Designer Jil Sander, credited with transforming the dowdy image of Chancellor Angela Merkel, was targeted by a stalker who threatened to kill the fashion queen and her lesbian lover.

A Hamburg court yesterday heard how a distraught woman named only as Sandra D fell passionately in love with the designer and tried her utmost to break up her relationship with her partner Dickie Mommsen.

At least 11 death threats were targeted against Ms Sander and against Ms Mommsen.

The state prosecutor yesterday demanded a six month suspended jail sentence against 33-year-old Sandra D as well as a restraining order prohibiting her from approaching or making contact with the reclusive designer. The woman entered no plea yesterday and the judge accepted that she might not be fully responsible for her actions.

So shy of publicity is Ms Sander that she has declined to testify in the case, even though it has plainly disrupted her life. Security staff have been doubled at her Hamburg design studio since Sandra D started her campaign of telephoning death threats.

Ms Sander, 62, is rarely seen on the party circuit unlike her fellow German designers Karl Lagerfeld and Wolfgang Joop.

Jil Sander - who specialises in high quality understated women’s clothing - has become an icon for the lesbian community. Sandra D - who is likely to be referred for psychiatric tests when the court meets again next week - is only the latest of a series of women who have declared their passion for the designer, dubbed by fashion magazines to be"the Queen of Less". Because of her preference for expensive fabrics she’s also known as the Cashmere Queen.

"She is a style ambassador for Germany," says the industrial designer Peter Schmidt,"she is the first to have understood that women do not want to be dressed like dolls and who created serious, stylish business fashion for them."

As a result, Jil Sander has changed the public image of female politicians in Europe - at least those who can afford her prices - and female chief executives. Her influence on male fashion has been less marked.

Frau Sander however is a model of discretion, living with her partner in a big white turn of the century villa in Hamburg’s exclusive suburb of Harvestehude. Friends say she spends as much time landscape gardening as she does on running her fashion interests.

Although she was known as a workaholic for decades - building up her internationally recognised label - she seems to enjoy a love-hate relationship with the fashion industry. Seven years ago she sold 75 per cent of her stake in the Jil Sander company to the Italian fashion house Prada.

She stayed on briefly as chairman, left after a row, returned as chief designer in 2003 and then left again. The company has since been sold to the British financial investor Change Capital Partners.

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