This year’s Met Gala pays tribute to a true icon of fashion: designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, aged 85.

Marking the unveiling of the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, the biggest night in the fashion calendar – which always takes place on the first Monday in May – attracts A-listers from all over the world.

Stars invited to the exclusive evening ascend the famous steps of the Met in outfits intended to reflect the exhibition’s theme – many of them couture creations – and enjoy a preview of the show before it opens on May 5.

Ahead of the Met Gala (May 1), we look back at why Karl Lagerfeld was so revered in the fashion industry…

Prolific designer

Renowned for his artistic abilities and inexhaustible creativity, German-born Lagerfeld was creative director at French fashion house Chanel from 1983 until his death.

He was also the creative director of Italian label Fendi, as well as his eponymous fashion label, and was said to design up to 17 collections each year.

He presided over many of Chanel’s jaw-dropping catwalk shows, including the 2014 supermarket set and 2018’s indoor beach, complete with sand and lapping waves.

Culture connoisseur

To fuel his creativity, Lagerfeld consumed vast amounts of art, music and culture.

Famously arranging the books in his vast library horizontally instead of vertically, the designer also said he owned 300 iPods loaded with different genres of music.

Friends and foes

Lagerfeld surrounded himself with a coterie of celebrity friends and fans, counting Vogue editor Anna Wintour, actor Diane Kruger, model Cara Delevingne and designer Donatella Versace among his confidantes.

He was said to bestow Chanel handbags as gifts to celebrities at their first shoot with the brand.

Lagerfeld wasn’t, by his own admission, universally adored.

“All the other designers hate me,” he said in a 2018 interview with Numéro Magazine, listing Azzedine Alaïa and Yves Saint Laurent co-founder Pierre Bergé among his ‘enemies’.

Lagerfeld voiced some more controversial opinions as well, around topics including the #MeToo movement and plus-size women, meaning not everyone is pleased with the choice of this year’s Met Gala theme.

When the theme was announced, actor and activist Jameela Jamil wrote on Instagram that Lagerfeld “was indeed, supremely talented, but used his platform is such a distinctly hateful way, mostly towards women”.

Inimitable personal style

Lagerfeld’s signature style was as famous as – if not more so – than his designs.

Rarely photographed in anything except a high-collared white shirt, black tie and suit, the fashion icon liked to accessorise his outfits with fingerless gloves and black sunglasses.

He always wore his silver hair pulled back in a ponytail and occasionally carried a chic black or white fan.

A way with words

Not one to mince his words, Lagerfeld didn’t shy away from sharing his opinions about trends, celebrities and fellow designers.

He said of Yves Saint Laurent to Observer Magazine: “He is very middle-of-the-road French, very pied-noir, very provincial.”

Some declarations were more amusing: “People I’m really friendly with have faxes. Anna Wintour has one.”

While others were profound – he told The New Yorker: “I do my job like I breathe. So if I can’t breathe I’m in trouble.”

His famous feline

Lagerfeld didn’t have children, but he doted on his beautiful blue-eyed cat Choupette, who is still alive today and has 141k followers on Instagram.

“I don’t even think I’m that famous. Now, Choupette really is famous,” he told British Vogue.

“She has become the most famous cat in the world. I even get propositioned by pet food companies and things like that, but it’s out of the question. I’m commercial. She’s not. She’s spoiled to death. Obviously.”

Choupette is rumoured to be attending the Met Gala – if so, the cat will join co-chairs of the event Dua Lipa, Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz and Roger Federer on the museum’s famous steps.