Behind the Mask – Documentary about Karl Lagerfeld

In the photo above: filmmaker Gero von Boehm and designer Karl Lagerfeld.

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019), already an icon during his lifetime, knew how to perfectly showcase himself. His private life was rarely revealed.

In his documentary “Karl – The Man Behind the Mask,” filmmaker Gero von Boehm takes an intimate look behind the immaculately designed surface of Slimani suits, leather gloves, and black sunglasses.

The whole thing can be seen from Saturday, May 10, 2025, in the 3sat Mediathek and on Saturday, May 24, 2025, at 20.15:3 p.m. as a first broadcast on XNUMXsat.

Go to content

Karl Lagerfeld had the media firmly under control during his public appearances, but behind the glamorous facade there were also dark sides.

His birth year, 1933, hung over him like a dark cloud: the year Hitler came to power, and both his parents were members of the Nazi Party. This was one of the reasons why Lagerfeld reinvented himself in his early twenties in his adopted home of Paris.

He experienced a profound change when his great love, the dandy Jacques de Bascher, died of AIDS in 1989. Lagerfeld did not let his grief show and continued to work with discipline, but his outward appearance changed and he became increasingly heavier.

At the turn of the millennium, he underwent another image change: he prescribed himself a radical diet, now appeared in the slim suits of Dior designer Hedi Slimane, and thanks to clever marketing strategies became increasingly successful – and finally became a global star.

Karl Lagerfeld's confidants report in the documentary about the inner life of an artist who spent his entire life in the spotlight but let almost no one see into his innermost being.

The background

Claudia Schiffer recalls how he helped her achieve worldwide fame, and Nadja Auermann recounts what connected them in terms of character. Actor Daniel Brühl, in turn, describes how he approached the reserved fashion mogul in order to portray him in a television series.

Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue, expresses her admiration for Lagerfeld and recounts a dinner that has remained vividly in her memory. Sébastien Jondeau, his closest confidant in the last years of his life, offers insight into the hours before Lagerfeld's death.

Karl Lagerfeld, who worked tirelessly, died two days before his last fashion show, on February 19, 2019. "He did not accept death, not even in the five minutes before," said Sébastien Jondeau.

At Lagerfeld's request, Jondeau scattered his ashes at an unknown location in France. No gravestone, no memorial.

The filmmaker

In “Karl – The Man Behind the Mask,” award-winning filmmaker Gero von Boehm traces the life of Karl Lagerfeld, whom he met personally in an interview in 2005.

From childhood as the son of a canned milk manufacturer in Bad Bramstedt to the dazzling world of Haute Couture.

Sierks Media / © Photo: ZDF, Till Vielrose