Karl Lagerfeld-Leader in the Master of Reinvention

One of the most acclaimed fashion designers in the world, Karl Lagerfeld was born in Hamburg, Germany. While he's never revealed his true birthday, it's been reported he was born September 10, 1933. Known for his bold designs and constant reinvention, he's been hailed Vogue magazine as the "unparalleled interpreter of the mood of the moment."

Early Life

Fashion designer. Born Karl Otto Lagerfeldt in Hamburg, Germany. While the famous fashion designer has never revealed the exact date of his birth, it's believed he was born on September 10, 1933. Often lauded for his constant reinvention, he removed the "t" at the end of his last name early in his career in order to make it sound "more commercial."

Lagerfeld's father, Christian, made his fortune by bringing condensed milk to Germany. Karl and his older sister, Martha, and a half sister, Thea, grew up ina wealthy home. Intellectual activity was encouraged at the Lagerfeld home. His mother, Elizabeth, was an accomplished violin player and talk at the dinner table often included subjects such as religious philosophy.

When Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, the Lagerfelds moved to a rural area of northern Germany, where, as Karl would later recount, he was cut off from any knowledge about the Nazis.

From an early age, Lagerfeld expressed an interest in design and fashion. As a child he often cut out pictures from fashion magazines. He was also known to be critical of what others wore to school. But it wasn't until his teen years, after his family had returned to Hamburg, that Legerfeld immersed himself in the world of high fashion.

Career Beginnings

Sensing his future lay elsewhere, 14-year-old Lagerfeld made the bold decision, with the blessing of his parents, to move to Paris. He'd been there just two years when he submitted a series of sketches and fabric samples to a design competition. He ended up taking first place in the coat category and meeting another winner,Yves Saint Laurent, who would become a close friend.

Soon, Lagerfeld had full time work with French designer Pierre Balmain, first as a junior assistant, and later as an apprentice. It was a demanding position, and the young designer remained in it for three years. He took work as a creative director with another fashion house before finally, in 1961, striking out on his own.

Good work soon followed, with Lagerfeld designing collections for Chloe, Fendi (where he was brought on to oversee the company's fur line) and others. Lagerfeld became known in the fashion industry for his innovative, in-the-moment styles. But Lagerfeld also had an appreciation for the past, and he often shoped in flea markets, finding ld wedding dresses to deconstruct.

Later Years

By the 1980s, Karl Lagerfeld was a major star in the fashion world. He was a favorite among the press, who loved to chronicle his changing tastes and social life. Lagerfeld kept company with other major stars, including his good friend Andy Warhol.

While he's developed a sort of hired gun reputation for jumping from one label to the next, he's also put together a track record of success that few designers can match.

At Chanel in the early 1980s he did what few thought possible: He returned what was perceived to be a near-dead brand back to life with a revamped popular ready-to-wear lineup.  Around that time Lagerfeld launched his own label, in 1984, which he built around the idea of what he described as "intellectual sexiness." Over the years, the brand developed a reputation for quality tailoring with bold ready-to-wear pieces like cardigan jackets in bright colors. In 2005 Lagerfeld sold the label to Tommy Hilfiger.

In recent years, Lagerfeld, whose work has crossed over into film and photography, has continued to maintain a busy schedule. In 2011 he designed a line of glassware for the Swedish company Orrefors. That same year, he signed on to create a new clothing collection for Macy's.

Says Lagerfeld, "What I enjoy most is doing something I've never done before."

Vivienne Westwood-Leader in the Punk Movement

Why is she a leader?
She began her confrontational fashion career in the 1970s. The British designer took influence from punk fashions, and her collections were quite confrontational for the time. These days, however, she is seen as an important player in contemporary fashion.

Born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, on April 8, 1941. Considered one of the most unconventional and outspoken fashion designers in the world, Westwood rose to fame in the late 1970s when her early designs helped shape the look of the punk rock movement.

Early Years

Born Vivienne Isabel Swire on April 8, 1941, in the English town of Glossop in Derbyshire. She came from humble beginnings. Her father was a cobbler, while her mother helped the family keep ends meet by working at a local cotton mill.

At the age of 17, Vivienne's family moved to Harrow in the country of Middlesex, where the future fashion icon found work at a local factory and eventually enrolled at a teacher training school.

As Vivienne would later recall, her childhood years were far from London's high life. "I lived in a part of the country that had grown up in the Industrial Revolution," she once said. "I didn't know about art galleries…I'd never seen an art book, never been to the theatre."

By the early 1960s Vivienne's life seemed established. She'd married Derek Westwood, with whom she had son, Ben, and embarked on work as a teacher. Then, however, everything changed. Her first marriage dissolved and she met Malcolm Mclaren, an art student and future manager of the Sex Pistols. With Mclaren, Westwood had a second son, Joseph. Through her new partner, Westwood, who'd begun making jewelry on the side, was introduced to a new world of creative freedom and the power art had on the political landscape. "I latched onto Malcolm as somebody who opened doors for me," Westwood said. "I mean, he seemed to know everything I needed at the time."

A Blossoming Career

In 1971, Mclaren opened a boutique shop at 430 Kings Road in London and started filling it with Westwood's designs. While the name of the shop seemed to be in constant flux—it was changed five times—it proved to be an important fashion center for the punk movement. When Mclaren became manager of the Sex Pistols, it was Westwood's designs that dressed the band and help it carve out its identity.

But as the punk movement faded, Westwood was hardly content to rest on her laurels. She's constantly been ahead of the curve, not just influencing fashion, but often times dictating it. After her run with the Sex Pistols, Westwood went an entirely new direction with her Pirate collection of frilly shirts and other attire. Her styles have also included the mini-crini of the 1980s and the frayed tulle and tweed suit of the 1990s. She's even proved it's perfectly possible to make a subversive statement with underwear. "Vivienne's effect on other designers has been rather like a laxative," English designer Jasper Conran once explained. "Vivienne does, and others follow."

Later Years

Coupled with Westwood's unconventional style sense, is an outspokenness and daring that demonstrates a certain level of fearlessness about her and her work. In one famous incident she impersonated the Margaret Thatcher on the cover of an British magazine.

To do so, she wore a suit Thatcher had ordered but not yet received, an act that made the Thatcher irate.  Still, Westwood's influence is hard to deny. Twice she has been named British designer of the year and was awarded the O.B.E. (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in 1992.  For more than 30 years, even after she had long made her fortune and fame, Westwood lived in the same small South London apartment, paying just $400 a month for the home and riding her bike to her studio in Battersea.

In 1993, ten years after Westwood and Mclaren split, Westwood married for a second time, to her assistant, Andreas Kronthaler, who is 25 years her junior. Today, Kronthaler is her design partner. The couple resides in South London.

CHRISTIAN DIOR-Leader in the "New Look"

The most influential fashion designer of the late 1940s and 1950s, CHRISTIAN DIOR (1905 to 1957) dominated fashion after World war II with the hourglass silhouette of his voluptuous New Look. He also defined a new business model in the post-war fashion industry by establishing Dior as a global brand across a wide range of products.

                                                                                    

Legendary fashion designer Christian Dior was born in northern France in 1905. In 1947, Dior exploded onto the Paris fashion scene with designs that flew in the face of wartime restrictions and reintroduced a femininity and focus on luxury to women's fashion. His resulting success, based on the innovation of both his designs and his business practices, made him the most successful fashion designer in the world. His designs have been worn by film stars and royalty alike.

Early Life

Christian Dior was born on January 21, 1905, in Granville, a seaside town in the north of France. He was the second of five children born to Alexandre Louis Maurice Dior, the owner of a highly successful fertilizer manufacturer, and his wife, Isabelle. When he was a boy, Dior's family moved to Paris, where he would spend his youth. Although Dior was passionate about art and expressed an interest in becoming an architect, he submitted to pressure from his father and, in 1925, enrolled at the École des Sciences Politiques to begin his studies in political science, with the understanding that he would eventually find work as a diplomat.

After his graduation in 1928, however, Dior opened a small art gallery with money he received from his father, who had agreed to lend his son his financial support on the condition that the family name would not appear above the gallery door. In the few years it was open, Dior's gallery handled the works of such notable artists as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob. He was forced to close the gallery in 1931, a year that included the deaths of both his older brother and mother and the financial collapse of his father's business.

Early Work in Fashion

Following the closing of his gallery, Dior began to make ends meet by selling his fashion sketches, and in 1935, landed a job illustrating the magazine Figaro Illustré. Several years later, Dior was hired as a design assistant by Paris couturier Robert Piguet. However, when World War II began the following year, Dior served in the south of France as an officer in the French army.

Following France's surrender to Germany in 1940, Dior returned to Paris, where he was soon hired by couturier Lucien Lelong. Throughout the remaining years of the war, Lelong's design house would consistently dress the women of both Nazis and French collaborators. During this same time, Dior's younger sister, Catherine, was working for the French Resistance. (She was captured and sent to a concentration camp, but survived; she was eventually released in 1945.)

Death

In 1957, several months after appearing on the cover of Timemagazine, Christian Dior traveled to Italy to vacation in the town of Montecatini. While there, on October 23, 1957, he suffered what was his third heart attack and died, at the age of 52.

Marcel Boussac sent his private plane to Montecatini to bring Dior's body back to Paris, and Dior's funeral was attended by an estimated 2,500 people, including all of his staff and many of his most famous clients. He was buried in Cimetière de Callian, in Var, France. At the time of his death, Dior's house was earning more than $20 million annually.

Diane von Furstenberg-Leader of the Wrap Dress

Diane von Furstenberg was very clear that her wrap dress happened "by accident". Her original T-shirts morphed into wrap tops and then into wrap dresses. They caught on and have stayed in fashion for almost 40 years because they are "easy, proper, decent, and flattering and sexy". They may have happened by accident originally, but their ongoing success is directly related to von Furstenberg's drive to succeed on her own, prove she was not a one-shot wonder (later), and leave a strong brand as her legacy.  

Diane von Furstenberg first entered the fashion world in 1972 with a suitcase full of jersey dresses. Two years later, she created the wrap dress, which came to symbolize power and independence for an entire generation of women. By 1976, she had sold over a million of the dresses and was featured on the cover of Newsweek. In 1997, after a hiatus from fashion, Diane re-launched the iconic dress that started it all, reestablishing her company as the global luxury lifestyle brand that it is today. DVF has expanded to a full collection of ready-to-wear and accessories including shoes, handbags, small leather goods, scarves, and fine jewelry. The company also offers luggage, eyewear, and home furnishings. DVF is now sold in over 55 countries, including 85 DVF owned and partnered stores throughout North

and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.  

In 2005, Diane received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) for her impact on fashion, and one year later was elected the CFDA’s president, an office she continues to hold. In this significant role, she has dedicated herself to fostering emerging talent and helping to establish the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, which protects designers from counterfeit reproductions of their work.
Diane’s commitment to empowering women is expressed not only through fashion but also philanthropy and mentorship. She sits on the board of Vital Voices, a non-governmental organization that supports female leaders and entrepreneurs around the world. In 2010, with the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation, Diane established the DVF Awards to honor and provide grants to women who have displayed leadership, strength and courage in their commitment to their causes. In 2012, Diane was named the most powerful woman in fashion by Forbes Magazine.
As a longtime resident of New York’s Meatpacking District, Diane is a vocal member of the local community and was actively involved in the campaign to save the historic High Line railway.
Diane is married to Barry Diller. She has two children, Alexander and Tatiana, and four grandchildren. With all of her successes, Diane happily maintains, "Children are my greatest creation."

Coco Chanel – An Inspiring Leader

What makes a great leader?

I recently discovered the story of the life of Coco Chanel, one of the first women to create a business empire that still exists today. I began to think about what it was that set her apart and what leadership qualities she had that enabled her to achieve what she did.
She had dignity and enormous courage that drove her to sticking to her core values and beliefs no matter what challenges she faced. She knew herself well and remained true to herself in all circumstances. She never tried to blend in for comfort; rather she pushed herself and allowed herself to be challenged beyond her comfort zone.
She was determined and did not accept the status quo.
In thinking about these traits, I recognize that they run as a common thread through many great leaders in history.
Leadership begins with knowing who you are and what you stand for and then having the courage and determination to live by this in order to fulfill your contribution to the world.

So great is Coco Chanel's legacy that fans make pilgrimages to her Paris apartment (although she also lived in the Paris Ritz for 30 years), which is preserved as she left it and endlessly referenced for style - as is every image of her and every tiny thing she ever designed. From her use of monochrome to her oversized 'costume' pearls and cuffs, everything is still sublimely, continuously referenced. As she herself once said: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
• Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was born in 1883 and died in 1971
• She created a new look for women in the 20th century, creating clothes that were primarily comfortable. A Chanel suit of 1923 or handbag is still seen as a landmark purchase for women of increasingly younger ages
• The Chanel No.5 scent is the best selling in the world
• The interlocking Cs of Coco Chanel remain one of the ultimate brand insignia
• Since 1983, Chanel has been designed by Karl Lagerfeld
• The building where her apartment is in Paris was bought by Chanel in 1920, and still houses the ground-floor shop, the haute couture workrooms in the attic (where 100 seamstresses still work entirely by hand), and what is now Karl Lagerfeld's study
Coco Chanel's bobbed hair, bright red lips and outspoken manner also broke the mould. This smoking, outspoken woman never married - although she had relations with the English industrialist Arthur "Boy" Capel - who lent her the money to buy Rue Cambon - Igor Stravinsky and the second Duke of Westminster Hugh "Bendor" Grosvenor, the richest man in Europe. Keira Knightley followed Kate Moss as the new face of Coco Mademoiselle in 2007. The brand could not be more alive with watches, beauty, fragrance, womenswear and new stores.

In 2009 a biopic film based on her life titled 'Coco before Chanel' was released. Audrey Tatou was given the lead-role and follows as she goes from orphan to Haute Couture designer.So great is Coco Chanel's legacy that fans make pilgrimages to her Paris apartment (although she also lived in the Paris Ritz for 30 years), which is preserved as she left it and endlessly referenced for style - as is every image of her and every tiny thing she ever designed. From her use of monochrome to her oversized 'costume' pearls and cuffs, everything is still sublimely, continuously referenced. As she herself once said: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
• Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was born in 1883 and died in 1971
• She created a new look for women in the 20th century, creating clothes that were primarily comfortable. A Chanel suit of 1923 or handbag is still seen as a landmark purchase for women of increasingly younger ages
• The Chanel No.5 scent is the best selling in the world
• The interlocking Cs of Coco Chanel remain one of the ultimate brand insignia
• Since 1983, Chanel has been designed by Karl Lagerfeld
• The building where her apartment is in Paris was bought by Chanel in 1920, and still houses the ground-floor shop, the haute couture workrooms in the attic (where 100 seamstresses still work entirely by hand), and what is now Karl Lagerfeld's study
Coco Chanel's bobbed hair, bright red lips and outspoken manner also broke the mould. This smoking, outspoken woman never married - although she had relations with the English industrialist Arthur "Boy" Capel - who lent her the money to buy Rue Cambon - Igor Stravinsky and the second Duke of Westminster Hugh "Bendor" Grosvenor, the richest man in Europe. Keira Knightley followed Kate Moss as the new face of Coco Mademoiselle in 2007. The brand could not be more alive with watches, beauty, fragrance, womenswear and new stores.

In 2009 a biopic film based on her life titled 'Coco before Chanel' was released. Audrey Tatou was given the lead-role and follows as she goes from orphan to Haute Couture designer.So great is Coco Chanel's legacy that fans make pilgrimages to her Paris apartment (although she also lived in the Paris Ritz for 30 years), which is preserved as she left it and endlessly referenced for style - as is every image of her and every tiny thing she ever designed. From her use of monochrome to her oversized 'costume' pearls and cuffs, everything is still sublimely, continuously referenced. As she herself once said: "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."
• Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel was born in 1883 and died in 1971
• She created a new look for women in the 20th century, creating clothes that were primarily comfortable. A Chanel suit of 1923 or handbag is still seen as a landmark purchase for women of increasingly younger ages
• The Chanel No.5 scent is the best selling in the world
• The interlocking Cs of Coco Chanel remain one of the ultimate brand insignia
• Since 1983, Chanel has been designed by Karl Lagerfeld
• The building where her apartment is in Paris was bought by Chanel in 1920, and still houses the ground-floor shop, the haute couture workrooms in the attic (where 100 seamstresses still work entirely by hand), and what is now Karl Lagerfeld's study
Coco Chanel's bobbed hair, bright red lips and outspoken manner also broke the mould. This smoking, outspoken woman never married - although she had relations with the English industrialist Arthur "Boy" Capel - who lent her the money to buy Rue Cambon - Igor Stravinsky and the second Duke of Westminster Hugh "Bendor" Grosvenor, the richest man in Europe. Keira Knightley followed Kate Moss as the new face of Coco Mademoiselle in 2007. The brand could not be more alive with watches, beauty, fragrance, womenswear and new stores.

In 2009 a biopic film based on her life titled 'Coco before Chanel' was released. Audrey Tatou was given the lead-role and follows as she goes from orphan to Haute Couture designer.

round five

With whom did I go out on date with this week? Name, Where & What, & Day of the Week.
Cyrus
One Drink at Epic Roadhouse in San Francisco
November 01, Friday evening around 9:00 p.m.


 

How was I feeling before and during the date? Was my mind wandering off elsewhere?

I felt pretty good before meeting up with Cyrus. 

During the date, I felt natural and at ease.

I did not feel my mind wander off at all, but sometimes there where times of silence. 

Was I being MYSELF throughout the whole date?
I felt that I was being myself.  We got a long well and we had a few things in common.

Was there a connection?
I felt a connection with Cyrus, but more as friends.

Did I learn something new about myself after the date?
I learned on this date that when there is a connection and I vibe with a person I am more engaged and attentive.  One of my criteria in going out with these gents is that I have a 5'11 height  minimum to date someone.  So, I also learned that I am not shallow and willing to meet new people no matter what.

Did I feel a "Love Pang/Butterflies" when I initially saw him?
No.  He was charming, but too short. I knew this prior to meeting him.

Additional Comments?
The nice thing about this date is that it was easy.  Cyrus had prior plans to have dinner with his friends after we had a drink or two.  So, I felt there was no pressure at all.  He was a gentlemen walking me out of the restaurant after meeting a few of friend's and birthday celebrant. 

round four part duece