Fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld has died aged 85 after a cancer battle.
The iconic designer and creative director of Chanel, is believed to have been sick for two weeks before his death in a Paris hospital. According to sources close to him, Lagerfeld had been sufferig from pancreatic cancer when he was rushed to hospital on Monday.
“He hadn’t gone on about his illness, but battled it very bravely,” said one insider.
“Karl was very proud of his fitness and healthy living, so the pancreatic cancer came as a huge shock.”Another source in Paris confirmed that his health had been a cause for concern for a number of weeks.
“He had not been seen at fashion shows that he was expected to attend. Karl was admitted to hospital on Monday, and died on Tuesday morning.”
He had missed two of Chanel’s haute couture Paris shows in on January 22, but the fashion company only said at the time he was feeling tired.
In a statement read out after he missed the second show, it said: “Mr Lagerfeld, artistic director of Chanel, who was feeling tired, asked Virginie Viard, director of the creative studio of the house, to represent him.”It was the first time he had ever missed giving a catwalk bow at the end of a Chanel show.
Karl was inspired to go into fashion when he accompanied his mother to a Dior fashion show in 1933, and would draw fashion designs as a young child.
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