First look inside Karl Lagerfeld’s homes: the late fashion designer’s private collection to go up for auction in December

The sale of 650 lots reveals how the late German fashion designer’s sharp sense of style extended beyond the fashion world.
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Becky Barnes23 November 2021

The eclectic interiors of two homes owned by the late Karl Lagerfeld have been revealed for the first time as a huge collection from his estate goes under the hammer.

Never-seen-before photographs offer a glimpse of the enigmatic fashion designer’s two-storey apartment on Rue des Saints-Pères in Paris, which features minimal design with decorative arts.

Highlights include a black and white earthenware and crocheted statue of his beloved cat Choupette, estimate 5,000 - 7,000 EUR (£4,200 - £5,900) sitting upon a late 19th-century wood library step ladder, estimate 2,000 - 3,000 EUR (£1,700 - £2,500).

Another property which can be seen for the first time is the last home he ever decorated - a 19th century villa in Louveciennes, near Versailles, which is described as a love letter to his roots, featuring German designs dating from the beginning of the 20th century.

The 2015 Christian Lava for Terziani metal chain chandelier, a centrepiece in this home is expected to sell for 3,000 - 4,000 EUR (£2,500 - £3,400), while an early 20th century Darmstadt carpet from the same room has a guide price of 6,000 - 8,000 EUR (£5,000 - £6,700).

The sale of 650 lots, from sofas to silverware, highlights how Lagerfeld, who died aged 85 in February 2019, made styles from across the centuries compliment one another. It reveals radical pieces of design - by the likes of Marc Newson and Martin Szekely - juxtaposed with 18th-century luxuriance (gilt bronze and crystal chandeliers, a regal Louis XVI bed draped in a silver thread and yellow silk lampas, 18th-century sculpture). It shows his eye for style and detail extended beyond the fashion world.

The private collection up for sale includes pieces from the futuristic apartment he spent two and a half years renovating on the Quai Voltaire next to the Seine. In the 300-year-old building, he created his primary residence in the city with a monochromatic interior, which he said was “not a house…It’s a spaceship.”

Pierre Mothes, vice president of Sotheby’s France, said: “The story of this sale is of Karl Lagerfeld at home, of the private man behind the public persona. We see him as an absolute aesthete, applying the very same precision to the spaces he lived in as to the designs that saw him conquer the world of fashion.

Karl Lagerfeld - In pictures

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“A glimpse inside his homes reveal a designer who knew how to perfectly balance the old and the new, the traditional with the radical, the serious with the surprising, and often with a twist of fun. And, a flick through the catalogue provides a tantalising hint at what it might have been like to sit around his dinner table, with the eclectic tableware, porcelains, glasses, linens and silver on display.

“It is items like these, and the most personal pieces offered throughout the sales, whether they be from his celebrated wardrobe, his dressing table, his linen cupboards or silver chests that help piece together the story behind the persona of one of the great designers of our times.”

Other standout lots from the sale include a Jeff Koons balloon venus designed to hold a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, a set of cushions embroidered with “Ici, c’est la place du chat”, French for “here, a place for the cat” reserving a seat for the famous Choupette and a 1969 La Mama armchair.

The late fashion designer’s two-storey apartment on Rue des Saints-Pères in Paris
Handout

Claudia Schiffer, one of Lagerfeld’s original muses, said: “He (Karl) was forthright, charismatic and decisive in every aspect of his life, but it is his sharp sense of humour that really shined behind closed doors as well as his encyclopaedic knowledge of art and culture that he generously shared at every opportunity.

“Karl’s scope of work didn’t just evolve, he continually re-invented it, emerging season by season as a key player and shaper of the fashion zeitgeist; his vision was so extraordinary. I’ve often described him as the Warhol of fashion, because like Warhol his work spanned such a wide variety of media and he understood the relationship between photography, artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertising.”

Lagerfeld is thought to have owned 20 homes. The two catalogues published for live auctions in Paris and Monaco in December are the first of five auction catalogues that will be released over the coming weeks and months revealing several hundred further lots from the collection.

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