A leading creative and a household name, Lagerfeld has been paramount to the success of three houses over his lifetime: Chanel, Fendi and his eponymous label. Today, the industry mourns the loss of one of the most influential talents in fashion history.

The legendary creative director for Chanel and Fendi, a fashion icon by all measures and one of the industry’s most prolific figures in the industry, has passed away in Paris at the age of 85.

A prolific creative mind with endless imagination, Karl Lagerfeld explored many artistic horizons, including photography and short films. The House of CHANEL benefited from his talent for all the branding campaigns related to Fashion since 1987.

The designer had been unwell for several weeks, and had missed a number of fashion shows. Born Karl Otto Lagerfeldt in 1933 in pre-war Germany, Lagerfeld changed his original surname from Lagerfeldt, because he believed it sounded “more commercial”. He emigrated to Paris as a young teenager, and became a design assistant for Pierre Balmain, before working at Fendi and Chloe in the 1960s.

He began his long career with Chanel in 1983, a decade after Coco Chanel died. An extraordinary creative individual, Karl Lagerfeld reinvented the brand’s codes created by Gabrielle Chanel: the CHANEL jacket and suit, the little black dress, the precious tweeds, the two-tone shoes, the quilted handbags, the pearls and costume jewelry. Regarding Gabrielle Chanel, he said, “My job is not to do what she did, but what she would have done. The good thing about Chanel is it is an idea you can adapt to many things.”

Lagerfeld was known for his distinctive look in his later years, regularly wearing dark suits, a pony-tail and tinted sunglasses.

Alain Wertheimer, CEO of CHANEL, said: “Thanks to his creative genius, generosity and exceptional intuition, Karl Lagerfeld was ahead of his time, which widely contributed to the House of CHANEL’s success throughout the world. Today, not only have I lost a friend, but we have all lost an extraordinary creative mind to whom I gave carte blanche in the early 1980s to reinvent the brand.

” Bruno Pavlovsky, President of Fashion at CHANEL, said: “Fashion show after fashion show, collection after collection, Karl Lagerfeld left his mark on the legend of Gabrielle Chanel and the history of the House of CHANEL.

He steadfastly promoted the talent and expertise of CHANEL’s ateliers and Métiers d’Art, allowing this exceptional know-how to shine throughout the world. The greatest tribute we can pay today is to continue to follow the path he traced by – to quote Karl – ‘continuing to embrace the present and invent the future’.

” Virginie Viard, Director of CHANEL’s Fashion Creation Studio and Karl Lagerfeld’s closest collaborator for more than 30 years, has been entrusted by Alain Wertheimer with the creative work for the collections, so that the legacy of Gabrielle Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld can live on.

What’s next…

Following the passing of Karl Lagerfeld on February 19, Chanel has named Virginie Viard as the next creative director of Chanel. Studio director since 1987 and the designer’s right-hand-woman, Viard will now be in charge of the artistic direction for the collections of the French fashion house.

The man whose name has been synonymous with Chanel since 1983 died today. It is Karl Lagerfeld’s loyal partner of over 30 years, and studio director of Chanel, Virginie Viard who has been named as his successor. Viard will be in charge of the creative work for the collections, from ready-to-wear, to haute couture. Chosen by Alain Wertheimer, CEO of Chanel, Virginie Viard has worked in close collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld since 1987 and will continue the legacy that both he and the founder of the fashion house, Gabrielle Chanel, left behind.

It’s the end of an era. Karl Lagerfeld, the most iconic face, hair, and personality in fashion, has died. He was 85. The designer behind his own eponymous line, Fendi, and of course, Chanel, always cut an imposing figure, with taste so impeccable that the whole world had no choice but to follow suit.

Since his words were always as deliberate as his designs, we’ve rounded up some of Karl’s most memorable, and most glamorous, quotes on life.

“Everybody should go to bed dressed like they have a date at the door.”

“A sense of humour and a little lack of respect: that’s what you need to make a legend survive.”

“People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.”

“Chic is a kind of mayonnaise, either it tastes, or it doesn’t.”

“I am very much down to Earth. Just not this earth.”

Goodbye Karl…

Thank you for what you taught us in this world…

Rest in Peace…

Via British Vogue

Big Thanks !

Probably the most anticipated fashion show of Paris Fashion Week took place last Tuesday morning ,  in its home place , Grand Palais, the fabulous spot , in which Karl Lagerfeld has shared amazing  fashion moments during the previous years.

At Chanel’s AW18 show the models walked the leaf-strewn runway at Grand Palais alongside nine old trees. Largerfeld explained, “You know, I’ve always loved autumn. This is a kind of Indian summer with all the leaves. It’s a beautiful mood. Autumn was always my favourite season.”

See every single look  here:

Via British Vogue,

Nine old trees lined the leaf-strewn Chanel runway at Grand Palais on Tuesday morning. “I was brought up in the country in an estate with 12 alleys going up to the house, so for me it’s something I’m used to,” Karl Lagerfeld reminisced of his childhood home north of Hamburg. Was he feeling nostalgic for his homeland? “There are French forests, American forests. This is not a local thing. Basically, Germany with Mrs Merkel is not so much my trip.”

The designer has been vocal about his disapproval of the chancellor’s open-border policy in Germany, voicing his at times controversial comments in the European press. But on last Tuesday morning , he seemed like a breather from all of that; from all the debates that have filled the autumn/winter 2018 forum, from gender roles and behaviour to fake news and everything in between. What could be more soothing than the autumnal forest, this majestic metamorphosis of nature?

Going to a  Chanel  show is like stepping into a beautifully conceived, alternate universe. In the past, audiences have been treated to a space rocket lift-off, a polar scene complete with a real iceberg and a 25-metre-high waterfall. The idea for each lavish setting springs from the imagination of Karl Lagerfeld (he keeps a sketchbook next to his bed because his best ideas come to him in dreams) and is created in exacting detail by Chanel’s army of production staff.

This season, Lagerfeld conjured an autumnal forest of real oak trees sprouting from a living forest floor. By far the biggest show in Paris, let’s crunch the Chanel numbers.

An avenue of nine 17-metre-tall oak trees were transplanted from a forest in the Perche region of north-western France to the vast, glass-ceilinged exhibition space at the Grand PalaisGrand Palais.

The trees formed a living corridor down the centre of the runway, which aped a natural forest floor, complete with autumnal leaves, soil, moss, twigs and tree roots. The audience sat on planks made from tree trunks.

After the show all the trees were recycled – their trunks were sent to a sawmill to be cut into planks and their branches and leaves were turned into shavings and composted.

Lagerfeld approaches his themes with literal elan, but lately – as in this show – he’s been foregoing the humour he’s often used to turn these ideas on their head. His last haute couture show for Chanel imagined a palatial French fountain setting, the ready-to-wear show before that a luxuriant French waterfall.

It seems that Lagerfeld, now bearded like the wiseman he is, finds a need for a more serious and elegant approach to life in the troubled time we live in.

He may be flexing his political muscle in the press but on the massive platform that is his Chanel runway, Lagerfeld is cutting through the noise of the news machine, gifting the world with quiet moments of reflection and appreciation for the things we take for granted. “You know, I’ve always loved autumn. This is a kind of Indian summer with all the leaves. It’s a beautiful mood,” he noted. “Autumn was always my favourite season.”

His new ambassador Kaia Gerber joined the walk in the forest

but it was another girl close to Lagerfeld’s heart, who had the honour of closing the show. “My favourite girl of the moment is a Dutch girl called Luna,” he said referring to Luna Bijl, who planted a peck on his cheek as they took their bow.

The name of Chanel’s new shopper tote, 31 refers to the address of Chanel’s flagship store on Rue Cambon. Large and rectangular with distinctive circular handles and a long shoulder strap, it came in several colours and finishes.

Some were printed with autumnal leaves and worn with matching jackets. Models carried them folded over like a newspaper or gently cupped the bottom of the tote with a hand. Despite its size the 31 has day-to-night potential. Kaia Gerber  even accessorised her black lace cocktail dress with the capacious new shopper.

Amazing Classy Dresses…!

That’s the number of people who filed into the vast woodland arena. Front row notables included Keira Knightley, Lily Allen, Yasmin Le Bon, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Lara Stone and Marc Jacobs, who notched up his third front row appearance of the week having already taken in Balenciagaand Comme des Garçons, before hotfooting it off to Miu Miu.

It was another gorgeous  creation moment of the legendary designer . All we own to say is a Huge Thank you for the precious moments we shared in this unique , magic fashion show in Paris .

source: British Vogue

Big Thanks !

Via British Vogue

“Waterfalls are the healthiest thing in the world,” he said after his spring/summer 2018 Chanel show where luxuriant rocks evoking Gorges du Verdon – the canyon in the South-East of France – turned the Grand Palais into an imposing waterfall. “The breeze was pleasant,” Lagerfeld noted, pointing out the cool flurry exuding from the cascading water, cutting through the greenhouse-like heat building inside the giant glass-roofed building.

“It’s up to you what you see, whatever you see. I haven’t seen the show,” he said with typical no-nonsense delivery. “I don’t make philosophical notes on it.”

“In the Sixties I was bored. How horrible,” he shrugged. “I liked the Seventies. They were all glamour.” Be as it may, his collection had memories of the Space Age sentimentality we’ve come across more than once this season, no doubt thanks to Lagerfeld’s own Rocket Man show for Chanel last March.

It’s the Barbarella look we associate with Jane Fonda and Paco Rabanne in the late Sixties. Fonda, like her contemporaries Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin, represented the fashionable activism of the time – an age of political youth revolt, which Lagerfeld lived through as a young man in his 30s.

Now 84, you can see how the current political waves would give him a deja-vu to those “horrible” but impactful years, and the “all-glamour” escapism that followed in the Seventies.

Chanel

“I have no archives, nothing,” he reminded his audience – but in this collection was a clear-as-plastic subliminal message to learn from the past in our approach to the future.

“He believes in beauty, he’s Venus as a boy,” Björk serenaded the designer on the soundtrack, and comparing Lagerfeld to the goddess of beauty and prosperity seemed like an appropriate sentiment at this point in his career.

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“I think I’m lazy, I could do better, I make an effort next time,” he said with self-effacing insight. It made you wonder if Lagerfeld’s objectives in life, as one of the world’s influential people, now go way beyond the improvement of just fashion.

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Magic Chanel

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Chanel, Spring-Summer 2018

Chanel Details… , Bags, Shoes & Sunglasses

Sunglasses…

Chanel Spring-Summer 2018

Chanel Spring-Summer 2018 via Paris Fashion Week

Amazing Look…!

Chanel , Shop Online

source:  British Vogue

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Tweeds, mohairs, and wools come in shades of russet, ocher, bordeaux, and brown for the Fall‑Winter 2017/18 Haute Couture collection. “Feathers treated like fur” appear on shoulders, dress necklines, and the pockets of the suits created by Karl Lagerfeld.

All the looks of the incredible collection are here: 

shot by Karl Lagerfeld.

Karl Lagerfeld chose the 1926 oil painting of La Tour Eiffel by Robert Delaunay for the show invitation, deeming it “a symbol of avant-garde modernity”. Chanel’s website drew attention to Roland Barthes’ observation in “The Eiffel Tower And Other Mythologies”, that Maupassant often lunched in the Eiffel Tower restaurant, even though he didn’t think much of the food, because it was the only place in Paris where he didn’t have to see it.

“Whatever the season, through mist and cloud, on overcast days or in sunshine, in rain – wherever you are, whatever the landscape of roofs, domes, or branches separating you from it, the Tower is there,” Barthes wrote.

Classic twists ruled the runways, teased into delicate patisserie-style swirls by Sam McKnight and held in place with gallons of hairspray.

Evening gowns in gathered or draped satin, with shoulders bare or trimmed with feathers, are worn with matching boaters.

Classic black gave way to chain-trimmed tweed, patent leather and jazzy sequin-embroidered styles, all worn with golf-ball-size pearl earrings.

Patent Boots Offset Traditional Tweeds

Shelve the suede: models wore knee-high and ankle-length patent boots in black, cream and beige, adding an edge to the fripperies of razor-sliced tulle, feathers and tweed. Patent always looks slicker.

Karl  Lagerfeld Was Honoured

The famed creative director, Karl Lagerfeld, wass presented with a Grand Vermeil medal by the Mayor of Paris for his contribution to the fashion industry.

EVEN a stifling 30-degree heatwave inside the glass atrium of the Grand Palais could not wilt the glamour conjured within.

Born in 1933, Karl Lagerfeld has not lost the instinctual flare required at Chanel to seamlessly marry the new with storied tradition.

So too with the collection, where signature marks of the brand were given gentle tweaks to bring them up to date. With couture any one piece can cost upwards of five figures.

This is a collection serving an elite crowd, who do not see these investments as one season wonders. Below an almost life-size replica of the Eiffel Tower the show began with a series of classic tweed suits in warm shades of charcoal and peat, mirroring Coco Chanel’s first boucle wool creations, introduced a decade before Lagerfeld’s birth.

This season the jackets came over-sized with voluminous sleeves and capacious proportions and longer skirts. While cropped jackets were married with flared skirts or worn over wool minis, ankle-skimming tunics came with cute hoods and all paired with black buttoned, perspex-heeled ankle boots, a boucle boater and dramatic rainbow striped eye make-up.

Chanel can afford to shrug off the pomp, such is the mastery of its couture ateliers that you know each and every LBD that shimmied past was fashioned with exquisite, painstaking care.

Not that this collection was without a few showstoppers. One gown dripped with delicate chains of jade jewels, while a full silk skirt flounced provocatively beneath. And another inky black creation swept past in majestic grandeur, pulling a lengthy train behind, feathered rosettes pinned delicately to the hem.

Other silk and tulle dresses and tweed tunics bristled with plumes of brightly-coloured feathers, as fanciful as a pheasant in its autumn finery. The very same birds Coco would have witnessed on her many trips to Scotland when staying with the Duke of Westminster.

Couture and the lifestyle that accompanies it may only be available to the global super-rich but it still provides a lifeline of fantasy for the rest of us.

Details…

Via British Vogue   & Chanel News 

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The Legendary Karl Lagerfeld was  highly inspired from the Greek temperament of the past eras and made  with his own magical way a unique  collection,  flood in the fascination of another side of glamour, the one that is  based on the awe of  pure simplicity.

“I’m suggesting going back to move forward,” the designer said. “To create the future you have to pay attention to the past.”

“The criteria of beauty in ancient, then classical, Greece still hold true. There have never been more beautiful representations of women. Or more beautiful columns. The entire Renaissance, in fact, was based on antiquity. It is really about the youth of the world in all its power and unpredictability.“

The Iconic Greek sandals

Lagerfeld’s take on Greek style comes complete with Ionic column–heeled gladiator sandals. If history has taught us anything, it’s that Ionic columns are quite sturdy.

In Coco Chanel’s Rue Cambon apartment, a bust of Venus sat on the mantle. That served as Lagerfeld’s jumping-off point this season.

Amber lighting bathed the Palais in a soothing heat (models wore ruddy, outdoor tans). The clothes – draped mini togas, natural tweed, golden tunic dresses and uniform lace-up platform sandals – were Lagerfeld’s imagined take on life inside that original civilisation.

The Pottery Dresses
Red-and-black-figure-painted pottery was one of the most popular ways ancient Greeks depicted the human body in two dimensions. Lagerfeld reworked the motifs in column dresses with rows and rows of illustrations evoking the Greek originals.

The Models
Lagerfeld’s many muses came out last Wednesday. Vogue cover star Vittoria Ceretti opened the show, followed by Kiki Willems, Binx Walton, Lindsey Wixson, Amanda Sanchez, and Arizona Muse. As always, Lagerfeld took his bow with his youngest model, Hudson Kroenig.

The makeup

It may have been previously snubbed for its association with over-bronzed, orange-tinted skin, but the Chanel girls sported an organic-looking – but arguably no less obvious – desert glow.

Colour was strongly concentrated on areas which would be naturally kissed by the sun (check out the Chanel girl’s temples, cheekbones and forearms) and the shade used provided an olive undertone for a better imitation of an authentic tan.

The Goddesses
If a breezy, wide silhouette defined the beginning of the presentation, the final looks were pure Venus. Bias-draped gowns in pale pink and cream with gold embellishments closed the show, worn by models with golden headbands and nymph-like waves.

The Designer’s “modern mythology”, as the show notes explained, harked back to purer times – an ancient Greek civilisation ,the first known democracy in the world.

Via British Vogue

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