Karl Lagerferld Kidnap Plot

A convicted terrorist, who has just been released from prison in Germany, has sensationally revealed that the Kaiser was at the centre of a kidnap plot in the Seventies. Peter-Jurgen Boock, a member of the radical left-wing group the Red Army Faction, said in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel that the designer was once a prominent figure on a list of "people with a large fortune on whom we collected information with a view to kidnapping them". Boock and his associates plotted to abduct and ransom Lagerfeld in the early autumn of 1977, using him as a pawn to secure the release of other RAF members from jail and inject funds into their operation. It's unclear why the plan was dropped, but instead the group kidnapped - and, chillingly, murdered - former employers' representative Hanns-Martin Schleyer. At the time, Lagerfeld was the artistic director of Chloe and had already amassed a small personal fortune despite not having yet become the icon we recognise him as today. It has been suggested that Lagerfeld was targeted as a capitalist symbol as well as for his money. The veteran designer is yet to comment on the revelations, but it's safe to say he's probably too busy to dwell on what might have been: he's currently preparing for a major photography exhibition, for which he shot the likes of David Lynch and Isabelle Huppert, to be unveiled next month at the Cannes Film Festival.