Karl Lagerfeld trained at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris in the early 1950s, entering the industry after winning a coat category in the 1954 International Wool Secretariat competition, the same contest that brought Yves Saint Laurent to notice.

He joined Pierre Balmain as an assistant on the strength of that prize, then moved to Jean Patou in 1958 as couturier, where he produced two collections a year through the early 1960s before going freelance. His method settled into something portable and house-agnostic, a fluency in tweed, chiffon, and the proportions of a jacket that could be retuned for whichever maison held the contract that season.

The freelance years hardened into the Chloé and Fendi tenures that defined him, Chloé from 1964 and Fendi from 1965, the latter under the five Fendi sisters and a brief that began with fur. At Fendi he reworked sable and mink as supple daywear, slitting and weaving pelts so a coat hung like jersey, and drew the double-F Zucca monogram that still runs the accessories business.

At Chloé through the 1970s he produced the floating crepe-de-chine dresses and printed silk blouses that placed the house in conversation with Saint Laurent rive gauche and Sonia Rykiel, work recognized with the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s International Award in the early 1980s. He left Chloé in 1983 for the appointment that reframed the rest of his career, returning briefly in 1992.

In 1983 Lagerfeld took the artistic directorship of Chanel, succeeding a house that had drifted in the decade after Gabrielle Chanel’s death. His debut reactivated the tweed suit, the camellia, the quilted bag, and the two-tone slingback, scaled up with chain belts, costume pearls in volume, and denim cut to couture proportion.

The Chanel chapter, held until his death in 2019 alongside the parallel Fendi role and his own line, set the template other directors of heritage houses, from Hedi Slimane at Celine to Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, would later work against.