The house of Karl Lagerfeld paid tribute to its Founder with A Tribute to Karl: The White Shirt Project. The global project has seen some of Lagerfelds’s closest friends and colleagues reinterpret one his favourite fashion staples, the white shirt.
Ingie Chalhoub, the Creative Director of INGIE Paris was invited to join the celebrity collaborations and celebrate the legacy of the designer who died in February. The creative Lebanese designer’s interpretation is chic and simple with a contemporary feel.
The shirt was designed with a curated assortment of luxury materials including white feathers, using intricate techniques involving embroidery, lace and crystals ornamented onto the shirt itself.
Half-Palestinian supermodel Gigi Hadid, Lebanese media personality, TV host and journalist Diala Makki and Tunisian model Afef Jnifen are other A-listers with Arab roots involved in the project.
Designers like Alessandro Michele and Tommy Hilfiger, who added stars, blue and red stripes and glove motifs to his tribute, were also busy sketching. Plus, celebrities including Cara Delevingne, who created a shirt decorated with some of her tattoos, Olivia Palermo, Soo Joo Park and Kaia Gerber have also designed their take on the iconic white shirt beloved by the German designer.
Creative visionary Carine Roitfeld has also crafted an incarnation of the shirt, opting for a feminine corset-style shirt with asymmetrical buttons. A longtime friend of the maestro known for his boundless creativity and impeccable eye for detail, she curated the project too.
Seven of the final designs have been replicated 77 times and are selling at a price of €777 each. Seven was the designer’s lucky number and was prominent in his life as it was the number of his favourite arrondissement in Paris (7th) and the name of his bookshop and publishing house (7L).
What’s more, it’s all for a good cause as the proceeds of the shirt sales will be donated to Sauver la Vie. The French charity, which Lagerfeld supported for many years, funds medical research at the Paris Descartes University. The shirts were displayed at Maison Karl Lagerfeld during Paris Fashion Week, a day before they went on sale on September 26 via Farfetch.com and Karl.com.
“If you ask me what I'd most like to have invented in fashion, I'd say the white shirt. For me, the white shirt is the basis of everything. Everything else comes after.”
- Karl Lagerfeld
