In Barbet Schroeder’s controversial 1975 film Maîtresse, Ariane’s (Bulle Ogier’s) clothes perfectly represent her split life. Just as her flat is divided between a conventional upper level and a state-of-the-art dungeon where she conducts her dominatrix business, her wardrobe is half chic tailored trousers and beautiful blouses, and half latex, leather, and voluptuous purple silk. Schroeder’s film—a startling examination of S&M wrapped up in a more conventional romantic comedy—was so explicit that when it was first brought to the UK, it was banned outright. An examiner for the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) commented that “opulent excrescence—for all its glitter—is still excrescence.”
Karl Lagerfeld was the costume designer responsible for creating that memorably opulent excrescence. The combination of fetish gear and understated elegance seemed fitting for a renaissance man whose clothes often trod the line between classic and naughty. Alongside his prodigious work as a fashion designer for houses including Patou, Chloé, Fendi, Chanel, and his eponymous label, Lagerfeld also crafted many costumes for the stage and screen, ranging from Harold Pinter plays to acclaimed French and German classics. In the 1970s and ’80s, he worked on numerous films, including Silver Bears (1977), Les Noces Rouges (1973), Folies Bourgeoises (1976), The Black Bird (1975), and Babette’s Feast (1987). Sometimes this involved wider costuming, sometimes dressing a single actor (à la Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy). The latter four films starred the poised French actor Stéphane Audran, whom Lagerfeld costumed frequently.
Their working relationship began after Audran’s previous dresser Maurice Albray left for the United States. She read about four up-and-coming designers in a fashion magazine and decided to contact Lagerfeld. It was the beginning of a long, fruitful, and incredibly chic relationship. As Audran later explained, Lagerfeld was an absolute perfectionist, with no detail overlooked. The sinuous sketches she received on headed paper (first from Chloé then Chanel) came with notes, fabric swatches, and specific instructions on everything from heel height to hair and make-up. In The Devil’s Advocate (1977), he wanted short bangs, carefully drawn eyebrows, and pearly pink nails—underlining the word “pink” twice.
Lagerfeld and Audran were an excellent fit because her characters usually required the kind of urbane clothes Lagerfeld excelled at—providing the perfect tension between polished exterior and suppressed impulses. In The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), a slinky dress with triangular cut outs at the back created for a dinner scene proved to be so ravishing that Audran rushed to nab it after filming, afraid that the production manager’s wife would steal it away otherwise. Even the hooded cloak she wore in *Babette’s Feast—*an adaptation of Isak Dinesen’s short story about a French refugee whose sensual approach to food challenges the Danish puritans who take her in—is still talked about now, as stark as it is romantic.
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