March 2024 | Being All at the same Time

When Karl Lagerfeld, the designer behind Chanel, Fendi, Chloé, and Jean Patou died in 2019, fashion world was hit with an unfathomable feeling of emptiness. His creative force was and still is valued deeply and by the time it felt that the fashion clock was forever set on a Before Karl and After Karl Era.

In fashion, the prodigious designer was constantly searching for the new trend or dazzling look for the runways yet staying always faithful to each brand’s core identity values and a specific iconic aesthetic range he represented. His forays into interiors reveal a totally different engagement with design though.

The 13 distinct homes belonging to the late Chanel creative director that are featured in the book, Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses, reveal a remarkable collection of properties located around the world, with diametrically diverse aesthetic range and design typologies. The book is opening the doors to those private homes which span from Paris, Monte Carlo, Rome, Hamburg and Biarritz, each as prestigious and unique as their iconic occupier.

From Lagerfeld’s Art Deco Parisian home on the Rue de l’Université, his 1980s Memphis-design Monte Carlo summer house to his residence in Hamburg filled with objects from the Swedish Grace design movement and his futuristic Quai Voltaire apartment featuring stainless steel, and glass furniture; all of his empire of properties have only one thing in common; eclectic selection of furnishings and artwork of impressive worth and aesthetics.

Karl Lagerfeld poses in his book-filled apartment and studio on Rue de Lille in Paris, France on November 12, 2008.

Eric Dessons/JDD/Abaca Press/Alamy Stock Photo/Courtesy Thames & Hudson

Karl Lagerfeld’s impressive interior design mastery, his ability to adjust experiment and move like a chameleon inside a process of reinvention is a true mark of a genius polymath mind.  As the late Chanel Creative Director remarked in one of his last interviews, originally featured in the September 2018 issue of Harper's Bazaar UK, the last thing he would like to do is define himself.

Personally I have been a huge admirer of many fashion designers that are consistent to their fashion design style when creating for interiors. Perfect examples Ralph Lauren’s Home Collection, the epitome of luxury Americana aesthetics or Allesandro Michele’s unrivalled taste for art history and love for lost grandeur showcased perfectly in his mesmerizing New Romantics Gucci Decor collection as well as his private apartment in Palazzo Scapucci, Rome.

Lagerfeld’s interior design identity though, speaks deeply inside my design instincts in a different way as I love and respect so many opponent design movements and trends. 

People, just like in society, are used to labels. You can’t be this if you are that. You can’t like this if you are like that. Consistency of course makes sense. And maybe makes also things easier

But to be able to respect, admire and float gracefully between diametrically opposed design sensibilities with ease that for me is the pillar of deep knowledge and creativity freedom.

ELENI NODARAKI

Creative Editorial Director

Write to me on eleni@decorationrunway.com