Guests at Chanel Share Their Favorite Memories of Karl Lagerfeld
Guests at Karl Lagerfeld’s last show for Chanel included Claudia Schiffer, Janelle Monáe, Kristen Stewart, Stella Tennant, Ellie Bamber, Brandi Quinones and Naomi Campbell, along with international press and VIP clients.
Standing out against the snow, dressed in a dramatic, beaded, ancient Egypt-inspired look from the house’s the Métiers d’Art collection, Monáe described the show as being “deeply emotional and magic at the same time.”
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“I think you could feel his presence here today,” she said, adding: “Chanel was the first fashion house to invite me to a couture show. I hadn’t even put out my first album, and here I was in Paris. It’s always an experience that I take with me. Every time I leave, I feel inspired as an artist to create more memorable experiences.”
Campbell remembered Lagerfeld as “always witty, always upbeat. He had a great memory and we always reminisced. He said I had a great memory, I said he had a great memory.”
Like many guests, she recalled his biting humor. “He said so many things that were so blatantly honest and true. He didn’t mince words, as you know,” she said. But mainly, it was his work ethic that left an impression.
“He worked until the end — I think that’s fantastic. I mean, we wish that we could do that,” Campbell said. “Our whole industry is going to miss him. I mean, I worked with him on and off for 32 years and he became an institution. You just thought he would never leave, that he was immortal.”
Baptiste Giabiconi said he owed Lagerfeld his career. “These 12 years have been just fabulous. He totally transformed my life. He changed my life on every level — mainly professionally, but also personally. We had a very symbiotic relationship, I would say almost like a father and son,” the model said.
“I remember when we went to shoot a Chanel campaign in Bue?os Aires in Argentina with Claudia Schiffer and Freja Beha [Erichsen], and there was a special atmosphere. Karl was happy. We were all happy over there. The photos were gorgeous. It was really a very special moment. We were like a family,” he recalled.
Sound designer Michel Gaubert, who started working with Lagerfeld in 1989, said his suggestions for show tracks could come from any field. “Sometimes he would give me the name of an artist, or a reference, or an idea, or the name of a play, a movie, a mood — and I would respond,” he said.
“The most important [thing he taught me] is self-confidence and a form of lightness. It’s only work. It’s very important, but he had the gift of making work easy and entertaining, which not a lot of people can do. With Karl, you had fun,” he said.
For Chanel’s art gallery-themed show in 2013, the music included Jay Z’s “Picasso Baby” played at full blast. “It was funny because one of the lyrics namechecks Riccardo Tisci and I said, ‘Shall we take it out?’ And he said, ‘On the contrary, let’s leave it in — it’s funny,’” Gaubert said.
An emotional Audrey Marnay, who first met Lagerfeld when she was 16, said she’d learned a lot from him about books and art. “I will never forget,” she said. Quinones said she enjoyed spending time with Lagerfeld and talking about everything from art and movies to food.
“Karl just was very knowledgeable, very educated and really a pleasure to learn from, and to listen to, and to be around. So my best memories of Karl are honestly just being with him and watching him make the clothes was nothing short of incredible,” she said.
John Nollet worked with Lagerfeld on campaigns starring Vanessa Paradis, and paid tribute to his generosity and humor. The two first met when Lagerfeld shot a portrait of the hairdresser surrounded by his inner circle for French Elle.
“I came with close friends and also my grandmother, who arrived in a wheelchair, not because she couldn’t walk but because she was trying to take it easy. He immediately said, ‘No, no, I don’t want to see you like that. Stand up.’ He put away the chair and he made us all sit for the picture, with her standing up,” Nollet said.
“Incidentally, she was wearing a lot of rings and I know he photographed her hands. I think she was one of the sources of inspiration for his rings,” he added.
Inspecting the set before the show, Ellen von Unwerth noted that Lagerfeld always surprised and delighted the audience with his creativity and fantasy.
“An après-ski set in the mountains is very uplifting and joyful. It’s a nice surprise, like always. I grew up in the mountains in the south of Germany, so it feels like coming home,” noted the photographer, whose favorite memories of Lagerfeld were linked to his runway extravaganzas.
“I always went to congratulate him after each show and we always had a moment speaking German together, so it was like we were in a little bubble for one minute, cracking some jokes, and it was always a very intimate little moment,” she recalled.
Rising British actress, Ellie Bamber, who got to walk in one of Lagerfeld’s Chanel shows, recalled her first time meeting the designer, after a tour of Coco Chanel’s apartment. “He always had time for me, and he gave me such incredible confidence, such encouragement,” she said.
French actress Clémence Poésy said: “It has always been such an honor to see his work, to get to wear what he was inventing, to get to see him create. It’s been a real treat in life.”
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