RUDOLPH MOSHAMMER dominated the fashion world for men and women in his native Bavaria over more than three decades, and increasingly in recent years his label ruled in the capitals of the formerly communist Eastern Europe.

Through skilful and energetic marketing, his personal brand became a household name throughout Central Europe and spread across the Atlantic, while his style, never less than extravagant and often flamboyant, gained him a global clientele.

On his list of special customers were Arnold Schwarzenegger in his film-star days, the screen and stage star Hildegard Knef, the composer Leonard Bernstein and the singer José Carreras, as well as members of assorted European royal houses. By his own account, Moshammer sold a million ties a year: even if the actual figure was more like 10 per cent of that, it remained a tidy turnover.

With the same shrewdness and energy that went into his commercial operations, he cultivated his social image. No film or opera premiere was complete without his presence, always accompanied by his mother until she died in l993, and thereafter by his dog, Daisy. He was a regular at the music festivals in Bayreuth and Salzburg and the film festival at Cannes. And when news of his death hit the streets of Munich, many Bavarians said they felt as if their legendary King Ludwig had died a second time.

His rococo life started literally in rags. His father, once a successful insurance executive, fell prey to alcohol. One night, in a drunken stupor, he threatened his wife Else and son Rudolph first with a knife then with a gun. They fled. His father soon went on the streets, and died there of liver failure. Else lacked the money to pay her bills, and the electricity was cut off in their near-slum apartment. Clothes were threadbare and failed to provide protection against the freezing Bavarian winters. Even the daily ration of potatoes was not enough to keep hunger at bay. And mother and son faced repeated threats of eviction because of rent arrears.

Those memories haunted Moshammer. As soon as he started to make money, he channelled some of it back to the alcoholic and the homeless. He visited them regularly underneath the bridges over the River Isar in Munich with expensive cheese and sausages.

A refuge for 60 homeless will open in Munich this year. In the town’s luxury shopping area, big posters, paid for by Moshammer, urge the wealthy to Kauff Biss — Buy Biss, the German equivalent of the Big Issue, Britain’s magazine for the homeless.

And he himself kept three Rolls- Royce Silver Shadows to reassure himself daily that he was no longer poor.

The drive to fend off that childhood spectre made him walk out of his tailoring apprenticeship as soon as he found he could sell the hats and housecoats he was designing for his mother’s friends. What he lacked in tailoring skill he made up for with flair and panache. He acquired a shop opposite the Munich opera house, called it Carnaval de Venise, and it became a compulsory stop for every sightseeing tour as well as for his increasingly prestigious clients.

The careful cultivation of his image, with his toupé, outsize moustache and his Yorkshire terrier Daisy (with its own website and “autobiography”) had one aim — to boost his sales. And when the applause exploded at an opera premiere, Moshammer was there in his box, graciously to acknowledge it — and never mind the artists for whom it was intended.

He was found dead in his home by his chauffeur, strangled with a telephone cord.

Rudolph Moshammer, fashion designer and society cult figure, was born on September 27, l940. He was found dead on January 14, 2005, aged 64.