So what’s the deal with Karl Lagerfeld? Listen ––it’s been some time now since his death and therefore he’s ripe for reassessment - oh, and don’t come at me with: “Why he’s the King of Couture - didn’t he get Chanel off its knees.” Okay - so he managed to do something nobody could get petite little Coco to do for the entire duration of the Second World War - but really, does that require his beatification? “Saint Karl of the White Ponytail” ––he has no feast day you know - unless you can call drinking 12 gallons of diet Coke a day ‘a feast’. His singular innovation seems to have been that of dragging the mummified corpse of Couture into our age of mass-manufacture ––and how did he achieve such a feat? Was it through the democratisation of ownership ––i.e. through an innovative use of manufacture to put the one-of-a-kind on-off within the reach of your average Betty-in-the-street? No such altruism. His grand solution was to use the Chanel brand alone as his creative cash-cow ––so no