Karl Lagerfeld Cremated in Nanterre
CLOSING CEREMONY: Karl Lagerfeld was cremated in a private ceremony in Nanterre, in the outskirts of Paris, on Friday, Chanel confirmed.
The Wertheimer family, which owns Chanel, attended the ceremony at the Mont Valérien crematorium, joined by Bruno Pavlovsky, president of Chanel fashion and Chanel SAS, according to a spokeswoman for the house.
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Virginie Viard, his longtime right-hand woman who has taken over the creative reins at Chanel, was also in attendance alongside a number of industry executives and friends of the designer, according to a report in Closer magazine. They included LVMH Mo?t Hennessy Louis Vuitton chief Bernard Arnault, Sidney Toledano, Carine Roitfeld and Sébastien Jondeau, Lagerfeld’s bodyguard.
Anna Wintour, Princess Caroline of Hanover, Alain Wertheimer and Marie-Louise de Clermont-Tonnerre, a longtime communications executive at Chanel, gave speeches, the house said.
A number of guests, including Inès de la Fressange and model Baptiste Giabiconi, headed to the Chanel headquarters on Rue Cambon after the ceremony.
The couturier, who died on Tuesday, always made clear that he did not want a public funeral after his own death, telling Numéro magazine in an interview last year that he preferred for his ashes to be scattered near those of his mother Elisabeth and those of his cat Choupette, should she pass away before him.
According to a report in Le Monde, part of his ashes will join those of his longtime partner Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1989.
Chanel, in a death notice in French daily newspaper Le Figaro on Thursday, said “a farewell ceremony will take place at a later date.”
Lagerfeld’s final collection for Chanel will be shown in Paris on March 5, in what promises to be a highly emotional occasion.
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