FILE - German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld acknowledges the applause of his models at the end of the show he designed for the French fashion house Chanel, for the 1993-94 Fall-Winter haute couture collection in Paris, July 20, 1993. Come Monday, May 1, 2023, Lagerfeld's legacy will be on display at the Met Gala and the starry fundraising party's companion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. (AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File)
So how would the man of the hour, who died in 2019,feel about all the hullabaloo? Lagerfeld was a student of history, to be sure, but his eyes were forever on the future.
“Karl never wanted to have a retrospective when he was alive. He felt that it was funereal. He made the point that (Cristóbal) Balenciaga and (Coco) Chanel never had them when they were alive,” said William Middleton, who wrote the biography “Paradise Now: The Extraordinary Life of Karl Lagerfeld."
So what about now?
“He believed very much in fashion history, so he’s a part of fashion history now. I don't think he would have had a problem with it,” Middleton surmised.
Others aren't so sure.
Caroline Lebar worked with Lagerfeld for 35 years, rising to senior vice president of image and communications for his eponymous brand. Lagerfeld loved the Met, but he always said: “'I'm not an artist, I'm a fashion maker,'" Lebar said on the company's site.
“He didn’t think his work belonged in a museum. Anna Wintour also mentioned this when she made the announcement about the theme,” Lebar explained.
The invitation-only gala earned $17.4 million last year for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, a self-funding department with a budget dependent on the A-list affair. The price of attending went up this year to $300,000 for a table and $50,000 for a single ticket.
Companies and brands buy tables and host many of the roughly 400 guests expected this year from fashion, film, music, theater, sports, tech and social media. They were asked to dress “in honor of Karl” by gala mastermind Wintour, a close Lagerfeld friend who first signed on to the event in 1995 and took over the helm in 1999.
Fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert thought up the Met Gala back in 1948 as a fundraiser for the newly founded Costume Institute. It was a dinner held elsewhere. The idea is to celebrate the opening of the institute's big exhibition each year, this time called "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.”
American fashion was last year's vibe. It followed gilded glamour and white tie. Camp was the theme in 2019,producing what is considered one of the wackiest displays of dress by the celebrity crowd.
Katy Perry wore a chandelier, then slipped into a hamburger outfit. Lady Gaga did a four-layer strip tease on the Met's Grand Staircase and Jared Leto carried a stage version of his own head.
Dressing to the Lagerfeld theme could be a breeze for guests with stylists able to source the best vintage pieces from the fashion houses where he worked: Chanel, Fendi, Chloé, Jean Patou, Balmain, his own brand and more.
This year’s five hosts include Wintour, as usual, along with Michaela Coel, longtime Chanel ambassador Penélope Cruz, recently retired tennis superstar Roger Federer and Dua Lipa.
The American Red Cross has declared its first-ever "national blood crisis" in the United States. Since COVID hit the U.S. in March 2020, blood donations have declined by 10 percent. American Red Cross Medical Director, Dr. Baia Lasky joined Cheddar News to discuss the country facing the worst blood shortage in over a decade. Dr. Lasky noted that as much as 40 percent of Americans are eligible to donate blood but only about 4 percent do so. "This is going to be ongoing," she said. "This is not an acute shortage. We really do need the commitment of people to come out and donate and donate again." Appointments to donate can be made by using the Red Cross Donor App, at RedCrossBlood.org, or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).
On this episode of ChedHER: Co-Founder of VC firm CaJE breaks down how she's creating a new era of venture capital and empowering Black women with 'soil' funding to start and grow their businesses; AYO Foods Co-Founder discusses how the brand is bringing West African cuisine to the frozen food industry and building a grocery aisle her daughters can be proud of; Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer at Chase Auto talks her experience being a woman of color in the auto industry, and why transportation is so important to financial freedom.
Renée Horne, chief marketing and customer experience officer at Chase Auto, joins ChedHER to discuss her experience being a woman of color in the auto industry and why transportation is so important to financial freedom.
Perteet Spencer, Co-Founder of AYO Foods, joins ChedHER to discuss how the brand is bringing West African cuisine to the frozen food industry and building a grocery aisle her daughters can be proud of.
Crystal Etienne, Founder and CEO of period apparel company Ruby Love and Co-Founder of VC firm CaJE, joins ChedHER to discuss her experience bootstrapping her company to $10 million, and how she's creating a new era of venture capital and empowering Black women with 'soil' funding to start and grow their businesses.
E-commerce platform for construction and building materials RenoRun has raised $142 million in a Series B round, which the company says is the fourth largest Series B round in Canadian history. RenoRun’s platform offers same-day delivery of construction materials to job sites in Canada and the United States. The company aims to revolutionize the construction industry by maximizing productivity and efficiency. RenoRun co-founder and CEO Eamonn O’Rourke joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Like so many other cities, Miami experienced a tourism boom over the summer after vaccines were distributed. But, the Omicron variant has thrown the travel industry for a loop. David Whitaker, president and CEO of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, joined Cheddar to discuss the city as a tourist destination, and how it has handled headwinds from the pandemic.
Rockstar Energy, a subsidiary of Pepsico, unveiled its new beverage brand, Rockstar Unplugged, changing up the energy drink formula with hemp seed oil as an ingredient. PepsiCo Energy CMO Fabiola Torres joined Cheddar News to talk about how the product promotes “good vibes” and allows consumers to unwind and discuss partnering with "MTV Unplugged" for a concert series. "We couldn't find a better partnership that MTV," she said. "MTV Unplugged has been such an iconic proposition … and we believe that we're the right partners because the insight of our proposition for Rockstar Unplugged comes from music.
Eight months after the National Football League announced $1 million in research into cannabinoids, the NFL-NFLPA Joint Pain Management Committee has awarded the funding to two teams of medical researchers at the University of California San Diego and the University of Regina. The NFL says the studies will investigate the effects of cannabinoids on pain management and neuroprotection from concussion in elite football players, respectively. Cheddar correspondent Chloe Ailello spoke with Jeff Miller, the executive vice president of communications, public affairs, and policy for the NFL, about the studies, as well as the recent lawsuit filed against the NFL by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores. "Maybe we can learn things from other alternative pain approaches that are going to benefit our player population and then sports medicine as a whole," Miller said.
