In Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, a new six-part series from Disney+, audiences are made privy to a designer still ascending. Interpreted by the German-Spanish actor Daniel Brühl, this Lagerfeld finds pleasure in sartorial eclecticism, adorning himself in tall red boots, vibrant striped ties, and pyjamas speckled with sports figures. His subsequent, distinctive armour of sobering black and white receives only vague recognition via the show’s costume design, elsewhere informing an exchange with a potential business partner, as Lagerfeld highlights the appeal of ‘austerity, white, black, brown, timeless things’ before describing his would-be namesake label as ‘for those who like purity in clothing design’. Then in his late thirties, the German designer is an anomaly in the French capital, frustrated with the perceived limitations of his creative director role at Chloé when a young dandy, Jacques de Bascher, arrives in his orbit, exasperating his already strained love-hate relationship with former ally, Yves Saint Laurent.
