Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer specializing in clothing and perfume. Known as one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, Lagerfeld has designed for such high end labels as Chanel and Fendi.

After creating dozens of collections, Lagerfeld ventured into designing costumes for the 2002 film Callas Forever. He also designed the outfits for Madonna's Re-invention Tour and Kylie Minogue's Showgirl Tour. Lagerfeld has also loved the art of photography and produced a series of nude photos of South African model David Miller for a book called Visionaire 23: The Emperor's New Clothes. He also photographed singer Mariah Carey in 2005.

Models have always been known to be skinny in the fashion business, but also designers? Lagerfeld underwent an extreme body makeover in 13 months after losing 92 pounds on a diet created for him by Dr. Jean-Claude Houdret. According to Lagerfeld, he wanted to wear clothes modeled by very slim boys which required him to lose the weight. The diet led to a book by Lagerfeld called The Karl Lagerfeld Diet.

"Beauty is also submitted to the taste of time, so a beautiful woman from the Belle Epoch is not exactly the perfect beauty of today, so beauty is something that changes with time." -Karl Lagerfeld

In an interview with German magazine Focus, Karl Lagerfeld defended the modern tradition of super skinny models, saying fashion is about "dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women."

His statement was a reaction to news that popular German magazine Brigitte has plans to use average women in their fashion spreads. Lagerfeld said the idea is "absurd" and had this to say about those that support the idea:

"These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly." http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/12/lagerfeld-size-zero-thin-models

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