This investigation into Karl Lagerfeld’s (1933–2019) artistry explores his extraordinary sixty-five-year career, from the designs for Chloé and Fendi in the 1960s and 1970s to his celebrated leadership in the 1980s and beyond at Chanel and his own label. Inspired by the “line of beauty” theorized by eighteenth-century English painter William Hogarth, this dazzling publication pursues the straight and serpentine “lines” and their intersections in Lagerfeld’s work as a means of understanding his unique creative process.

“An hour, once it lodges in the queer element of the human spirit, may be stretched to fifty or a hundred times its clock length; on the other hand, an hour may be accurately represented on the timepiece of the mind by one second.” —Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography, 1928 About Time: Fashion and Duration traces the evolution of fashion, from 1870 to the present, through a linear timeline of iconic garments, each paired with an alternate design that jumps forward or backward in time. These unexpected pairings, which relate to one another through shape, motif, material, pattern, technique, or decoration, create a unique and disruptive fashion chronology that conflates notions of past, present, and future. Virginia Woolf serves as “ghost narrator”: excerpts from her novels reflect on the passage of time with each subsequent plate pairing. A new short story by Michael Cunningham, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Hours, recounts a day in the life of a woman over a time span of 150 years through her changing fashions. Scholar Theodore Martin analyzes theoretical responses to the nature of time, underscoring that time is not simply a sequence of historical events. And fashion photographer Nicholas Alan Cope illustrates 120 fashions with sublime black and-white photography. This stunning book reveals fashion’s paradoxical connection to linear notions of time.

The definitive biography of Karl Lagerfeld—the last iconic fashion designer—now in paperback! “It starts with me and it ends with me.” —Karl Lagerfeld Karl Lagerfeld stylized himself into a living logo and a myth of the fashion world. In Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Fashion, journalist Alfons Kaiser, who knew Lagerfeld personally for many years, introduces readers to the public and private life of the charismatic fashion designer. Kaiser explores the many eras of Lagerfeld’s life: the youthful outsider in the north German flatlands; the urbane genius in Paris; the tireless draftsman; the enthusiastic photographer; the passionate book collector; and the disciplined Prussian workaholic. What is behind this larger-than-life figure who, despite a massively public persona, kept his own life story a secret? Drawing from many previously untapped sources, this biography investigates the man behind the persona: the precocious boy who preferred to draw in the attic rather than play with his peers; the son who quarreled with his parents but never got away from them; Yves Saint Laurent’s competitor, whom he outshone in the end; the brother, uncle, and friend—and finally, the partner of Jacques de Bascher, the great love of his life.

This splendid book examines the legacy of Gabrielle "Coco” Chanel, one of the twentieth century's great icons of style. While Chanel mythologized her glamorous life through relentless self-invention, the bare facts of her biography are no less worthy than her legend: born of a poor family in the provinces and raised in a convent, she was an entertainer and the mistress of men of impeccable social standing, and she began her career not as a dressmaker but as a milliner. Chanel's enduring influence is necessarily based on the long shadow cast over fashion by her maison couture. Chanel examines the history of the House of Chanel both thematically and chronologically, introducing ideas and elements of biography as they were expressed in her collections. Period examples are juxtaposed with the work of Karl Lagerfeld, who, beginning in 1983, just over ten years after Chanel's death, reinvented and revolutionized the House's identity. It is in Lagerfeld's masterful and often irreverent interpretations of Chanel's work, as well as his mixing of influences from high and low culture, that the historic importance of Chanel and the resonance of her image as the independent, elegant modern woman are both defined and reasserted for the contemporary world.

Karl Lagerfeld’s legendary maxims in a fashionable gift format. Karl Lagerfeld was a modern master of couture. He was also legendarily outspoken—his wise and surprising statements popped up like offbeat news flashes. This compact collection of quotations pays homage to the renowned éminence grise of the fashion world. Lagerfeld’s pronouncements on fashion, women, art, politics, love, and life—high and low—are famously oracular, seized upon by fashionistas, acolytes, and sages around the world. Created with the full approval of the late designer, this cornucopia of Lagerfeld’s maxims is required reading for all of us as we negotiate the trickiest curves of modern life. Cultivated, unpredictable, provocative, and sometimes shocking, Lagerfeld’s bons mots are impossible to ignore.

An extraordinary look at Karl Lagerfeld's most iconic runway shows for Chanel, which have transformed the way we experience fashion. Lagerfeld showcases in an oversize format ten years of Chanel's most influential fashion shows shot by English photographer Simon Procter. Over the past decade, fashion shows have evolved into monumental productions, requiring a level of sophistication and creativity on par with the clothes they present. This has been most evident in Paris at the now legendary runways of Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. To capture the energy of the events, Procter visually re-creates the epic sets--from a luscious forest scene to a rocket launch--combining multiple photographs to illustrate in a single image the many perspectives of the intense but fleeting spectacle. The resulting artworks are held in collections worldwide and published in this book for the first time alongside never-before-seen candid images of Lagerfeld and the models preparing backstage. Lagerfeld offers the reader an unparalleled look into the wide-ranging creativity of one of history's most respected and iconic designers, making this an invaluable resource for all lovers of fashion and especially admirers of Chanel and Lagerfeld's incomparable legacy.

A comprehensive biography of the late designer, Karl Lagerfeld, and his infamous rivalry with Yves Saint Laurent. In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition. At the center of it all were fashion's most beloved luminaries - Yves Saint Laurent, the reclusive enfant terrible, and Karl Lagerfeld, the flamboyant freelancer with a talent for reinvention - and they divided Paris into two fabulous halves. Their enduring rivalry is chronicled in this dazzling exposè of an era: of social ambitions, shared obsessions, and the mesmerizing quest for beauty. "Deliciously dramatic... The Beautiful Fall crackles with excitement."-New York Times Book Review "Fascinating." -New York Times "Addictive." -Philadelphia Inquirer "It's like US Weekly, 1970s style." -Gotham "A story constructed as exquisitely as a couture dress. . . . It moves stylishly forward, with frequent over-the-shoulder glances at some very dishy background." -Boston Globe

Nearly three hundred illustrations and a text reveal the entire range of the Vatican's artistic holdings, replete with priceless masterworks from all periods.

Step inside the private realm of the great designer Karl Lagerfeld through the eyes of his fellow artist and close friend Patrick Hourcade. The artist Patrick Hourcade met Karl Lagerfeld in 1976. A friendship that will last more than twenty years is immediately born between the two men, strengthened by their shared passion for eighteenth-century arts. After studying art history, Patrick Hourcade begins working with the creative team at Vogue Paris, while at the same time introducing Karl to his beloved specialty, the arts of the Enlightenment. From then on, he would accompany the great fashion designer on all of his lavish acquisitions--mansions, decors, and works of art. The two would build a magnificent universe together, refined and sometimes overly extravagant, especially at the Grand-Champ chateau in Brittany, the Hotel Pozzo di Borgo in Paris, or at La Vigie, a villa on the French Riviera. Patrick Hourcade tells the story of this aesthetic connection, through previously unpublished documents and a unique biography of Karl Lagerfeld, where he is seen in all of his splendor as well as his weaknesses. This intimate story also crosses paths with the colorful characters who populated the life of the great designer, including Anna Piaggi and Francine Crescent, Laure de Beauvau and Liliane de Rothschild, Pierre Bergé and Yves Saint Laurent, Gilles Defour, Vincent Darré, Guy Bourdin, and Andrée Putnam, and, most importantly, his mother Elisabeth and Jacques de Bascher--his two loves of his life.

Paper Passion Perfume captures the unique bouquet of freshly printed books. Designed by boutique perfumer Geza Schoen in close consultation with Gerhard Steidl and in collaboration with Wallpaper* magazine, the perfume expresses that peculiar mix of paper and ink which gives a book its unmistakable aroma, along with the fresh scent which a book opened for the first time releases. Schoen spent days in the depths of the paper-filled Steidl headquarters in Göttingen, sifting through books, papers samples and inks, to find inspiration for a perfume that is true to books, wearable, and which ages well in time - just like a good book. It took Schoen seventeen trials to preserve in his words, "the right balance between the smell of paper as such and an enjoyable perfumistic aesthetic". The elaborate packaging of Paper Passion Perfume does more than justice to the perfume within. The packaging is a real book with a hidden cut-out compartment in which the bottle sits. The first pages of the book contain texts on the pleasures of paper and the Paper Passion project by Nobel Laureate Günter Grass, Karl Lagerfeld, Geza Schoen and Wallpaper* Editor-in-Chief Tony Chambers. The end product is a unique perfume, an homage to the luxurious sensuality of books and in Karl Lagerfeld's words, "the silent smell of paper".