He's here. Those mysterious shades. Those black leather gloves. That ponytail. Karl Lagerfeld has unleashed on us KARL, a collection of genius staples with high-fashion spin. Influenced by his understated, yet classic personal style, the line includes crisp white shirts, detachable collars, single breasted blazers and tank tops adorned with his eponymous image. And then some. There are stand-out pieces in the form of a pair of shrunken fingerless leather driving gloves (see end), a Karl logo sweater with PVC arms, silver spray-on jeans and a white collared black jumper dress. The idea is to have fun with styling your look with the collection. Quirky pieces are there for you to update your look from any season, and to inject your love of Lagerfeld into your life. Altogether, there is nothing particularly spellbinding or outrageous, and the use of PVC probably wouldn't be material of choice, but then again I'm not a millionaire designer. It's conservative with a little Parisian bad girl edge.
Net-a-porter have been heavily promoting the new line, complete with faux news update video segments on the whereabouts of Kaiser Karl, the opportunity for the public to post images of themselves wearing Karl-esque ponytails and sunglasses on the designated Facebook page, and an ominous clock counting down the days to the collection's launch. They also held a pop-up store opening in various cities around the world, including one in Covent Garden on the 25th, for which I got an invite. Unfortunately, a missing oyster card and an empty bank balance meant I had to forgo what was sure to have been a momentous occasion. Sad times indeed, my friends.
Make sure you don't miss out on KARL like I did, and snap up the very reasonably-priced collection before it's too late- many of the pieces have sold out already. Let's just hope Net-a-porter replenishes their stock pronto!
