Karl Lagerfeld has died at age 85.
Lagerfeld’s official Instagram account shared a statement confirming the news Tuesday, paying tribute to the “passionate and powerful” Chanel designer.
French magazine Closer was one of the first to report the news, claiming the creative director of Chanel died after a period of ill health that lasted for weeks.
Paris Match also reported Lagerfeld had been hospitalized Monday night before he died Tuesday morning.
The Daily Mail then claimed the German-born star had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
A source said, “He hadn’t gone on about his illness, but battled it very bravely. Karl was very proud of his fitness and healthy living, so the pancreatic cancer came as a huge shock.”
Lagerfeld had been forced to miss two of Chanel’s Haute Couture shows at Paris Fashion Week in January. He’d never missed an end-of-show-bow before that.
A statement read out at the time confirmed the fashion mogul had been “feeling tired.”
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“For the traditional greeting at the end of the show, Mr. Lagerfeld, artistic director of Chanel, who was feeling tired, asked Virginie Viard, director of the creative studio of the house, to represent him and greet the guests alongside the bride,” Chanel said in a message to WWD.
The statement continued, “Virginie Viard as creative studio director and Eric Pfrunder as Chanel’s director of image continue to work with him and follow through with the brand’s collections and image campaigns.”
Lagerfeld and Viard had taken the stage together for the final bow at shows in the past.
Lagerfeld designed his first collection for Chanel back in 1983.
The likes of Diane Kruger and Alexa Chung led tributes when the tragic news emerged Tuesday.
Kruger insisted she’d left it too late to introduce her 4-month-old daughter to him.
She posted:
Chung shared:
See more tributes below.
Alain Wertheimer, CEO of CHANEL, added in a press release: “Thanks to his creative genius, generosity and exceptional intuition, Karl Lagerfeld was ahead of his time, which widely contributed to the House of CHANEL’s success throughout the world.
“Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand.”
Bruno Pavlovsky, President of Fashion at CHANEL, also shared: “Fashion show after fashion show, collection after collection, Karl Lagerfeld left his mark on the legend of Gabrielle Chanel and the history of the House of CHANEL. He steadfastly promoted the talent and expertise of CHANEL’s ateliers and Metiers d’Art, allowing this exceptional know-how to shine throughout the world.
“The greatest tribute we can pay today is to continue to follow the path he traced by – to quote Karl – ‘continuing to embrace the present and invent the future’.”
