The night has just fallen on New York and its shape Karl Leijerfeld caught fire in the MetLife building above Grand Central Station. Looking at the breathtaking spectacle from 5th Avenue, New Yorkers and we, visitors, forgot about the terrible traffic jam that stopped cars on all streets. Locked in our cars, we browsed photos on our mobile phones, which were filled with snaps of stunning celebrities arriving at the Met Gala, the most talked about fashion event of the year.

Anna Wintour, Penelope Cruz, Dua Lipa, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, young Florence Pugh and many others walked the red carpet on the evening of May 1 in cloth signed by Karl Lagerfeld. The evening was dedicated to the German genius designerher strict “Kaiser”. fashionable who was the artistic director of many houses – Fendi, Chloe, Chanel and his own company of the same name. The Met’s Costume Institute spring show, funded primarily by the Gala, is also dedicated to him and costs about $50,000 to attend.

The exhibition that recently opened its doors to the public is called “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty” and was designed by renowned architect Tadao Ato, who first met Lagerfeld in 1996 when the designer commissioned the architect to set up a studio in Biarritz. France. Their acquaintance and mutual passion gave rise to an idea that runs through the entire exhibition, the intersection of a straight line with curves, a combination of dynamism and imagination.

“Karl Lagerfeld was one of the most charming, prolific and recognizable figures in fashion and culture, known not only for his extraordinary design, but also for his tireless creativity and legendary personality,” commented Max Olein, French director of the Met, announcing the opening of the exhibition. an exhibition that the visitor does not expect from a classic retrospective.

Its theme is centered on his sketches, a combination of detailed technical drawing and expressive fashion illustration.

Its theme is dedicated to Lagerfeld as a designer and, in particular, to his unique practice of drawing, which for him was an end in itself, a combination of detailed technical drawing and expressive fashion illustration. The overall curatorial work eventually creates an essay on the philosophy of fashion, exploring Lagerfeld’s 65-year career from a binary perspective: feminine and masculine, romantic and military, rococo and classical, historical and futuristic, nature and geometry, narrative and abstract concepts. . These couples reveal the complexity of his work as well as the breadth of his influences spanning art, film, music, design, fashion, literature and philosophy.

The exhibition ends with a satirical line consisting of two parts: the first includes clothing, complemented by ironic, playful and whimsical embroidery. The second features ensembles that reflect the designer’s own image through various representations of his immediately recognizable black and white “uniform”. This choice of epilogue is not accidental. Indeed, the haughty Lagerfeld ever laughed, the one who said of himself, punning his name: “I’m a live label. My name is Leiblfeld, not Lagerfeld”?

The answer is yes, and the sound of his laughter echoing through the exhibition halls is one of the most personal and destructive elements of his image. Likewise, his study, an upside-down living room with stacks of papers, art books, blueprints and inspirational materials, in which he literally got lost when starting a new collection.

The truth is that Karl Otto Lagerfeld was deliberately hiding his personal life. He hid his age for years – he was probably born in 1933 – and his origin, he was the son not of the Swede Otto Ludwig Lagerfeld, but of the German Otto Lagerfeld from Hamburg, who lived all his life in Germany. But the brilliant Karl used to say: “It doesn’t matter if they say good things about me or bad, whether it’s tasteful or not. It is important that they continue to say something.” The exhibition at the Met says a lot about Lagerfeld, but he carefully keeps some of his secrets under wraps.