Karl Lagerfeld’s Estate | Succession Karl Lagerfeld

K arl Lagerfeld has fascinated for more than half a century. A key figure in the luxury goods industry that he helped to build and ceaselessly internationalised, he turned his name and his look into a brand.

In the third installment of the Karl Lagerfeld sale series, Sotheby's is paying tribute to this genius of a designer with the sale of Karl Lagerfeld’s personal belongings from his various residences, presenting an anthology of his personal taste but also of his life and career. The Cologne sale represents his image, multiple and surprising, telling the story of the couturier, the collector, the decorator and the photographer.

An insatiable collector, Karl Lagerfeld created bold interiors throughout his life. He opted for the colourful and playful Italian design of the Memphis group whose humour he had fallen in love with in the 1980s. He then turned to the French decorative arts of the 18th century, which he considered an ideal of elegance and refinement. In the early 1970's, he was equally passionate about Art Deco, which he described as the roots of "this modernity that I am tirelessly searching for".

For the last twenty years of his life, it was contemporary design by figures such as Mark Newson, Martin Szekely and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, with whom he created a new futuristic interior at the dawn of the 3rd millennium. His last residence in Louveciennes was unexpectedly decorated in a style relating to Germany in the 1920s, with furniture designed by Bruno Paul and posters from early 20th century German advertising.