Miniseries about fashion icon – DW – 28.06.2024

Who says that no one is a prophet in their own country? Just a few weeks ago, the Hamburg Senate decided to rename a section of the street Karl Lagerfeld Promenade. Although it is only 150 meters long, it is very centrally located and even close to Felix Jud, Karl Lagerfeld’s favorite bookstore. The Hamburg native was known as a book lover.

Meanwhile, the French, who are otherwise skeptical about German fashion, have dedicated a glossy streaming series to the designer: “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld”.

The project is backed by a venerable French company: the Gaumont film group, founded in 1895, one of the oldest film production companies in the world. This origin is a good thing, entertainment journalist Simone Schlosser, one of Germany’s leading series experts, told DW. “It would be strange to do the whole thing from a German perspective – after all, Lagerfeld spent almost his entire life in France.”

A German in Paris

The first six episodes have been available on streaming providers Disney+ and Hulu since the beginning of June. If they are successful, they will be the start of a much longer production. Director Jerome Salle and the team of screenwriters initially focused on just one decade of Lagerfeld’s eventful life, from the early 1970s to the early 1980s. The last episode for now ends with a supposed fax in June 1981, in which Lagerfeld is invited to take over as the new CEO of the renowned Maison Chanel. Artistic Director.

For some viewers, this point may be the real high point of the Lagerfeld story. Others may find it fascinating to see how the very young Karl, who was born into a wealthy Hanseatic business family in 1933, the year Hitler came to power, comes to Paris as a 19-year-old from a not particularly popular Germany and works his way up to become head designer of major fashion houses in the fashion capital of the world. But the great art often lies in omission, and this applies to fashion designers as well as series producers.

Intrigue, sex and fashion in the city of light

In any case, the restriction to Paris in the 1970s is an exciting setting: the fashion industry is booming, there are lots of parties, lots of drugs and practically everyone is sleeping with everyone. Paloma Picasso, the daughter of the modern art legend Pablo, sets the tone in the jet set, Andy Warhol drops by and behind the closed doors of her boudoir, Marlene Dietrich (played by Sunnyi Melles) celebrates her self-imposed isolation. And there is a enfant terriblea genius around whom the fashion world revolves: Yves Saint Laurent (Arnaud Valois). Unstable, eccentric, very French – a contrast to the eccentric but business-minded and somehow very German Karl Lagerfeld (Daniel Brühl).

Yves and Karl are two opposites that attract each other; they are both enemies and confidants. They compete with each other and can’t keep their distance – especially when the seductively beautiful dandy Jacques de Bascher (Théodore Pellerin) shows up. Bascher, Lagerfeld’s great love, is also having a passionate affair with Yves Saint Laurent. This love triangle alone would be worth a series.

Are stories about fashion fashionable?

“Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” is the third series about a fashion designer to hit the international streaming market in early 2024. Productions about the Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga, named after him, and “The New Look,” a production focusing on Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, started at the beginning of the year. Coincidence?

To a certain extent, says series expert Simone Schlosser. But only partly, because the productions follow a trend: “They all have an interesting main character who in some way does not embody the mainstream figure of the ‘old white man’. These are queer characters, for example. You can deal with questions of identity there.” At the same time, fashion series in particular serve a form of escapism typical of the time, says Schlosser. “Because they have everything we need – it is the fascination with stories, the historical background, beautiful costumes and sets. You immerse yourself in another world, the world of catwalks and studios that is otherwise far away from you.”

Daniel Brühl transforms into Karl Lagerfeld

But, says Schlosser, “Becoming Karl Lagerfeld” has something that the other series don’t have: lead actor Daniel Brühl. “I think Brühl is simply great as Lagerfeld!” enthuses Simone Schlosser, joining in the general praise that the German actor has received. His casting may seem unlikely at first glance, because the gentle-looking star of films such as “Good Bye, Lenin!” has little in common with the notoriously caustic fashion tsar.

This makes it all the more exciting to watch Brühl’s transformation, says Schlosser. “At first, his Lagerfeld doesn’t have anything iconic about him: no ponytail, no fan, no sunglasses. Then it slowly takes off. His hair gradually gets longer, his glasses get more and more tinted,” she observes. And then the magic of acting comes, and we see Karl Lagerfeld, the person, with all his faults.

Too many sex scenes

That’s the result of Brühl’s meticulous research for the role, which involved interviewing Lagerfeld’s friends and studying the designer’s gestures and gait. He and his co-star Theodore Pellerin immersed themselves in their roles so much that they even pretended to be lovers off set. Brühl told his wife that he was “temporarily” in love with a man. And when describing the huge bouquet of red roses Pellerin sent him, he admitted: “My wife has never received anything like that.”

“Daniel Brühl’s portrayal is very reserved. He does not caricature, but plays the role with great sincerity and appreciation,” says Schlosser. His portrayal makes Lagerfeld appear as a great romantic, but sometimes also as a tragic figure.

Schlosser’s praise, however, is not directed at the production as a whole. “I think the series doesn’t really do justice to Lagerfeld’s character and is often unpleasantly voyeuristic.” A lot of it is about the designer’s private life, even if he never revealed much about it. “He was a very discreet person.”

Of course Lagerfeld and Bascher loved each other, otherwise the real Lagerfeld would not have spent months at the bedside of his partner who was suffering from AIDS (his beloved “Jaco” died in 1989). “But the makers of the series keep trying to put the two of them in sex scenes together, and I don’t think that’s a good thing,” says Schlosser.

Karl Lagerfeld himself once said: “I don’t like sleeping with people I really love. I don’t want to sleep with them because sex can’t last forever, but affection can.”

This article was originally written in German.