The former Paris apartment of Karl Lagerfeld has sold for $10.8 million, nearly double its $5.7 million asking price. The fashion designer’s home, auctioned by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and real estate broker Groupe Althémis on March 26, was purchased by an anonymous buyer.
Lagerfeld, who served as creative director of Chanel from 1983 until his death in 2019, acquired the apartment in 2006 and used it as both a residence and a studio space. Renovated by Lagerfeld himself over a two-and-a-half-year period, the building’s interior, with its resin floors and industrial lighting fixtures, clashes with its 200-year-old classical façade, a contrast that, in the words of the New Yorker‘s John Colapinto, induced the feeling of “floating in your own spaceship over a very civilized past.”
The 2,800-square-foot space, located on the stately Quai Voltaire street and overlooking both the Seine and the Louvre, comes with a garage, two cellars, a security system, a spacious stainless steel kitchen, a Corian bathtub, and a revolving glass bookcase, one of Lagerfeld’s favorite features. The sleeping area is separated from the living room by movable sandblasted panels on hinges, and the dressing room, needless to say, is large enough to fit Lagerfeld’s own wardrobe.
Quai Voltaire wasn’t Lagerfeld’s only residence. During his life, the designer owned north of 13 homes scattered across France, Germany, Italy, and Monaco, all of which are profiled in Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses, a new book from fashion and architecture journalists Marie Kalt and Patrick Mauriès. These include a château in Grand-Champ, Brittany, and a villa in La Vigie on the Côte d’Azur.
Lagerfeld bought the apartment in Paris because he wanted to be closer to the French capital, and because he felt like experimenting with a new style of interior design. “It was always changing from one atmosphere to another, from antiquarian interiors to ultra-modern ones,” Mauriès told CNN. “He’s a singularity in that there is no unity in his type of decoration.”
While many of these homes are now in private hands and therefore off limits to visitors, admirers will be pleased to know that another Parisian property associated with the designer—a former library and photography studio turned bookshop and museum—is open to the public. Located at the end of the Rue de Lille, close to the onetime residences of Jacques Lacan and Serge Gainsbourg, the venue, known as 7L, has a wide assortment of Lagerfeld-related biographies, essays, and museum catalogues.
If you are unable to visit Paris, you can learn about Lagerfeld’s eventful life in the upcoming TV series Becoming Karl Lagerfeld. Premiering June 7, 2024 on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in the UK, the six-episode biopic charts his bitter rivalry with fellow designer Yves Saint Laurent.
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