sharp enough to see that this is more than ambition. It is worldview. He turns into a sketch engine: fittings, logos, campaigns, fabrics, references, flights, all moving through one astonishingly efficient nervous system. At Fendi he retools fur and designs the logo. At Chloé he helps define a freer version of ready-to-wear. At Chanel he makes heritage look endlessly reissued. He is not just sketching garments. He is making repetition look expensive.
That is the book’s governing insight. Plenty of artists are prolific. Kaiser and Schwartz show something stranger: Lagerfeld made himself reproducible. The pages track the simplification of his public casing – collars rising higher, palette narrowing toward monochrome, hair pulled back and powdered, glasses sealing over, body cut down until it behaved like another design decision. He did not merely wear a signature look. He found a way to dress as filing system, crest, and warning label. Schwartz catches this with real precision. As Lagerfeld’s cultural reach expands, his silhouette grows simpler. That is not a contradiction. It is the trick. The more graphic he becomes, the more portable he becomes. He can move from runway to press kit to ad campaign to social feed without shedding recognizability.
Schwartz, crucially, is not there to tint Kaiser’s file cards. He is doing separate work. Kaiser provides chronology, pressure, and those little evidentiary caveats – “most likely,” “it is unclear,” “according to” – that keep the myth from floating off. Schwartz supplies emblem, scale, atmosphere, and a sly visual wit the prose cannot produce on its own. The headings – “FATHER,” “MOTHER,” “BIRTH,” “CHANEL,” “DIET,” “PHOTOGRAPHY” – turn the life into a sequence of galleries rather than a smooth inward confession. Dense documentary spreads give way to cleaner, poster-like pages. The result feels like a retrospective hung by someone who mistrusts retrospectives, which is exactly right for a man who treated curation as both métier and armor. This is not prose with pictures attached. It is a division of labor: Kaiser investigates, Schwartz stylizes, and the page design judges.
Kaiser writes in clipped, chilled bursts. He likes the little evidentiary hedge – “it is unclear,” “most likely,” “according to” – and uses it to good effect. These verbal brakes do more than establish authority. They create tone. This is not lush biographical writing, and it has the good sense not to pretend otherwise. Even when dealing with childhood humiliations, Nazi inheritance, AIDS, vanity, or death, the sentences stay sealed, alert, and cool to the touch. That cool-blooded exactness flatters the subject’s own habits almost too neatly. It also gives the prose a curatorial authority many more florid biographies would envy.
It is where the method sends in its invoice as well. By matching Lagerfeld’s polish, speed, and withholding so closely, Kaiser and Schwartz make a formally exact portrait. They do not flatter the reader with counterfeit access. They accept that unreadability was one of Lagerfeld’s major creations. In that sense, the book is wiser than many longer biographies. It knows that the public shell may be the truest surviving record not because it is candid, but because it is the one thing he consistently authored. Still, the price of that exactness is real. The book captures public design better than private feeling. It understands arrangement more deeply than pulse.
Jacques de Bascher makes that cost visible. The relationship is one of the book’s structural beams – intellectually charged, emotionally singular, sexually evasive, arranged around closeness without merger. Jacques’s affair with Yves Saint Laurent turns professional rivalry poisonous and intimate at once. His illness and death during the AIDS years should be the point at which the book’s architecture creaks. It does not. One feels the architecture of the relationship more strongly than its daily pulse. Kaiser understands what Jacques means inside Lagerfeld’s life – as companion, mirror, temptation, wound, and proof that intimacy can be tolerated so long as it remains partially staged. He is less interested in letting Jacques disorder that life on the page. The result is telling and a little frustrating: the relationship clarifies Lagerfeld, but it never quite breathes.
Later, that same polish starts smoothing down material that should still leave splinters. Kaiser is right to include the H&M collaboration not only as a pop coup but as one of the moments when prestige and disposability married in public. He is right, too, to note the waste, the flights, the climate-blind grandeur, and Lagerfeld’s increasingly ugly late public speech. All of that belongs in the portrait. But the later pages register some of this material more than they press it. A sharper version of this book might have dug the blade in further here – not to sermonize, but to show more fully how luxury’s genius for reinvention shades into indifference, and how a man who lived by perpetual novelty could become so stale in his certainties. Readers allergic to sermon will admire the restraint. Others will wish the knife had gone in another inch.
The book is most affecting when it declines to perform feeling. By the final act, Lagerfeld has already dispersed himself across houses, campaigns, photographs, runway spectacles, cat iconography, slogans, and product lines. He is half archive before the body gives out. Illness arrives in character: secrecy, denial, continued work, dependence narrowed to a very small circle. Even from the hospital he plans shows. Then he dies. Chanel announces succession. The Fendi show proceeds. The machine barely bothers to blink.
Kaiser and Schwartz refuse the slow violin. They make a colder, better move. The man who spent a lifetime arranging how he would appear ends, finally, as an entry. That turn into notes, credits, and back matter is what keeps the book from settling for handsome competence. It turns the whole project a shade colder, and much truer. Lagerfeld emerges not merely as a titan of couture but as an early virtuoso of being recognizable at a glance – a master of the scalable self, of visibility converted into capital, of the body and wardrobe as endlessly renewable interface. Long before every minor public figure learned to live as merchandise, Lagerfeld had already worked out the higher version of the trick. Kaiser and Schwartz see that. Better still, they see its limit. However perfectly a person arranges his own surface, he still ends in formats he cannot control: notes, entries, succession plans, archived gestures, a caption under a photograph that will no longer be updated.
“”Karl Lagerfeld: An Illustrated Biography” lands at 86/100 – 4 stars: admiring, exacting, and emphatically not devotional. Its finest work is done in form and thought, not in the old biographical business of making you feel close. Kaiser and Schwartz have made a biography whose cold polish is both triumph and limit. By matching Lagerfeld’s elegance, discipline, and emotional distance so closely, they produce a portrait that feels exact without pretending to be complete.
That incompleteness is not a lapse. It is part of the likeness. Lagerfeld spent decades dressing himself as certainty. These pages show the seams in that certainty without yanking the garment apart. What remains after the covers close is not confession but outline: collar still up, silhouette still crisp, the houses still trading on the afterglow, the person reduced to an entry among entries. A life arranged for display ends, fittingly and a little brutally, in a file folder.
Alfons Kaiser and Simon Schwartz trace the making of Karl Lagerfeld’s immaculate public self – and the human difficulty tucked neatly inside it
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 3rd, 2026
At the Grand Palais memorial in June 2019, the fashion crowd got what Karl Lagerfeld had spent a lifetime perfecting: finish, pageantry, and the impression that nothing human had snagged on the hem. What it did not get was Karl Lagerfeld. “Karl Lagerfeld: An Illustrated Biography,” written by Alfons Kaiser and illustrated by Simon Schwartz, opens with exactly that absent center – a stage-managed vacancy – and then spends the rest of its pages asking what, exactly, had stood in for the man for so long. Not genius alone. Not merely clothes. A person edited, starched, powdered, dark-glassed, and tightened into a trademarked silhouette.
The subtitle offers biography’s old stage illusion: pull off the gloves and there, supposedly, is the man. Kaiser and Schwartz give us something less confessional and more exacting. They do not prise Lagerfeld open and sort his feelings into tidy piles. They keep noticing how much labor went into sealing him. Their subject is less hidden core than maintained finish: the high collar, the black glasses, the powdered ponytail, the drastic weight loss, the aphoristic wit, the industrial output, the public manner that made him seem both everywhere and untouchable by design. The real question is not who he “really was,” but how the thing called Karl Lagerfeld got assembled – and what had to be packed away for the assembly to hold.
That question hangs the rooms before anyone enters them: memorial first, origins second, clerical afterlife last. We do not move toward revelation so much as back through layers of finish. The family pages cut with the hard clean bite of dressmaker’s shears. Otto Lagerfeld – businessman, globe-trotter, wartime prisoner in Russia, later founder of the Glücksklee milk empire – gives his son a lineage of movement, salesmanship, and strategic tidying-up. Elisabeth Lagerfeld, née Bahlmann, contributes chill, class pride, and a taste for the lacquered insult. Her remarks land like small knives with expensive handles. Out of that household comes a child who is gifted, aloof, vain enough to be interesting, and already halfway out of the room.
Kaiser is just as dry-eyed with the record as he is cool with the gossip. Lagerfeld later shaved years off his age and blurred the less flattering corners of his origin story. Kaiser keeps nicking that legend with archive steel. He was born in 1933, not in the younger year he preferred. His parents were Nazi sympathizers. Their place in that history is neither inflated into melodrama nor politely dusted away. This is the book’s best reflex: let the legend strike its pose, then drag it back to the file. The method matters because the book is not trying to win a game of revelation. It is trying to show how revelation itself can be foiled by polish, repetition, and ruthless self-editing.
In 1949 the book finally catches. The teenage Karl attends a Christian Dior show in Hamburg and sees, not just clothes, but an exit disguised as glamour. Fashion arrives as a way of living in the next sentence instead of the last one – a future away from provincial boredom, inherited embarrassment, postwar German heaviness, and the family business. Paris begins to matter less as geography than as permission. It is the place where he can become younger than he is, more cosmopolitan than he is, less German than he is, and eventually more image than man.
Paris speeds the pages up without warming them. Lagerfeld studies French obsessively, walks the city like a self-appointed inspector, hides in movie theaters to tune his accent, lies about his age, and enters the trade through a competition that places him beside Yves Saint Laurent. Kaiser sketches the rivalry with brisk, unfussy malice. The two young designers are mirrors with different timing. Yves blazes early. Karl lingers, collecting technique, grievance, and operating system. Here the book stops being merely well-made and starts thinking. It treats rivalry not as glittery garnish but as one of the ways Lagerfeld learns how public selves are built: by contrast, by timing, by watching another man get there first.
The real pivot is not fame but workflow. At Pierre Balmain he learns discipline. At Jean Patou he gains title without satisfaction. Then comes freelance multiplicity. Lagerfeld begins working across houses, cities, and decades, and Kaiser is sharp enough to see that this is more than ambition. It is worldview. He turns into a sketch engine: fittings, logos, campaigns, fabrics, references, flights, all moving through one astonishingly efficient nervous system. At Fendi he retools fur and designs the logo. At Chloé he helps define a freer version of ready-to-wear. At Chanel he makes heritage look endlessly reissued. He is not just sketching garments. He is making repetition look expensive.
That is the book’s governing insight. Plenty of artists are prolific. Kaiser and Schwartz show something stranger: Lagerfeld made himself reproducible. The pages track the simplification of his public casing – collars rising higher, palette narrowing toward monochrome, hair pulled back and powdered, glasses sealing over, body cut down until it behaved like another design decision. He did not merely wear a signature look. He found a way to dress as filing system, crest, and warning label. Schwartz catches this with real precision. As Lagerfeld’s cultural reach expands, his silhouette grows simpler. That is not a contradiction. It is the trick. The more graphic he becomes, the more portable he becomes. He can move from runway to press kit to ad campaign to social feed without shedding recognizability.
Schwartz, crucially, is not there to tint Kaiser’s file cards. He is doing separate work. Kaiser provides chronology, pressure, and those little evidentiary caveats – “most likely,” “it is unclear,” “according to” – that keep the myth from floating off. Schwartz supplies emblem, scale, atmosphere, and a sly visual wit the prose cannot produce on its own. The headings – “FATHER,” “MOTHER,” “BIRTH,” “CHANEL,” “DIET,” “PHOTOGRAPHY” – turn the life into a sequence of galleries rather than a smooth inward confession. Dense documentary spreads give way to cleaner, poster-like pages. The result feels like a retrospective hung by someone who mistrusts retrospectives, which is exactly right for a man who treated curation as both métier and armor. This is not prose with pictures attached. It is a division of labor: Kaiser investigates, Schwartz stylizes, and the page design judges.
Kaiser writes in clipped, chilled bursts. He likes the little evidentiary hedge – “it is unclear,” “most likely,” “according to” – and uses it to good effect. These verbal brakes do more than establish authority. They create tone. This is not lush biographical writing, and it has the good sense not to pretend otherwise. Even when dealing with childhood humiliations, Nazi inheritance, AIDS, vanity, or death, the sentences stay sealed, alert, and cool to the touch. That cool-blooded exactness flatters the subject’s own habits almost too neatly. It also gives the prose a curatorial authority many more florid biographies would envy.
It is where the method sends in its invoice as well. By matching Lagerfeld’s polish, speed, and withholding so closely, Kaiser and Schwartz make a formally exact portrait. They do not flatter the reader with counterfeit access. They accept that unreadability was one of Lagerfeld’s major creations. In that sense, the book is wiser than many longer biographies. It knows that the public shell may be the truest surviving record not because it is candid, but because it is the one thing he consistently authored. Still, the price of that exactness is real. The book captures public design better than private feeling. It understands arrangement more deeply than pulse.
Jacques de Bascher makes that cost visible. The relationship is one of the book’s structural beams – intellectually charged, emotionally singular, sexually evasive, arranged around closeness without merger. Jacques’s affair with Yves Saint Laurent turns professional rivalry poisonous and intimate at once. His illness and death during the AIDS years should be the point at which the book’s architecture creaks. It does not. One feels the architecture of the relationship more strongly than its daily pulse. Kaiser understands what Jacques means inside Lagerfeld’s life – as companion, mirror, temptation, wound, and proof that intimacy can be tolerated so long as it remains partially staged. He is less interested in letting Jacques disorder that life on the page. The result is telling and a little frustrating: the relationship clarifies Lagerfeld, but it never quite breathes.
Later, that same polish starts smoothing down material that should still leave splinters. Kaiser is right to include the H&M collaboration not only as a pop coup but as one of the moments when prestige and disposability married in public. He is right, too, to note the waste, the flights, the climate-blind grandeur, and Lagerfeld’s increasingly ugly late public speech. All of that belongs in the portrait. But the later pages register some of this material more than they press it. A sharper version of this book might have dug the blade in further here – not to sermonize, but to show more fully how luxury’s genius for reinvention shades into indifference, and how a man who lived by perpetual novelty could become so stale in his certainties. Readers allergic to sermon will admire the restraint. Others will wish the knife had gone in another inch.
The book is most affecting when it declines to perform feeling. By the final act, Lagerfeld has already dispersed himself across houses, campaigns, photographs, runway spectacles, cat iconography, slogans, and product lines. He is half archive before the body gives out. Illness arrives in character: secrecy, denial, continued work, dependence narrowed to a very small circle. Even from the hospital he plans shows. Then he dies. Chanel announces succession. The Fendi show proceeds. The machine barely bothers to blink.
Kaiser and Schwartz refuse the slow violin. They make a colder, better move. The man who spent a lifetime arranging how he would appear ends, finally, as an entry. That turn into notes, credits, and back matter is what keeps the book from settling for handsome competence. It turns the whole project a shade colder, and much truer. Lagerfeld emerges not merely as a titan of couture but as an early virtuoso of being recognizable at a glance – a master of the scalable self, of visibility converted into capital, of the body and wardrobe as endlessly renewable interface. Long before every minor public figure learned to live as merchandise, Lagerfeld had already worked out the higher version of the trick. Kaiser and Schwartz see that. Better still, they see its limit. However perfectly a person arranges his own surface, he still ends in formats he cannot control: notes, entries, succession plans, archived gestures, a caption under a photograph that will no longer be updated.
“”Karl Lagerfeld: An Illustrated Biography” lands at 86/100 – 4 stars: admiring, exacting, and emphatically not devotional. Its finest work is done in form and thought, not in the old biographical business of making you feel close. Kaiser and Schwartz have made a biography whose cold polish is both triumph and limit. By matching Lagerfeld’s elegance, discipline, and emotional distance so closely, they produce a portrait that feels exact without pretending to be complete.
That incompleteness is not a lapse. It is part of the likeness. Lagerfeld spent decades dressing himself as certainty. These pages show the seams in that certainty without yanking the garment apart. What remains after the covers close is not confession but outline: collar still up, silhouette still crisp, the houses still trading on the afterglow, the person reduced to an entry among entries. A life arranged for display ends, fittingly and a little brutally, in a file folder.
June 24, 2026
How I Came to Read This Book: Random stumble-upon from the library.
The Plot: Karl Lagerfeld is one of the 20th century's most famous and influential fashion designers, primarily for his roles with Chanel and Fendi, but also for his own iconic sense of style. This book is a whirlwind tour through the man, the myth, and the legend, across his humble upbringing to his first forays into fashion, and touching on his personal life too.
The Good & The Bad: Imagine my surprise to see the sheer volume of non-graphic novel biographies about this man when I went to write this review. I say that because this realllly seems to just skim the surface. It feels more like a pastiche of fun facts, anecdotes, and quotes overlaid with graphic images. The result is more impressionistic; Lagerfeld appears as much as a cipher as ever, although with some nasty endnotes based on his devolution into supporting the right wing and some racist proclivities by the end.
What I was hoping to get from this was more about HOW he become the icon he is; not just where he came from, but how he developed this innate sense of style, what he became known for, the ups and downs of his fashion career. Instead, you get a much more surface level story that doesn't (to its credit) shy away from Lagerfeld's quirks and dark side, but also doesn't really give you much to root for. It just feels like a collection of eccentricities at the end of the day.
I was also left with so many questions. The feud between Lagerfeld and YSL felt unresolved. The nature of his controlling entanglements with various (often younger) men felt unsettling and icky. His commentary on weight and models was...not unexpected. I was also surprised they didn't touch on his own eponymous line at any point, choosing instead to spotlight his collection with H&M as it dovetailed into commentary on Karl's shitty ecological record and a nod to fast fashion.
It was kind of a fun read if you're in the mood for something surfacey, and was filled with plenty of interesting little factoids, and I can see it being a fun choice for a coffee table book in a Brooklyn fashionista kind of way. But anyone looking for a bit more insight on this elusive designer should probably do well to pick up an actual nonfiction account.
The Bottom Line: Frothy and surface-level, while not shying away from Lagerfeld's dark side, this is a breezy look at the fashion icon's life.
Anything Memorable?: I actually always thought Lagerfeld was directly employed by Chanel; imagine my surprise he was a freelancer forever, as far as I could tell.
2026 Book Challenge?: Book #41 in 2026
The Plot: Karl Lagerfeld is one of the 20th century's most famous and influential fashion designers, primarily for his roles with Chanel and Fendi, but also for his own iconic sense of style. This book is a whirlwind tour through the man, the myth, and the legend, across his humble upbringing to his first forays into fashion, and touching on his personal life too.
The Good & The Bad: Imagine my surprise to see the sheer volume of non-graphic novel biographies about this man when I went to write this review. I say that because this realllly seems to just skim the surface. It feels more like a pastiche of fun facts, anecdotes, and quotes overlaid with graphic images. The result is more impressionistic; Lagerfeld appears as much as a cipher as ever, although with some nasty endnotes based on his devolution into supporting the right wing and some racist proclivities by the end.
What I was hoping to get from this was more about HOW he become the icon he is; not just where he came from, but how he developed this innate sense of style, what he became known for, the ups and downs of his fashion career. Instead, you get a much more surface level story that doesn't (to its credit) shy away from Lagerfeld's quirks and dark side, but also doesn't really give you much to root for. It just feels like a collection of eccentricities at the end of the day.
I was also left with so many questions. The feud between Lagerfeld and YSL felt unresolved. The nature of his controlling entanglements with various (often younger) men felt unsettling and icky. His commentary on weight and models was...not unexpected. I was also surprised they didn't touch on his own eponymous line at any point, choosing instead to spotlight his collection with H&M as it dovetailed into commentary on Karl's shitty ecological record and a nod to fast fashion.
It was kind of a fun read if you're in the mood for something surfacey, and was filled with plenty of interesting little factoids, and I can see it being a fun choice for a coffee table book in a Brooklyn fashionista kind of way. But anyone looking for a bit more insight on this elusive designer should probably do well to pick up an actual nonfiction account.
The Bottom Line: Frothy and surface-level, while not shying away from Lagerfeld's dark side, this is a breezy look at the fashion icon's life.
Anything Memorable?: I actually always thought Lagerfeld was directly employed by Chanel; imagine my surprise he was a freelancer forever, as far as I could tell.
2026 Book Challenge?: Book #41 in 2026
July 6, 2025
Meine Assoziationen zu Karl Lagerfeld sind sein Zopf und seine silberne Skulptur vor den Outlet-Shops. Tatsächlich alles nur äußerliche Merkmale, sodass mir eine Graphic Novel zu seinem Leben ganz gelegen kam.
Informationen gibt es zunächst zu seinem Vater, dem Produzenten der Kondensmilch „Glücksklee“, der Mutter und zu seiner Ausbildung. Später werden auch seine Stationen als Designer und seine Vertrauten näher beleuchtet. Gegen Ende des Buchs erfährt man auch, wie er seine Person selbst zum Markenzeichen stilisiert hat und welche Kleidung und Accessoires er kombiniert hat.
Für mich eine gelungene Reise durch das Leben Lagerfelds, ich habe in kurzer Zeit viel über den Designer gelernt. Doch eins wurde oft deutlich gemacht: wie zuverlässig all die Informationen sind, kann nicht immer genau gesagt werden. Allein schon sein Lieblingsgetränk: war es nun Pepsi Max oder Cola Light? Auch bei seinem Geburtsdatum hatte Karl Lagerfeld, wahrscheinlich aus gutem Grund, geschummelt.
Interessant fand ich die zahlreichen Kollaborationen, an denen der gebürtige Hamburger mitgewirkt hat, hier hat er nicht nur das hochpreisige Segment bedient. Ein wenig geärgert habe ich mich, dass ich mir vor vielen Jahren nichts günstiges mit seinem Konterfei besorgt habe.
Die Texte der Graphic Novel stammen von Alfons Kaiser, Journalist der F.A.Z., der bereits die Biografie „Karl Lagerfeld. Ein Deutscher in Paris“ veröffentlicht hat. Von guter Recherche kann man hier sicherlich ausgehen und die gelungenen Illustrationen von Simon Schwartz sorgen dafür, dass man perfekt in Lagerfelds Geschichte eintauchen kann. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 - für mich einfach stimmig!
Informationen gibt es zunächst zu seinem Vater, dem Produzenten der Kondensmilch „Glücksklee“, der Mutter und zu seiner Ausbildung. Später werden auch seine Stationen als Designer und seine Vertrauten näher beleuchtet. Gegen Ende des Buchs erfährt man auch, wie er seine Person selbst zum Markenzeichen stilisiert hat und welche Kleidung und Accessoires er kombiniert hat.
Für mich eine gelungene Reise durch das Leben Lagerfelds, ich habe in kurzer Zeit viel über den Designer gelernt. Doch eins wurde oft deutlich gemacht: wie zuverlässig all die Informationen sind, kann nicht immer genau gesagt werden. Allein schon sein Lieblingsgetränk: war es nun Pepsi Max oder Cola Light? Auch bei seinem Geburtsdatum hatte Karl Lagerfeld, wahrscheinlich aus gutem Grund, geschummelt.
Interessant fand ich die zahlreichen Kollaborationen, an denen der gebürtige Hamburger mitgewirkt hat, hier hat er nicht nur das hochpreisige Segment bedient. Ein wenig geärgert habe ich mich, dass ich mir vor vielen Jahren nichts günstiges mit seinem Konterfei besorgt habe.
Die Texte der Graphic Novel stammen von Alfons Kaiser, Journalist der F.A.Z., der bereits die Biografie „Karl Lagerfeld. Ein Deutscher in Paris“ veröffentlicht hat. Von guter Recherche kann man hier sicherlich ausgehen und die gelungenen Illustrationen von Simon Schwartz sorgen dafür, dass man perfekt in Lagerfelds Geschichte eintauchen kann. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 - für mich einfach stimmig!
February 21, 2026
4 ⭐️
When I heard “illustrated biography” I got very excited. I loved to learn more about Karl Lagerfeld and I sure did. It was a fun experience to learn about his childhood, his important people and his way in fashion.
The pictures are very beautiful and it is quite text heavy, but that makes sense since it is a Biography.
If you’re into fashion and want to learn more about Karl Lagerfeld, this is the book for you!
Thanks Netgalley and Abrams Comic Arts for letting me read this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
When I heard “illustrated biography” I got very excited. I loved to learn more about Karl Lagerfeld and I sure did. It was a fun experience to learn about his childhood, his important people and his way in fashion.
The pictures are very beautiful and it is quite text heavy, but that makes sense since it is a Biography.
If you’re into fashion and want to learn more about Karl Lagerfeld, this is the book for you!
Thanks Netgalley and Abrams Comic Arts for letting me read this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 10, 2026
What a wonderful graphic novel! While we’ve all heard of Karl Lagerfeld, I realized I didn’t know half of the fascinating facts about his life until I picked this up. This book is a treasure trove of information, and the graphic novel format is the perfect way to bring his story to life.
The illustrations are absolutely stunning—I enjoyed every page. I loved the visual storytelling and would love to see a whole “Famous Designers” series in the future! Illustrated biography of Dior, Channel, Alexander McQueen…. I hope it will happen.
The illustrations are absolutely stunning—I enjoyed every page. I loved the visual storytelling and would love to see a whole “Famous Designers” series in the future! Illustrated biography of Dior, Channel, Alexander McQueen…. I hope it will happen.
June 9, 2026
While only 96 pages, this graphic novel is full of information and beautiful illustrations.
An honest and well researched biography of Karl Lagerfeld's life, career, and several personal relationships.
Would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about Mr. Lagerfeld, but not up to reading the prose version.
An honest and well researched biography of Karl Lagerfeld's life, career, and several personal relationships.
Would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about Mr. Lagerfeld, but not up to reading the prose version.
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June 17, 2026Who knew there was a connection between Lagerfeld and Carnation, Washington. Not me.
November 26, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for my Advanced Readers Copy of this book.
This is how to do a graphic biography. The book does not follow a straight path from Lagerfeld's birth to his death. Instead it has sections that focus on different chapters in his life. Sections include other people in his life, including family and other designers, fashion houses he worked for and with, and even aspects of his lifestyle. The art is well drawn and beautifully colored. The only reason it isn't a five is that I found it very text heavy. 4.5 stars
This is how to do a graphic biography. The book does not follow a straight path from Lagerfeld's birth to his death. Instead it has sections that focus on different chapters in his life. Sections include other people in his life, including family and other designers, fashion houses he worked for and with, and even aspects of his lifestyle. The art is well drawn and beautifully colored. The only reason it isn't a five is that I found it very text heavy. 4.5 stars
March 21, 2026
Una novela gráfica sobre Karl Lagerfeld. Está muy bien ilustrada, con un uso de la línea y el color que acompaña a la historia. Me gusta que no esté narrada la historia en orden temporal, si no por hitos.
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