A new drama series, entitled Kaiser Karl, will tell the story of the life fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.
One of the fashion industry’s most decorated figures, the acclaimed German designer died in February 2019 at the age of 85 following a period of ill health.
He was the creative designer of French luxury brand Chanel from 1983 until his death.
The six-episode series, which will stream on Disney+, will begin during the summer of 1972 when Lagerfeld was beginning to break into French fashion. It will follow his quest to become the successor of Coco Chanel, who died the year before and was the most successful French couturier at a time when Yves Saint Laurent was the biggest fashion personality.
The rivalry between Lagerfeld and Pierre Berge, Yves Saint Laurent’s partner, as well as Lagerfeld’s love story with Jacques de Bascher, will also be central to the series.
The show, based on the biography of the same name by Raphaelle Bacque, will be filmed in France and produced by film studio Gaumont, which is responsible for the Netflix hit Lupin
Bacque will work on the series alongside writers Isaure Pisani-Ferry and Jennifer Have.
Jan Koeppen, president of the Walt Disney Company EMEA, said: “Disney+ has given us the opportunity to tell uniquely European stories to global audiences.
“We have an incredibly diverse and exciting European slate, and Kaiser Karl is indicative of the kind of stories we want to be telling.
“We also felt Lagerfeld’s story hasn’t really been given its due until now and can’t wait to share it with our Disney+ audience.”
Pauline Dauvin, vice-president of programming and original productions at the Walt Disney Company in France, added: “We were immediately seduced by the idea of an adaptation of Bacque’s biography, which will mark the first collaboration between Disney and Gaumont on a French original show.
“The series shows a unique moment of transformation in the fashion industry in France in the 1970s, embodied by an icon with multiple metamorphoses, Karl Lagerfeld.”
Lagerfeld was also the creative director of Italian fur and leather goods fashion house Fendi, as well as his eponymous fashion label, which he opened in 1984.
He was also an acclaimed photographer, having gone behind the lens for a number of high fashion magazines and for his own fashion campaigns.
Regarded as one of the most important fashion visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, he was known for regularly wearing sunglasses and a black suit with a white shirt, with his grey hair pulled back into a ponytail.
A memorial to Lagerfeld in June 2019 was held at the Grand Palais in Paris and was attended by stars including models Claudia Schiffer and Gigi Hadid, former French First Lady Carla Bruni and actresses Tilda Swinton and Dame Helen Mirren.
