Daniel Bruhl playing a queer fashion icon from the 70s? Sign me up! Sadly this series, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, didn’t really end up doing it for me.
Bruhl plays the somewhat recently deceased Haute Couture fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld. To be honest with you, I don’t ever recall hearing this man’s name in my life, but the internet did confirm he was a big deal. And at six episodes with Bruhl at the helm, I was more than willing to give it a shot. Maybe the fashion world just isn’t my jam? Or maybe this series felt painfully long even at six episodes? Who knows. I think it’s a combination of the two, which made this ride a bit of a struggle. I think it also didn’t help that I watched this French series dubbed in English. I was already too far in when I realized that Hulu actually had the subtitled version, so I soldiered on.
Karl Lagerfeld struggled. That’s the biggest takeaway from the series. Firstly, he was a German trying to make it in fashion in Paris when no one wanted anything to do with Nazi-affiliates. He got by, but for whatever reason his mother’s German ancestry seemed to bring him down a peg or two. He also got denied entry into Haute Couture after Yves Saint Laurent dropped him, so he settled designing ready-to-wear for the “House of Chloe” for a very long time. After such a long time doing what they wanted, he finally got some leverage within the fashion house but not without making some idle threats.
All the while, most of his most monumental milestones were happening alongside the long-term relationship he held with “poet” Jacques de Bascher. Their relationship was a strange one. I don’t if either man truly loved the other one. Karl despised physical intimacy, so they hardly ever even kissed, which was a source of immense frustration for Jacques. In return though, Karl let him get his outside of their relationship without much of a fuss. That is until he started a relationship with Yves. Apparently Yves became obsessed with Jacques, though his loyalties still belonged to Karl. What a mess. Maybe Jacques really did truly love Karl, but to me it just seemed like the easiest way for him to have access to excess. Which he took full advantage of at all times. I would love for a rich guy to pay for all my stuff while I did nothing! I’m sure there’s more to his story that I just wasn’t appreciating, but from the outside it seemed kind of lame.
Overall, this series was kind of a drag for me to get through. I don’t really understand how it took almost six hours to tell this story. I’ve seen movies do similar things with less. Even the immense talent of Daniel Bruhl couldn’t pull this out for me. Though if fashion is your thing, this could definitely be something worth your time. It just didn’t end up being worth mine.