Remember When Karl Lagerfeld Gave Away His Warhols and Basquiats?

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Imagine a time long before Karl Lagerfeld’s hair was long, silver and swept back into a ponytail—an era before he made dark sunglasses his 24/7 signature. We’re talking about the 1970s, when Lagerfeld was a young and hip designer for Chloé. At the time, he was also loosely affiliated with Andy Warhol and his notorious factory of creative types.

So it comes to little surprise that Lagerfeld, who turned 85 earlier this week, once starred in an artsy Warhol film, titled L’Amour. Co-written by the pop art star and Paul Morrissey, the plot follows two American hippies that travel to Paris in hopes of finding love. The fashion director was cast in the role of an aristocratic German, which also happens to be a pretty apt description of him in real life.

But despite his cameo in the Warhol flick, Lagerfeld wasn’t the biggest fan of the iconic artist.

“I never wanted to have my portrait done by Andy Warhol because I don’t care about portraits. I have enough, from Helmut Newton to Irving Penn,” Lagerfeld admitted in 2010. In that same interview, the notoriously candid designer went on to describe Warhol’s physical appearance as “quite repulsive.”

That apparently didn’t stop the longtime Fendi and Chanel designer from buying Warhol’s work early in his career. In fact, Lagerfeld has long proven his prowess in the art scene. He’s an avid collector of the postmodern designs of Ettore Sottsass, the work of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, and the German-American painter Lyonel Feininger.

Plus, he once turned Paris’ Grand Palais into a faux art fair—replete with 75 pieces of art that he dreamed up himself—for the Spring/Summer 2014 Chanel show. However, he did make one major collecting blunder.

“You know, I had Warhols and Basquiats and I gave them away because I thought they would not last,” he admitted in 2015. As it turns out, Lagerfeld was totally wrong about that prediction.

But don’t worry, Lagerfeld is reportedly worth over 0 million himself, so the designer will do just fine without the gaffe of giving up these valuable pieces of art.

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createdAt:Fri, 07 Sep 2018 18:55:14 +0000
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