Abstract
During his lifetime, Karl Otto Lagerfeld (1933–2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the Emperor of Fashion. Lagerfeld ran several fashion houses, such as Chanel and Fendi, leading them to unprecedented profits. He also created his own fashion label. Owing to his unremitting pursuit of excellence through creative expression, Lagerfeld’s creativity, energy and intuition for fashion trends seemed only to expand throughout his long career. The authors suggest that, through his creative approach to fashion, architecture, and publishing, Lagerfeld articulated and refined a core set of values-such as “Bildung,” “lightness” and “the unexpected”—that served as a Diltheyan “nexus” linking the Prussian-born designer with the global consumer. The authors apply two specific creativity theories to Lagerfeld’s life and work, namely the mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity theory and Sternberg’s WICS-model (wisdom, intelligence and creativity). The article uses a psychobiographical case study design formulated according to a research paradigm of modern hermeneutics. First- and third-person data on Lagerfeld were collected and evaluated through a hermeneutically-informed syntho-analysis. Research ethics were followed. The findings demonstrate the interplay of mini-c, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity throughout the subject’s lifetime, as well as the subject’s application of WICS, both of which led to the subject’s worldwide success. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations for future research and practice are provided.
Highlights
During his lifetime, Karl Otto Lagerfeld (1933–2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the Emperor of Fashion
The findings demonstrate the interplay of minic, little-c, Pro-c and Big-C creativity throughout the subject’s lifetime, as well as the subject’s application of WICS, both of which led to the subject’s worldwide success
Along with positive psychology and the creativity theories used in this study, hermeneutics acknowledges that values are constructed by individuals who encode their socially-influenced meanings into gestures, attitudes, speeches, writings and other signs that can only be decoded by investigators who bring their own experiences to bear on the process of interpretation
Summary
Karl Otto Lagerfeld (1933–2018) attained such industry renown that he became widely known as the Emperor of Fashion. Psychobiographers have explored creativity at work in extraordinary, imaginative individuals, such as lyricists, writers, psychologists, and politicians (Schultz, 2005) These researchers have focused on the characteristics, development, and expression of creative individuals across the life span (Holm-Hadulla, 2012; Kasser, 2013; Kováry, 2011; Mayer, 2017; Mayer & van Niekerk, 2020; McAdams, 1988; McRunyan, 2005; Osorio, 2016; Ponterrotto, 2015; Runco & Albert, 2010). In Lagerfeld’s case, throughout his childhood and early adult years he constantly oscillated between viewing artworks and fashion magazines, and translating what he saw into sketches of outfits This basic process continued throughout his entire life, though it was doubtless refined as time wore on. Creativity research supports what Lagerfeld’s specific experience bore out: at its root, and throughout its development, creativity seems to be strongly connected to meaning-making and meaning in life (Kaufman, 2018a, 2018b)
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