7. Early Life Karl was born in Hamburg, Germany . His original name was Lagerfeldt (with a "t"), but he later changed it to Lagerfeld as it sounds more commercial. Karl's father is from Vladivostok , Russia ; his mother is from Berlin , Germany, (according to " Lagerfeld Confidential ", Marconi Rodolphe, 2006). Though Lagerfeld has stated that his father was Swedish, journalist Alicia Drake in The Beautiful Fall (Little, Brown, 2006) established that Karl's father, Christian Lagerfeld , a Swedish businessman who introduced Condensed milk to Germany. According to Drake, Lagerfeld's mother, Elisabeth Bahlmann , was a lingerie saleswoman in Berlin when she met her husband and married him in 1930.
