Happy 80th Birthday Karl!

Karl Lagerfeld kaiser of fashion, design, institution, barometer of style turn 80 today. The Chanel and Fendi helmer will enter an exclusive club of 80 years old stars all still working and evolving in their respective genres including Joan Collins, Michael Caine, Joan Rivers and Yoko Ono. 

So why haven't you heard before about the (not usually shy and retiring) designers landmark birthday? Well, birthdays are a funny thing where Lagerfeld is concerned. He has been evasive to say the least about his birthday initially flatly denying that he was born in 1933, as had been rumored, but also declining to reveal his real birthdate. Later, he conceded that he was born in 1935 happy to be in his advanced years but preferring, it seems, to be younger than Giorgio Armani, who turns 80 next year although still older than Diane Von Furstenberg who has three years to wait; a veritable spring chicken. Designers Yves Saint Laurent, had be lived, would only have been 77 this year. 

It was later revealed however, by diligent journalists from German newspaper Die Welt investigating the birth records in hamburg where he was born, that the baptismal records show that he was in fact born in 1933. Sorry Karl.  

So where will be celebrate his big day? He was most recently photographed in Munich, so perhaps his homeland is calling for such a significant anniversary, or he may return to Paris and spend the day at home with his beloved cat Choupette. Either way, the celebrations are likely to be small and discreet, although desperately stylish.