Throughout his career, he collaborated on numerous fashion, design, and art-related projects, and his photography was exhibited in galleries and collected in published volumes.

[19] His family was mainly shielded from the deprivations of World War II due to his father being a member of the Nazi party and his business interests in Germany through the firm Glücksklee-Milch GmbH.

The fashion editor of The Independent, Alexander Fury, wrote in 2015 that Lagerfeld's designs for Fendi were innovative and proved groundbreaking within the industry.

[44][45][46] After refining this style and saying that to go back to linings and stiff structure would be regressive,[47][48] he did a complete about-face in 1978[49][50] and joined other designers in showing the heavily constructed, huge-shouldered, more restrictive looks[51] that would dominate the 1980s.

[69][70][71] For instance, his Fall 1977 collection, one of the most celebrated of the seventies Soft Look era, included lace trim, headwear, and thigh-high boots in styles from the 1700s,[72][73][74] while his Fall 1979 collection, one of the most influential of the early years of the big-shoulder era,[75] contained millinery that recalled Napoleonic bicornes, along with button-sided spats/leggings that looked somewhat like military accoutrements from the same period.

[76] Lagerfeld continued producing outfits in the shoulder pads-tight skirts-stiletto heels direction into the eighties, joining other similar designers in shortening the skirts of the look even as high as mini length,[77] though his hemlines could also range as low as the ankle.

[78] Alongside these styles, he also showed softer, more comfortable clothing, particularly in 1981–'82, when a brief revival of somewhat mid-seventies-looking long dirndl skirts and shawls appeared on runways[79][80] and Lagerfeld touted the gossamer weightlessness he had perfected in the seventies,[81] although he did like to place corsets and girdles over it by that time.

Taking over the couture there in 1983, Lagerfeld brought life back into the company, making it a huge success[88] by revamping its ready-to-wear fashion line.

[114] The Lagerfeld label was then purchased by the Cora Revillon Group,[115] which had previously reached an agreement to manufacture and market Karl Lagerfeld-branded products.

As Lagerfeld requested not to have any type of funeral, the show only included a moment of silence in his honor and chairs emblazoned with his image next to Coco Chanel with the saying "the beat goes on".

[155] He went on to shoot commercial fashion campaigns,[153] editorial shots for magazines like Harper's Bazaar,[156] as well as architectural and landscape work.

[157] "I'm an illustrator with a camera", Lagerfeld told Women's Wear Daily at a 2010 exhibition of his work at the Maison européenne de la photographie.

[159] The publishing house went on to release dozens of collections of his work,[159] including The Little Black Jacket in 2012, which featured 113 portraits of models and entertainers wearing the book's eponymous article,[160] and Karl Lagerfeld: Casa Malaparte in 2015, which documented the Italian Modernist architectural monument.

[161] Lagerfeld and investments enterprise Dubai Infinity Holdings (DIH) signed a deal to design limited edition homes on the island of Isla Moda.

[164] Later that year, Lagerfeld assumed the role of the host of the fictional radio station K109 in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV and its DLCs The Lost & Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

The show featured selections from his commercial work for Chanel, his celebrity portraits for Vogue and other magazines, and his more abstract landscapes and architectural pieces, including a 2007 series titled "Another Side of Versailles.

"[172] Later in life, Lagerfeld realized one of his boyhood ambitions by becoming a professional caricaturist; from 2013, his political cartoons were regularly published in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

[173][174] In 2013, he directed Once Upon a Time..., a short film starring Keira Knightley as Coco Chanel and Clotilde Hesme as her aunt, Adrienne.

[176] In 2016, Palazzo Pitti hosted another exhibition of Karl Lagerfeld's photography[177] that included portraits and photos from fashion shoots, all inspired by classical mythology.

[192][193] He requested no formal funeral, with plans for cremation and ashes spread at secret locations alongside his mother as well as his late partner, Jacques de Bascher.

"[207][208][209] The global project was curated by Karl Lagerfeld's then Style Advisor Carine Roitfeld and featured designs from Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss, Tommy Hilfiger, Diane Kruger, Takashi Murakami, Amber Valletta, and British street artist Endless, amongst others.

[207][210][211] A White Shirt tribute event at Paris Fashion Week featured Anna Wintour, Kaia Gerber, and Karlie Kloss.

[212] Seven was Lagerfeld's favorite number, and as such, seven of the final designs were replicated 77 times and sold for €777 each, with proceeds benefiting a French charity affiliated with Paris Descartes University.

[206][213][214] The Metropolitan Museum of Art honored the designer with a retrospective of his work with Balmain, Patou, Chloe, Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous line.

[215] Chanel, Fendi, Condé Nast, and Lagerfeld's own fashion brand provided support for the exhibition and the accompanying 2023 Met Gala.

[216] The 2023 fête was co-chaired by Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer, Dua Lipa, and Condé Nast Global Chief Content Officer, Anna Wintour.

The controversy erupted after the 1994 couture show in Paris when the Indonesian Muslim Scholars Council in Jakarta called for a boycott of Chanel and threatened to file formal protests with the government of Lagerfeld's homeland, Germany.

Spokespersons for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called Lagerfeld "a fashion dinosaur who is as out of step as his furs are out of style",[221] and "particularly delusional with his kill-or-be-killed mentality.

[233][234] In May 2018, during an interview with French newspaper Le Point, Lagerfeld mentioned that he was contemplating giving up his German citizenship due to the one million Muslim immigrants that had been accepted into Germany by Merkel, a decision to which he attributed the increase in neo-Nazism in the country.

Lagerfeld also defended stylist Karl Templer, who was accused of sexual misconduct and stated that although he could not stand Harvey Weinstein, his distaste for him was of a professional nature.