Inside ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’ at The Met, a definitive exploration of the designer’s legacy

The sartorial legacy of prolific fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is on full display at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Staged within the museum’s Tisch Galleries in an exhibition designed by Tadao Ando, ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’ (5 May – 16 July, 2023) offers a view into the designer’s multifaceted creative process with over 200 objects, original sketches, video interviews with the atelier craftspeople he collaborated with, alongside captivating recreations of his desk and modes of working. Named after Lagerfeld’s love of duality, and his embrace of both the straight and serpentine line, as well as other opposing forces, the definitive exhibition highlights the breadth of the designer’s influences, whether art, film, music, literature or philosophy. 

Inside ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’ at The Met

Notoriously tireless, Hamburg-born Lagerfeld began designing in the 1950s, working until his death in February 2019. In those six-plus decades, he effectively redefined how a fashion designer was seen – as a creative polymath rather than being confined to a singular discipline. A self-taught draughtsman who moved to Paris in 1952 aged just 19, Lagerfeld began his career in fashion illustration before submitting sketches to the International Woolmark Prize and winning the coat category in 1954, before his first official job in fashion, becoming a design assistant to French couturier Pierre Balmain in 1955. Roles at Patou, Chloé, Fendi and Chanel would follow, the latter with which he would become synonymous, transforming the then-ailing house’s fortunes when he joined in 1983. 

For the exhibition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s head curator Andrew Bolton treated the show like a visual and conceptual essay rather than a traditional retrospective. Divided into juxtaposing themes that echo Lagerfeld’s love of contradictions, such as feminine and masculine, romantic and military, rococo and classical, and historical and futuristic, the exhibition captures just how far Lagerfeld’s eye wandered, and also how effortlessly he could unite the most disparate of inspirations.

‘The exhibition explores Lagerfeld’s complex working methodology, tracing the evolution of his fashions from the two dimensional to the three dimensional,’ says Bolton. ‘The fluid lines of his sketches found expression in recurring themes in his fashions, uniting his designs for Chanel, Chloé, Fendi, Patou, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, creating a diverse and prolific body of work unparalleled in the history of fashion.’

There is no shortage of glamour and fantasy within the exhibition, which is displayed across gestural curving platforms, dramatic single pedestals and monumental arcades – all designed by Ando, who met Lagerfeld in 1996 when the late designer commissioned him to create a design studio in Biarritz that was never realised. But where its true beauty lies is in divulging the secrets to Lagerfeld’s genius: through his unique style of sketching, which was his primary mode of creative expression and communication, and his deep relationships with the premières d’atelier – the seamstresses credited as the architects of Lagerfeld’s vision, who translated his two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional garments. On-camera interviews with these craftspeople, directed by the French filmmaker Loïc Prigent, who followed and documented Lagerfeld from 1997-2019, provide insightful context into how Lagerfeld’s garments were realised, especially when his sketches are shown next to the finished garments. 

‘Karl Lagerfeld was one of the most captivating, prolific, and recognisable forces in fashion and culture, known as much for his extraordinary designs and tireless creative output as his legendary persona,’ adds Max Hollein, director of The Met. ‘This immersive exhibition unpacks his singular artistic practice, inviting the public to experience an essential part of Lagerfeld’s boundless imagination and passion for innovation.’

‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’, supported by Chanel and Fendi, runs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 5 May – 16 July, 2023.

metmuseum.org