This year’s Met Gala, which took place yesterday, chose Karl Lagerfeld as its theme. Although I served a brief apprenticeship in the sartorial world as a young student, my interest in fashion is rather limited. Yet the late German designer, who claimed Swedish heritage and had ties to both the Roman Catholic and Old Catholic Church, has piqued my interest for more reasons than one.
For starters, much likeBob Dylan, Lagerfeld’s life is shrouded in mystery. The mystery, however, is self-perpetuated: Lagerfeld claimed to be of Swedish heritage on his paternal side, but this has been shown to be demonstrably false. I have since seen an article in Vogue claiming that he is Swedish on his maternal side. Lagerfeld has been closely associated with Vogue for decades, so any truth-claim might be taken with a grain of salt. But why he has felt a need to claim lineage from the far North is bewildering and somewhat amusing. In an interview with Swedish Elle magazine, the designer said he was never very interested in family history, but affirmed his love for Swedish culture, citing Selma Lagerlöf as one of his favourite authors, Carl Larsson as a painter he “love, love, loves” and speaking of his admiration for Queen Christina, who abdicated to become Catholic, as well as Greta Garbo who “made Swedish beauty internationally famous”. As a Swede myself, I can’t help but feel a little proud.
