Paradise Now

September 1, 2022

Formerly fashion features director for Harper's Bazaar and the Paris bureau chief for Fairchild Publications, fashion journalist seems well situated to write a biography of renowned fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. During his time in Paris, Middleton both interviewed and socialized with Lagerfeld, which should give this book an extra edge. With a 35,000-copy first printing.

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January 1, 2023
The opulent world of a celebrated designer. As Paris bureau chief of Fairchild Publications, where he oversaw Women's Wear Daily and W, Middleton was an insider to the heady world--and business--of haute couture and a friend of renowned couturier Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019). Born in Hamburg at the beginning of the Third Reich, Lagerfeld grew up in affluence and showed artistic talent early. In 1949, when Christian Dior staged a show in Hamburg, he went with his mother and came away dazzled. In 1952, he arrived in Paris and soon enrolled in classes for fashion illustration; in 1954, he was catapulted to overnight success after winning the prestigious Woolmark Prize for a coat design. Hired first by Pierre Balmain, he later moved to Jean Patou, where he gained a reputation for his ability to show "how the DNA of a great designer could be tweaked, teased, and even tossed aside in order to create work that was completely new and relevant." He carefully honed his public image: "tight ponytail, dark glasses, severe tailoring, expansive knowledge of history and culture, amusing, if bitchy, comments." He loved to provoke; he loved being in the spotlight; and, as Middleton amply shows, he loved luxury, inhabiting one sumptuous apartment after another, filling them with art, antiques, and glamorous guests. To celebrate the launch of his first men's fragrance, he held a buffet dinner for 900. Unlike some of his rivals, he eschewed drugs, alcohol, and promiscuous sex, and he worked hard and obsessively. By the 1990s, he mounted about 15 collections per year at Chanel, Fendi, and his own house, Lagerfeld, and produced a burgeoning line of fragrances. With few criticisms, Middleton offers rich descriptions of Lagerfeld's designs, outfits, and extravagant shows as well as the famous, beautiful, and affluent people who surrounded him: Anna Wintour, Paloma Picasso, Ines de la Fressange, Claudia Schiffer, and a host of others. An authoritative and admiring portrait of a fashion icon.

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January 9, 2023
Recently deceased fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld holds down the center of a glamorous universe in this luminous biography. Journalist Middleton (Double Vision) surveys his subject’s celebrated career as a designer for Chloé and Fendi, his revitalization of Chanel as its chief couture designer, and his 2004 triumph with a collection for H&M of garments so popular that one shopper bit another to obtain one when stocks ran low. Middleton’s Lagerfeld is himself a fashion statement, with his trademark powdered white ponytail, black sunglasses, and fingerless gloves, as well as a man of dual natures. A “harsh, intimidating, even unpleasant” figure, Lagerfeld brims over with “bitchy bon mots” (“ballerina costumes for menopausal fashion victims,” he sniffed of one rival’s designs) and abrasive opinions, but in private had an inviting and magnetic personality. Middleton’s animated portrait paints Lagerfeld’s life as a whirl of clubbing, parties that occasionally end in orgies, and over-the-top fashion shows acted out by luminaries in gorgeous clothes and sumptuous locales. Fashion doesn’t emerge as a great or even coherent art here—“‘It is not black in the sense of black.... It’s black in the sense of chic!”’ is about as deep as Lagerfeld gets—but Middleton ably conveys the industry’s fizzy exuberance and the character of one of its definitive figures. This is a crackling chronicle of one of the fashion world’s punchiest personalities. Agent: Binky Urban, ICM Partners.