Karl Lagerfeld, the giant couturier and creative director of Chanel, Fendi, and his own label, has passed today. He was provocative and visionary, but most of all, he had an extraordinary taste and eye to lead the way to what would come next. When he saw the colorful, radical objects presented in the first show of Memphis Design at the 1981 Salone del Mobile of Milan, he immediately decided to furnish his entire new apartment in Monte Carolo with Memphis. He knew that what Memphis showed was important, was great, was fresh air stirred in the world of design. “I had never lived in a modern building,’ he wrote years later in the catalog of his Memphis furniture when it was offered for sale at Sotheby’s Monaco. ‘I wanted it all modern and instantly thought that Memphis would be the Art Deco of the 80s. I was right, the influenced was enormous.’ While Memphis had become the sensation of the 80s, Legerfeld was the first and only one to fully furnish his home this way. ‘I got a big house in Monte Carlo [now], left the sea-front apartment, and did not know where to put all of my beautiful Memphis. I am a fashion designer. Fashion means change. It is sad to keep things in storage. Memphis is a part of the history of the applied arts now. A new generation is discovering it and I hope they will love it as much as I did and still do,’ he concluded. Karl Lagerfeld, a legend.
