Karl Lagerfeld by Alfons Kaiser

Author:Alfons Kaiser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2022-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

INTERIORS

Matteo Thun was busy designing a hairdryer for Wella in his studio in Milan one morning in 1981 when he heard a voice call out to him from the showroom: “There’s a German here. Could you come over?” The young designer was in for a shock when he walked into the showroom: Standing there was none other than Karl Lagerfeld. One of Thun’s friends from Milan, Anna Piaggi, had told Lagerfeld that he should drop in on the Memphis design collective while he was in the area. Lagerfeld asked Thun which item of furniture he would recommend. “We still hadn’t sold a single thing at that point,” says Thun. “So with a courage borne out of desperation I said, just buy it all!”251

The Memphis Group had been founded in December 1980 by Ettore Sottsass, Matteo Thun, Michele De Lucchi, and various other designers. The collective took its name from the capital city of Ancient Egypt and Elvis Presley’s birthplace in Tennessee; and, like the late Elvis, these designers were intent on shaking things up. Form ceased to follow function in these designs, with their erratic lines, abstract shapes, and colors bright enough to bring tears to the eyes of a Bauhaus fan like Karl Lagerfeld.

Always ahead of the curve, Lagerfeld was excited by what he saw. No doubt he could see the dawn of a new post-modern era on the horizon, or at least a shift away from minimalism in the 1980s. The designer was also happy to have found the perfect furniture for his new apartment in Monte Carlo. He had never lived in a modern building before and hadn’t the slightest idea how to furnish it, he later said. Memphis was just what he was looking for, and he did indeed want it all.252

Lagerfeld turned to Matteo Thun and told him: “Package it all up and send it on to me in Monte Carlo.” Thun couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “It was our salvation; it was incredible.” The movement had been attracting a lot of interest, but nothing had sold until Lagerfeld came along. Sottsass and Thun were still spending their days working for industry clients and had to save their Memphis designs for the evenings. “I pre-financed all the ceramics,” Thun says. So as well as providing an all-important morale boost, the Paris-based designer’s spending spree also gave them the financial support they so desperately needed. He spent 65 million lire on Memphis products, roughly the equivalent of $42,500. “Ridiculous, when you think about it,” Thun says. “But that was a huge amount of money in 1982.”

Matteo Thun and interior designer Andrée Putman helped Lagerfeld to furnish his apartment in Le Millefiori, one of the tallest buildings in Monaco. The black floors, gray walls, and black-and-white Helmut Newton photographs were practically begging for a bold injection of color in the form of several key pieces: the Suvretta shelf by Sottsass, Riviera chairs by Michele De Lucchi, Marco Zanini’s Dublin sofa, and George James Sowden’s Unknown table. Lagerfeld chose not to stay in the apartment and kept it as a kind of show-home.

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