Karl Lagerfeld, one of the world's most iconic designer, has died in Paris. He was 85. In a seven-decade career, Lagerfeld created collections simultaneously for the celebrated houses of Chanel and Fendi, in addition to his signature label. For Lagerfeld, to design was to breathe, "so if I can't breathe, I'm in trouble," he often quipped to journalists who were astonished by his inexhaustible work ethic and his insistence that he would never retire. His incredible longevity and success as a designer, and the fortunes of the companies for which he worked, owed at least partly to Lagerfeld's intentional detachment from the business side of fashion. He claimed never to discuss sales figures or budgets with management. "I work my own marionette in a way, my own puppet," he told The New York Times. "It's something I control." That extraordinarily rare freedom from the restraints of financial responsibility enabled him to continually make clothes that inspired consumers to dream.

As designers half his age complained of burnout from fashion's maddening pace, Lagerfeld made himself even busier by dabbling in a constant stream of publishing, photography, film and design projects. Ignoring the traditional expectations of a luxury player, he designed hotel rooms, video games, motorcycle helmets, a BMW, and a cosmetics range inspired by his also-famous cat, Choupette, and directed an ad campaign for Magnum ice cream bars.

Despite all this extra-curricular output, though, he was driven by one thing in fashion, he said, which was to make his designs better than they were the season before.

Read below the full article from Business of Fashion.

Business of Fashion: Karl Lagerfeld Dies in Paris