Photographer: Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images)
When Karl Lagerfeld began creating clothes for Chanel in 1983, he inherited 70 years of fashion legacy. Yet Chanel was struggling as it searched for a new identity after the death of its founder left a vast void.
Lagerfeld, who died Tuesday at 85, took the signature components left by Gabrielle Chanel, adapted them and inserted them into popular culture around the world. He married an institution to the caricature he molded for himself, with the dark shades and white ponytail ever present, and built on the myth forged by Coco.