Hot Under the Collar

Yet while Lagerfeld has an outsize reputation within the industry, among those not well versed in fashion minutiae, Lagerfeld's celebrity lies somewhere between Ralph Lauren and "who?" Even many media-savvy consumers may recognize Lagerfeld solely as a designer with a ponytail and a penchant for wearing sunglasses indoors.

Unlike Lauren or Calvin Klein, Lagerfeld has not starred in his own advertising campaign. Unlike Donatella Versace, his life is not fodder for a regular skit on "Saturday Night Live." He never had his own reality show, although he did author a diet book, which has sold more than 200,000 copies.

A Look All His Own

In the weeks before he debuted his collection on the New York runway, Lagerfeld dedicated himself to publicizing the event, and the fashion industry dedicated itself to reiterating the importance of the debut. The designer's life was documented in a feature in New York magazine. He took questions from journalists representing retail markets from San Francisco to Palm Beach. And he sat across the big oak table from Charlie Rose and engaged in a lengthy conversation about fashion, the long-term impact of his brutally candid mother and the fact that he has never voted because, as he told Rose: "I know too much about the backstage of politics." Because of his thick German accent and staccato speaking rhythm, about 80 percent of the exchange was comprehensible. That in no way detracted from Lagerfeld's enjoyment.

"I like to be on TV. I love to be on TV," he says.

Lagerfeld was born in Hamburg in 1938 and was the pampered youngest child in a well-to-do household. He describes his mother, with her impatience for childish stammerings, as tough-minded and aloof. His father, whom he called "the sweetest man in the world," made a fortune introducing condensed milk to Europe.

Lagerfeld emigrated to Paris in 1952 to finish school. Three years later, he designed a coat on a lark for a wool association contest and won first prize. The coat was produced by Pierre Balmain, and Lagerfeld became the designer's assistant. Afterward, he worked for Jean Patou, freelanced for a host of fashion houses, became an accomplished illustrator, designed for Chloe and in 1962 signed a contract to create furs and ready-to-wear for the Rome-based Fendi. (He was not responsible for the brand's popular baguette handbag.) Twenty-one years later, he was hired to modernize Chanel.

Lagerfeld lives primarily in Paris, although he has several homes including an apartment in New York. He has never been married, has no children and has talked about the death of his longtime companion Jacques de Bascher in 1989 from complications of AIDS as devastating.

For an interview in his headquarters on the Far West Side of Manhattan, Lagerfeld makes an entrance from the opposite side of the room, allowing ample opportunity for inspection before he is within hand-shaking distance. He walks chest forward and with short strides. An observer, who happened to catch one of Lagerfeld's television appearances, describes his walk as a "Prince meets Ron Wood pimpalicious strut." Before the eyes settle on his attire, the nose takes note. Lagerfeld smells vaguely floral, with a hint of powder. He has spritzed himself with Iris Nobile by Acqua di Parma. It is a woman's fragrance owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the same company that controls Fendi.

The designer wears skinny black trousers with seams crisscrossing his thin legs, a snug-fitting blazer the color of porcini mushrooms, a charcoal gray striped scarf and a pair of high brown boots. Instead of dark glasses, he wears a pair with lavender-tinted lenses. One wonders why he is so intent on obscuring his face. It is perfectly pleasant.

"I see myself as a hardworking professional person," he says. "But in another way I'm lucky that I can use myself as a kind of puppet."

For a long time, Lagerfeld was a heavyset man who dressed in avant-garde, Japanese-designed black suits that scorned symmetry and body consciousness. He favored bespoke shirts with high starched collars that made his head look like a boiled egg balanced atop a porcelain cup. He powdered his ponytail white and carried a fan in the manner of an 18th-century courtesan. "I have curly hair and I don't like it," he says. "I'm afraid to cut it; it may not come back."

In 2000, motivated by fashion rather than health, the designer lost in the neighborhood of 100 pounds. He took to wearing pencil-slim trousers, tight-fitting jackets with high armholes, motorcycle boots, fingerless gloves and enough silver jewelry to short-circuit metal detectors. He no longer carries a fan. But he still powders his ponytail, a grooming quirk that at close range can leave the uninitiated wondering if the designer has a particularly aggressive form of dandruff. He continues to wear shirt collars as wide as a neck brace.