Hot on the heels of L’Oreal’ Paris’ announcement of its Karl Lagerfeld makeup collection, Nadja Swarovski pays homage to the late ‘Fashion Meister’ with a design for ‘A Tribute to Karl: The White Shirt Project’ a collaboration with Lagerfeld‘s maison. For the uninitiated, the white shirt was a signature of the late designer who called it “the basis of everything”.
The member of the Swarovski Executive Board has released a design that is, essentially, a bejewelled work of art. The back of the shirt is the showpiece, with a black-and-white portrait of Lagerfeld in pixelations made up of 6,000 crystals. Elsewhere, crystals are featured on the cuffs with Hotfix stones on the inside of the placket of the shirt’s fly-front design.
Swarovski is joined by some of the world’s biggest names, including designers, athletes, and models like Lewis Hamilton, Amber Valletta, Sebastien Jondeau and Alessandro Michele. Former Editor-in-Chief of Vogue Paris Carine Roitfeld curated the collaboration, lending her fashion know-how to the project. “When I think of Karl’s most iconic designs from his career, I always think of his white shirts”, she said.
The original shirts were on display at a private exhibition at the Maison Karl Lagerfeld on 25 September, and have now been moved to stores worldwide. The number seven, the designer’s lucky number and numeral that named his bookshop and publishing house, is given much emphasis here. Seven of the project’s designs will be duplicated 77 times, and sold for €777 each on Karl and Farfetch from 26 September. All the proceeds of the shirt sales will be donated to Sauver la Vie, a French charity that Lagerfeld has supported for many years, and funds medical research at the Paris Descartes University. In the words of Swarovski, “Long live King Karl!”. We couldn’t say it better ourselves.