20 Established 1961 Lifestyle Fashion Thursday, February 21, 2019 Designer to be cremated without ceremony

arl Lagerfeld will be cremated without ceremony and his ashes are likely to be scattered with those of his mother and lover, his label said yesterday. “His wish- esK will be respected,” a spokeswoman for his Karl Lagerfeld brand told AFP a day after the leg- endary designer died at the age of 85. The “Kaiser”-who was known for his rapier wit-had long insisted that he would “rather die” than be buried. “I’ve asked to be cremated and for my ash- es to dispersed with those of my mother... and those of Choupette (his cat), if she dies before me,” he said in one of his last major interviews. Lagerfeld had previously said that his ashes would be mixed with those of his longtime lover, the French dandy Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1989. He told de Bascher’s biographer Marie Ottavi that he had kept half of his ashes so they be together again at the end. The German- born creator had put them away “somewhere secret. One day they will be added to mine,” he told Ottavi. Lagerfeld fell for the dashing de Bascher when he was 19 and looked after him until his death at 38. This was despite de Bascher, a notoriously philandering party animal, having an affair with Lagerfeld’s great rival Yves Saint Laurent. The other half of de Bascher’s ashes was given to his family, the French daily Le Monde reported yesterday.

Horror of burials Lagerfeld believed that burial “was horrible. I just want to disappear like the animals in the virgin forest. It is awful to encumber people with your This combination of pictures created on February 19, 2019 shows (From left) remains,” he told a French television in 2015. Nor German designer Karl Lagerfeld in Tokyo on 03 December 2004, Lagerfeld in Paris did he want to be mourned at a grandiose funeral during autumn/winter 2009 ready-to-wear collection and Lagerfeld in Paris on 03 like the one France granted its rock legend Johnny Paris boutique. US Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna chief , who stepped into his shoes as October 2007. — AFP photos Hallyday in 2017. Wintour called Lagerfeld “a giant among men”. creative director on Tuesday, will unveil its autumn “What a horror!” Lagerfeld declared. “With all “Karl was brilliant, he was wicked, he was fun- winter ready-to-wear collection on March 5, the the in-fighting in the Hallyday family (over the ny, he was generous beyond measure, and he was last day of the shows. — AFP singer’s will), the funeral felt like a farce.” The del- deeply kind. I will miss him so very much,” she uge of tributes to the workaholic designer-the added. His absence is likely to dominate Paris most prolific of the last century-continued yester- women’s fashion week, which begins Monday. day as fans left white roses outside ’s main Chanel, now led by his friend and former studio Chanel’s style circus to roll on despite loss of Lagerfeld Benetton’s new French flair colors debut in Milan

enetton took to the catwalk in Milan His collection featured colorful, eco- for the first time Tuesday with its friendly creations that aim to be afford- Bdebut collection by French designer able without sacrificing quality. Women Jean-Charles de Castelbajac in a bid to wore checkered tights or skyboots-heeled revive the historic Italian brand. The show, moonboots-in wide horizontal stripes in which kicked off Milan fashion week, the colors of the rainbow. The Benetton opened with a homage to Karl Lagerfeld, logo was on prominent display, printed in who died Tuesday aged 85. “Thank you, colour on a white jacket or bordering a Karl,” Castelbajac said. Then the models yellow tunic in green. Wool is reclaiming unveiled his “Rainbow Machine” collec- center stage thanks to a close collabora- tion, sashaying around a fictional work- tion with Giuliana Benetton. The 81-year- shop, where tailors wearing the Benetton old came out of retirement when her logo could be seen cutting and stitching brother Luciano-”angry” over the brand’s together new creations. decline-took back control in 2017. The “Benetton had been a little sleepy for family business had wilted first at the the past ten years, because it had started hands of Luciano’s son Alessandro, then Flowers are laid in tribute to late German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld outside the French competing with ‘fast fashion’ houses and it under the control of external managers. fashion house Chanel, in Paris, on February 19, 2019. — AFP was losing its DNA,” Castelbajac said ahead of the show. “We went back to ‘Only the start’ he death of legendary designer Karl lections which could almost become col- basics with this collection, prioritizing the The brand, which suffered its biggest Lagerfeld leaves a huge hole at the lectors’ items,” he added. Benetton look, colors and symbols, but loss ever in 2017, has revived its collabo- Thead of Chanel, but the fashion jug- Within hours of the designer’s death at with another generation in mind: millenni- ration with renowned photographer gernaut is in such rude health it is likely to the age of 85 on Tuesday, Chanel said als,” he said. At 69 years old, the French Oliviero Toscani, the man behind the power on without him, analysts say. The Virginie Viard-who Lagerfeld has called stylist has a long career behind him, shock advertising campaigns that con- workaholic German turned around the fad- his “right and left hand”-would be stepping including in advertising, where he was tributed to its global success between ing fortunes of Chanel’s iconic house into his shoes as creative director. Solca known for his colorful, impudent style 1982 and 2000. The catwalk in Milan-its in his 36 years in charge, setting the tem- believes that “a few new ideas” would do which mixed punk and pop. first big show since a 40th birthday plate for the modern luxury fashion indus- Chanel no harm. “There is a big hunger for “We share a common DNA with bonanza in Paris in 2006 — aimed to try. When the iconoclastic Lagerfeld took novelty right now with brands like Gucci Benetton in terms of color, knitwear, mark its rebirth. over in 1983, the brand was dowdy and and Balenciaga” breaking records with sportswear and most importantly, irony,” “This show symbolically marks the somewhat doddery, but by hitching its rich edgy and irreverent collections. he said, stressing that he wanted to family’s desire to focus once more on the heritage to the supermodel sass of Linda restore the brand to pride of place in project launched more than 50 years Evangelista and Claudia Schiffer he made ‘Unsinkable’ brand wardrobes across the land. “Benetton was ago,” Giuliano Noci, professor of strategy its clothes the armor in which women “Chanel is a myth, the brand has such a haute couture house for everybody, at the Polytechnic Business School in began to break the glass ceiling. power that it is unsinkable,” insisted Eric everyone has a little Benetton ‘Proust’s Milan, told AFP. “It also shows their will- He had previously performed a similar Briones, one of the founders of Paris Madeleine’ at home,” he added, referring ingness to respond to the market’s every miracle for the Fendi sisters in Italy, turning School of Luxury. “In fact, following Karl to the trip down memory lane taken by demand,” he said. However, he warned what the New York Times called a “boring should be fairly easy stylistically because author Marcel Proust’s narrator when he that it was “only a starting point, because bourgeois (Roman) furrier into a hip fash- he did not impose his own look but instead tastes a madeleine dipped in tea. the brand faces many other challenges”. ion name”. Such was their gratitude that riffed on the base” of ’s classic “The key to the future will lie in its the brand took out a full-page black- themes. “It’s even a great chance to bring ‘Archeological approach’ ability to reposition itself in the rather trimmed advert in the newspaper new life into Chanel,” Briones added. More Models present Castelbajac said he adopted an “almost high-end segment of fast fashion, with Wednesday to thank “Karl for the most difficult will be finding someone with creations during the archaeological” approach: “I searched for innovation and a constant product renew- beautiful journey. With all our love, your Lagerfeld’s gift for making headlines. Benetton women’s the roots of the Benetton story, which al,” he said. “Benetton will have to... have Fendi family.” With the label now worth “What will be tough is following Karl in Fall/Winter 2019/2020 began in 1965 with a visionary man stores that offer a real, personalized expe- $3.8 billion (3.3 billion euros), they had a terms of image, marketing and communica- collection fashion show, (Luciano Benetton) and a little girl who rience, as well as online sales,” Noci said, lot to thank him for. At Chanel he did the tion,” Briones told AFP. Lagerfeld was also in Milan. — AFP had a knitting machine”. Being appointed pointing out that “Zara, for example, is same thing but on an even bigger scale, a phenomenal workhorse, putting out an the brand’s artistic director in October doing much better than H&M because it is making it one of the three richest luxury average of 14 collections a year for Chanel was like “finding paradise”. “I was like stronger on the online business”. — AFP houses in the world. Ever the showman, he and Fendi as well as overseeing his own Charlie at the chocolate factory. I submit- packed Paris’ enormous Grand Palais with label well into his eighties-a pace that ted a drawing in the morning and by the celebrities for his spectacular shows. would have burnt out many half his age. evening I could see the first prototype”. “He has become a model for so many other Sales of $9.6 billion creators,” Briones said. “He worked so Until last year the real scale of his finan- hard, managed to please everyone, and cial success at Chanel was kept secret. But was totally free in what he said-totally in June the Wertheimer family who own the ignoring political correctness,” he added. brand released figures for the first time Indeed he could often be “staggeringly showing sales of $9.62 billion in 2017. That straight-talking” without somehow ever put them ahead of Gucci and just behind damaging the brand, said Arnaud Cadart of Louis Vuitton as the biggest luxury fashion Flornoy management consultants. Cadart label, although much of Vuitton’s profits sees few problems on the horizon, arguing come from sales of bags and luggage. that “other great houses have managed to Even without Lagerfeld, whose name survive the loss of great creators like Yves became synonymous with the brand, Saint Laurent or Christian Dior.” “The Chanel is still “a Ferrari of the luxury brand is a more important than the design- world”, analyst Luca Solca of Bernstein er, and Virginie Viard, who worked along- Consulting told AFP. “There is no doubt side Lagerfeld for 30 years, had quite a bit that the house is in a very strong position,” to do with that success,” Cadart added. he said. Solca said Chanel had the “ideal Fashion, however, is a notoriously fickle business model”, with its handmade haute business. The British designer Phoebe couture collections allowing it to “keep its Philo-formerly of Celine-who has a large prices high”, while its perfumes and cos- feminist following, is often mooted as a metics “also appeal to the middle classes, possible longterm replacement for who can get into the brand through its fra- Lagerfeld. — AFP grances or lipstick”. In fact, Lagerfeld’s death could push up sales even further with “very strong interest in his final col-