Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty

The Costume Institute’s spring show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (5 May–16 July) focuses this year on a titan of 20th-century fashion, Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019). Around 150 garments are accompanied by Lagerfeld’s hand-drawn sketches, tracing  the full breadth of his 60-year career from his early designs for Patou during the 1950s and the creation of his eponymous brand in 1984 to his final collection for Chanel in 2019. The exhibition takes William Hogarth’s book The Analysis of Beauty (1723) as its starting point, looking at how Lagerfeld played with both straight and serpentine lines to create his innovative silhouettes, drawing on a broad range of influences from art history, literature, philosophy and film. A series of on-camera interviews, conducted by French filmmaker Loïc Prigent, who followed and documented the designer’s collections from 1997 to 2019, provide further insight into the Lagerfeld’s pioneering practice. Find out more on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website.

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Dress made for House of Chanel, Spring/Summer Haute Couture collection (2019). Photo: © Julia Hetta; courtesy Patrimoine de Chanel, Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Karl Lagerfeld’s sketch of a dress for Chanel, Spring/Summer Haute Couture collection 2019. Courtesy Patrimoine de Chanel, Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Dress for Fendi, Spring/Summer collection (1997). Photo: © Julia Hetta; courtesy Fendi and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Karl Lagerfeld’s sketch of a dress for Fendi, Spring/Summer collection (1997). Courtesy Fendi and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

‘Rachmaninoff’ dress for Chloé, Spring/Summer collection 1973. Photo: © Julia Hetta; courtesy Chloé and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Karl Lagerfeld’s sketch of the ‘Rachmaninoff’ dress for Chloé, Spring/Summer 1973. Courtesy Chloé and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York