In 2013, the distinguished Italian furniture manufacturing company Cassina invited Karl Lagerfeld to choose his favorite pieces of furniture for an unusual photographic mise-en-scène: "I had never 'worked' on a project like this before. To visually reinterpret examples of perfect design is completely new for me, and therefore stimulating, exciting even." Before Lagerfeld's lens, iconic chairs, tables and chaise longues by Modernist legends such as Le Corbusier, Rietveld and Perriand condense to their absolute, abstract essence. In his inimitably sleek and sophisticated photographs, Lagerfeld reveals the form in Formalism. Here furniture is seen in an atypical, decontextualized mode of presentation, detached from its usual environment, isolated and dramatically lit like a sculpture. The result is a tenderly chosen compendium of 21 images that respects the artistic intentions of the designers while simultaneously creating a new aesthetic.
Choupette is the world's most famous and pampered cat: she has two maids, she receives manicures, and only eats at the table off Goyard and Louis Vuitton crockery. Her Instagram account is approaching an enviable 300,000 followers, and now she has her own brand-new book.
Choupette by Karl Lagerfeld is a selection of the iPhone photos that Lagerfeld took daily of his beloved pet and muse. Here we see Lagerfeld's adorable Birman cat in a variety of indulgent poses: perched on a pile of books, curled up in the bathroom sink, and (of course) admiring her reflection in the mirror. Lagerfeld personally chose and sequenced these photos, which reveal a tender, playful look into Choupette's precious world.
Karl Lagerfeld (1938–2019) was a fashion designer, photographer and publisher. During his photographic career Lagerfeld received the Lucky Strike Design Award from the Raymond Loewy Foundation, the cultural prize from the German Photographic Society and the ICP Trustees Award from the International Center of Photography. Steidl has published most of Lagerfeld's books, including A Portrait of Dorian Gray (2004), Room Service (2006), The Beauty of Violence (2010), The Little Black Jacket (2012), Villa Noailles, Hyères–Été 1995 (2015) and Cassina as Seen by Karl (2018).
Over 180 galleries and publishers present a comprehensive historical panorama of photography, from vintage prints to the latest contemporary works and everything in between. But how are we to best navigate this almost overwhelming photographic bounty?
Paris Photo by Karl Lagerfeld (born 1933) provides the answer by presenting Lagerfeld’s personal selection of his favorite photos from the thousands on show at this year’s fair. We are thus able to “visit” Paris Photo as if in Lagerfeld’s company, and enjoy a perspective that is shaped by his decades of experience as a photographer, photobook publisher and book dealer. Lagerfeld’s chosen photos will also be indicated at Paris Photo itself, allowing us to wander the fair through Lagerfeld’s eyes.
This book features Karl Lagerfeld's most beautiful photographs of haute-couture garments shot for French fashion magazine Numéro, to celebrate its 15 years of collaboration with the famous fashion designer. Who else but Lagerfeld could better reveal the timeless and intricate beauty of couture? With all his innate imagination and indulgence, Lagerfeld has immortalized the iconic models of our time within the covers of Numéro: Cara Delevingne, Linda Evangelista, Natasha Poly, Anja Rubik, Lara Stone, Stella Tennant, Natalia Vodianova--all these and more have participated in his game, often framed by sumptuous decors worthy of the greatest Hollywood productions. Lagerfeld's spectacular stagings visualize our most daring fantasies of female archetypes, from fairytale princesses to contemporary muses.
Chanel's fashion shows are always unexpected, but with the set of Karl Lagerfeld's most recent Fall-Winter 2014/15 Prêt-à-Porter collection for the house, the designer seems to have finally outdone himself. The concept of the catwalk was born anew as the "Chanel Shopping Center," where models jostled with one another as they browsed shelves and placed items in their shopping trolleys. This was, of course, no normal supermarket but a spectacular ironic reinterpretation of Chanel 's beloved codes, where supermarket produce and packaging were re-designed according to Lagerfeld's wit and whim. There were thousands of items to behold including Mont Cambon wine, Mademoiselle Privé doormats, tweed energy drinks, Coco Flakes (to be eaten with no more than Lait de Coco), Paris-Dallas ketchup, lion-shaped pasta, as well as bottled water labeled "Eau de CHANEL No 0." The visual vocabulary of the supermarket equally informed Lagerfeld's collection: from chain shopping baskets, vacuum-packed handbags, bottletop and padlock-shaped jewelry, to iridescent outfits with shoplifter-sized pockets. This book preserves the Chanel Shopping Center in print, and is playfully styled as a mail order catalogue displaying all items seemingly for purchase-but only while stocks last.
Published by Steidl. Edited by Gerhard Steidl, Eric Pfrunder. Text by Karl Lagerfeld.
Few modern buildings embody such modernist beauty and mythical magic as Casa Malaparte, designed by the Italian poet and novelist Curzio Malaparte in 1937 as a home for himself, and later made famous by Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt, starring Brigitte Bardot. "No place in Italy has such a wide horizon to stare at, nor such a depth of feeling," wrote Malaparte of the locale in Capri where he erected the Casa. "A site only for strong men and for free spirits.… Here, in this wilderness, I am the first one who will build a house." Karl Lagerfeld visited the site for five days in November 1997 and took a series of Polaroids, which he subsequently transferred to Arches moldmade paper. First published in 1999 (and later as a slipcased edition with House in the Trees), this beautifully printed book is now made available again as a single-volume edition.
This elaborate object offers an as-yet-unseen insight into Karl Lagerfeld's working processes as artistic director for Fendi, a position he has remarkably held since 1965. Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld traces Lagerfeld's unparalleled career at the luxury Roman fashion house, where he has revolutionized the craft of fur (both technically and artistically), and introduced the successful ready-to-wear and accessory lines that have transformed Fendi into a global fashion brand. Through the decades we see how Lagerfeld incorporates eclectic influences--from Eskimo designs and medieval armor to kimonos and the world of informatics--into his own progressive vision. Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld includes a sketch pad of 130 of Lagerfeld's fashion drawings (those given to the Fendi ateliers to enable them to construct the garments, and selected from an archive of over 35,000), a pad of his logo designs for the house, along with booklets of exclusive interviews with the designer, a poster and a USB key containing his short films--all packaged in a custom-made wooden case modeled on the box of oil pastels which invariably graces Lagerfeld's working desk. Essential for all Lagerfeld and Fendi devotees, Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld illustrates the evolution of contemporary fashion over the past half-century.
Built at the beginning of the 20th century by the Bauhaus-inspired architect Rob Mallet-Stevens in Hyères in Southern France, the Villa de Noailles is a place of timeless modernity. Despite its incredible charm, the building was abandoned and fell into oblivion, but was rediscovered in the early 1990s as the embodiment of what was regarded "modern" toward the end of the last century. Artists such as Man Ray, Luis Buñuel, Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau lived and worked here, inspiring and taking inspiration from their hosts. The dream of modernity slowly succumbed to the passage of time, the wear and tear of war leaving little more than shadows of an architecture behind. In this volume, Karl Lagerfeld explores its secrets with his camera.
For the set of Chanel's Spring-Summer 2014 Prêt-à-Porter fashion show on 1 October 2013, Karl Lagerfeld transformed Paris's Grand Palais into a vast art gallery filled with specially created Chanel artworks. Chanel Art is a record of this gallery and unique moment in fashion history. Lagerfeld personally conceived each of the diverse paintings, sculptures and installations, many of which are ironic interpretations of Chanel 's famous icons informed by a pop sensibility. Here we see expressive paintings of camellias, ladders with gold chains as rungs and a cubist take on the two-tone shoe jostling for space alongside a robot in the shape of a No. 5 perfume bottle and a giant sculpture of the double C logo. The myriad themes of art similarly shaped Lagerfeld's collection-from dresses printed with color charts, fabrics like canvases spattered with paint, to graffitied art students' backpacks-all proof that the designer's fashion creations and the sets in which they are shown are themselves like single consolidated "artworks."
Published by Steidl. Contributions by Carine Roitfeld.
This is the updated edition of Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld's reinterpretation of Chanel's iconic little black jacket, expanded with 21 new photographs. This award-winning book contains Lagerfeld's photographs of celebrities wearing the modern adaptable jacket with individual flair-sometimes classic, sometimes irreverent, but always Chanel-with each of the protagonists styled by Carine Roitfeld. A range of accomplished actors, musicians, designers, models, writers and directors receives the little black jacket treatment, including Claudia Schiffer, Uma Thurman, Kanye West, Tilda Swinton, Baptiste Giabiconi, Yoko Ono and Sarah Jessica Parker. The project-which has been accompanied by a worldwide travelling exhibition-underlines the astounding versatility of Chanel's vision in Lagerfeld's hands and ensures this jacket's future as a timeless classic.
This book presents a selection of Karl Lagerfeld’s photographs of the model Jake Davies in different locations, settings and moods but all with one wry thing in common: Davies is wearing a hat. Lagerfeld’s project is the evocation of various personae acted out by Davies, not simply the photographic profile of a youth in changing guises. Indeed the book’s title page states that it “stars” Davies, casting him as the lead in an ambiguous drama. Compact in format, You Can Leave Your Hat On contains sepia photographs symmetrically framed by large white margins as if pasted into an album, like photographic ideas or filmic fragments. In one scene Davies appears gangster-like in a high-collared shirt, tie and pin-striped coat, seated pensively at an outdoor café. In another he stands poolside at night in a tuxedo, as if having just stepped out of a glittering party whose guests cannot be seen. Other images incorporate portraiture and fashion photography: for example Davies nude, gazing out a window or seated in jeans and a casual shirt in a studio. Throughout these scenarios, Lagerfeld employs Davies’ hat not only as a playful detail, but also as a dramatic beacon, linking the episodes into a larger story whose plot we ourselves must imagine.
In Metamorphoses of an American, Karl Lagerfeld documents the physical and emotional development of Brad Kroenig, the world's most sought-after male model, ranked number one at models.com at the time of this printing. Lagerfeld discovered Kroenig in 2003, making his first photographs of the young man in Biarritz; since then, he has diligently observed Kroenig through the photographic lens, month by month. Since the time of this first Lagerfeld photo shoot, Kroenig has been featured in almost every major designer's advertising campaign and/or fashion shows--including Lagerfeld, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Justin Cavalli, Perry Ellis and Fendi--and on almost every fashion magazine cover. In this volume, through hundreds of photographs taken inside and outside the world of fashion, Lagerfeld explores Kroenig's evolution from a young "All-American Boy" into a professional model, a man conscious of the subtleties of facial and corporeal expression. However, these photographs are not simply documentation; rather, Lagerfeld and Kroenig always work together to create a new persona, one which Kroenig projects without losing a sense of his own self. Lagerfeld selects a spectrum of literary and cultural references for Kroenig to interpret: we see him as James Dean, as Rudolph Valentino, as a Gatsby-like figure from F. Scott Fitzgerald, and as Lieutenant Pinkerton from Puccini's Madame Butterfly. Throughout these transformations, one never has the sense that Kroenig is merely acting; instead he presents newly discovered aspects of himself through the guises of other characters.
Lady Amanda Harlech is known as designer and photographer Karl Lagerfeld's "eye outside Paris," and has been his personal and professional muse and collaborator for a decade. Her sensibility, which presently informs the Chanel aesthetic, is evidenced by the vivid and often darkly humorous prose of Palazzo, a collaboration which combines a short story by Harlech with a series of illustrative black-and-white photographs by Lagerfeld. Palazzo explores a glamorous but equivocal romance, at once steeped in visual wealth and riddled with emotional ambivalence. The narrative depicts Principessa Allegra and her American fiancé, who at first seem to be a beautiful and enviable couple. As events unfold, we see that this relationship is in fact complex and shaded with reluctance and suppressed tensions. Palazzo is a contemporary drama, but a drama that is deeply infused with a sense of the theatrical past--indeed the Palazzo Taverna in Rome is not only the setting for the story, but a vessel which contains a complex history itself (on which Lagerfeld elaborates in an epilogue in the book). While describing a degree of decadence which most can only aspire to, Palazzo also explores the disquieting emotional states present in all human relationship--expectation, compromise and regret.
Steidl Collectors Series. In Akstrakt, photographer Karl Lagerfeld deals with the topic of form. In so doing, he takes the liberty of broadening, in the Beuysian sense, the concept of art, including man's physicality. The strictly thought-out study Akstrakt, consisting of 13 photo plates, formally takes up the tradition of Bauhaus photography. The design and production of the book rigorously follow traditional rules: the photographs, varnish-sealed in the costly tritone process, were printed on Phoenixmotion-Xanthur paper. The book block was laid out as a Japanese brochure and cased in cloth binding with a two-color brass-stamped plate.
Published by Steidl/Steinway & Sons. Photographs by Karl Lagerfeld.
Steinway & Sons has been manufacturing concert grand pianos for more than 150 years. To commemorate their anniversary, Karl Lagerfeld has designed an instrument that is unequaled in terms of beauty and sound: the Steinway Limited Edition, or S.L.ED. For the first time in the history of grand-piano manufacturing, Lagerfeld has rethought the traditional form. By shaping the feet like the runners of a sled, Lagerfeld has given the piano a new silhouette and has simultaneously made substantial improvements in the instrument's resonance. This publication documents the creative process involving the S.L.ED from the first drafts and color tests through various production steps at the Hamburg Steinway factory to the finished instrument. A sensorial study of function and design, the S.L.ED is a convincing new interpretation of a classic shape.
From the renowned Karl Lagerfeld comes a beautifully slip-covered collection of photographs documenting two feats of modernist Italian architecture. The first is Italian author Curzio Malaparte's Casa Malaparte, a 1937 villa built into a jutting cliff in Capri. With its antique beauty and singular character, Casa Malaparte was a fitting setting for Godard's 1963 Contempt. Lagerfeld used Polaroid transfers on a special paper to reproduce his 1997 photographs, which explore the home's interior, furniture and integration with its environment. The second volume, The House in the Trees, focuses on an extraordinary building in a small village near Rome. On a small piece of land surrounded by dilapidated warehouses and uninhabited buildings sits La Casa Albero Nella Pineta di Fregene, designed by the architect Perugini in 1967. A pinnacle of experimental architecture, the wood, concrete and glass-enclosed space has very few doors, and Lagerfeld's photographs artfully document the subtle architectural splendor.
Choupette by Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld: Paris Photo
Karl Lagerfeld & Babeth Djian: Numéro Couture
Karl Lagerfeld: Chanel Shopping Center
Karl Lagerfeld: Casa Malaparte
Fendi by Karl Lagerfeld
Karl Lagerfeld: Villa Noailles
Karl Lagerfeld: Chanel Art
Karl Lagerfeld: The Little Black Jacket
Karl Lagerfeld: Modern Italian Architecture