The most opulent pop culture event of the year, the Met Gala annually hosts breathtaking, star-studded fashion moments. Its latest reveal of next year’s theme, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, has been met with its fair share of controversy. Why so?
Karl Lagerfield was considered one of the world’s most famous fashion designers following his death in 2019, leaving behind an accomplished legacy as creative director to iconic fashion brands like Chanel, Fendi, and his label, Karl Lagerfeld. Despite his many accolades in the fashion arena, Lagerfield has an extensive history of criticism, cruelty, and controversy, which generated backlash from celebrities and fans following the Met Gala’s latest decision to pay tribute to the late designer.
Egregious comments and actions Lagerfield made throughout his career have been circling throughout social media, leading users to call for the Met Gala to replace its theme to honor a fashion designer without a history of racism, sexism, fatphobia, Islamophobia, and opposition towards the #MeToo Movement. Others have even called for the event to be boycotted altogether.
Throughout his life, Lagerfeld made his disdain towards larger women explicit to the public. In response to his continual refusal to hire female models larger than a size 0 or 2 for his projects, he told German magazine SPIEGEL in 2009 that “no one wants to see curvy women.” Lagerfeld’s misogyny and fatphobia are further demonstrated by his criticisms of multiple female celebrities’ bodies: he called Adele “a little too fat,” denigrated Heidi Klum’s modeling career because “she is simply too heavy and has too big of a bust,” and claimed Coco Chanel was not a feminist because she “was never ugly enough for that,” to name a few.
The designer was also an outspoken critic of the #MeToo Movement. In a 2018 interview with Vox, he claimed: “I’m fed up with it. What shocks me most in all of this are the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened. Not to mention the fact there are no prosecution witnesses.” In the same interview, Lagerfeld supported creative director Karl Templer, who had been accused of sexual assault by several models. He even justified Templer’s actions by saying that “if you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent.”
Lagerfeld’s Islamophobia is also troubling, as he condemned France’s acceptance of refugees from Muslim-majority countries, designed dresses for Chanel that were covered with verses from the Qur’an, and called Muslims “the ‘worst enemies’ of Jewish people in 2017.” He even allowed one of his models to appear in Black and Yellow face during a 2010 editorial shoot.
Lagerfeld’s talent should not outshine his lifetime spread of hate. Although he is certainly not the only fashion designer to act this way, the Met Gala should know better than celebrating a man who continually made racist, fatphobic, and misogynistic comments about his career. If the fashion industry wants to create a more inclusive space, honoring Karl Lagerfeld without addressing his controversial history is not the way to do it.