Last chance: Karl Lagerfeld's apartment is about to be auctioned off

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Lagerfeld's dressing room, part 1

Photo: Alain Jocard / AFP

The narrow 17th century house with the blue entrance gate at Quai Voltaire number 17, where Karl Lagerfeld last lived, squeezes discreetly between the facades of the two neighboring buildings.

Paris looks like it's on a postcard page here. Tourists stand in front of one of the open-air bookstores set up across the street along the Seine. Car traffic rushes along the quay. It's a place for a quick photo, but not a place to stay longer. If you live here and are looking for a supermarket, you have to walk a bit. Instead, there are even more art galleries with priceless objects.

A property on the Quai Voltaire in the central Saint-Thomas d'Aquin district in the seventh arrondissement of Paris has prestige, as a sought-after collector's item in Monopoly for the rich. The future owner of the apartment, who had to advance more than a million euros in order to be able to take part in the auction and is prepared to pay more than the minimum bid of 5.3 million euros, will not need supermarkets anyway.

Anyone looking for the charm of an old building apartment like in the Netflix series “Emily in Paris” in the apartment on the third floor, where Lagerfeld lived with his cat Choupette until shortly before his death in February 2019, will be disappointed. Lagerfeld has created a kind of futuristic spaceship here.

“Apartment with 260.21 m2 owned by the famous designer Karl Lagerfeld,” the advertisement advertises. The completely empty apartment (all of the furniture was auctioned off at Sotheby's in 2021) provides little information about the fashion designer's personality - but his ghost is still omnipresent in the area around his apartment, even five years after his death.

"Karl Lagerfeld? Only today did I see someone again who was dressed exactly like him," says open-air bookseller Najib Nahhass, 60. That gave him a pang. His bouquinista stand on the Seine is directly opposite Lagerfeld's apartment. "He liked us booksellers," he says and takes out his cell phone. "You see, he was inspired by us," says Nahhass, showing photos of a Chanel parade in the Grand Palais with bouquinist shops as decor. “He invited us all to it.”

Every now and then Lagerfeld stopped in front of his stand. But not often, he remembers. Most of the time he didn't go out on the street at all. His Bentley always stopped right in front of the front gate and drove him into the garage of his apartment.

"It's a place to sleep, take a bath and work," said Lagerfeld about the apartment on Quai Voltaire. It is the “library of an ancient sage, connected to unknown planets”.

The center is a 120 square meter room with three floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the Seine. Lagerfeld had the apartment, which originally contained fireplaces and comprised eight rooms, redesigned by the architect Jacques de Cormont, recalls his former chauffeur (and now one of his heirs) Sébastien Jondeau in the book “Ça va, cher Karl?” The renovation took place lasted several years. According to Jondeau, Lagerfeld had his muse, the American model Brad Koening, pose for nude portraits on the Quai Voltaire construction site.

Lagerfeld loved this special view from his apartment of the Seine and the Louvre Museum opposite, he continues. But he never stood directly at the window to avoid being seen. It is said that he liked to walk around the apartment with his white Birman cat, Choupette, in his arms. She was allowed to do anything, even sleep on his head. Her basket was in the kitchen next to the refrigerator.

The living room used to be decorated with carefully curated designer furniture. A metal armchair by Marc Newson, a white futuristic-looking leather sofa by Amanda Levete. "He wanted 2001: A Space Odyssey," recalls Sébastien Jondeau. Lagerfeld had always emphasized that he hardly received any visitors here. Some, however, claim to have seen the King of Morocco Mohammed VI with his bodyguards on an afternoon in 2017 went through the blue front door.

One of the few who regularly visited Lagerfeld in the apartment and was allowed to sit on the white reading sofa was his muse and Platonic friend Baptiste Giacobini, who is now named in the will as Lagerfeld's main heir. "When we spent Sundays together in his apartment on the Quai Voltaire, I would lie on the sofa for hours while he sat at his work table and drew designs," he said in an interview with SPIEGEL.

The library made of sandblasted glass on the walls can be opened at the push of a button. The books it once contained mostly came from the exquisite Galignani bookstore on Rue de Rivoli. There, Lagerfeld often bought several copies of a volume to distribute in his numerous apartments in and around Paris, Monaco and Saint Tropez, remembers Jondeau.

He hardly used the stainless steel kitchen. Lagerfeld couldn't stand the smell of food. The couturier's other apartment, just around the corner on Rue Saints-Pères, was used for his meals and receptions. The refrigerator was always filled with Coca-Cola Light; he is said to have drunk several bottles of it every day.

The 50 square meter dressing room with four windows was used by the housekeeper and cat nanny Françoise Caçote, she continues. She had a place to sleep there and looked after Choupette around the clock, brushing her fur and cleaning her eyes five times a day.

Behind the bedroom, separated by a satin glass wall, is the bathroom with a white Corian bathtub and spots on the ceiling, a large plastic resin wash basin, an additional bathroom with many drawers and a separate toilet. All windows, apart from the three large windows facing the Seine, have satin glass. "He didn't like direct daylight." In general, the place was very well secured, with several surveillance cameras connected to screens in the apartment.

The place was apparently also intended to be a contrast to the colorful fabrics of the fashion world. » There are no colors here. I am constantly surrounded by colors. "I need a neutral environment," Karl Lagerfeld once described his apartment. He recently added black as a contrast to the dominant white of the designer furniture. The reason for this was his cat Choupette, because, as the French press reported, on the Quai de A terrible mishap almost happened once: Lagerfeld almost accidentally sat on her. Her white fur had blended into the furniture like a camouflage color, making it easy to miss her. As a result, he had all the seats covered in black.

Now this apartment, of which the designer's friends and companions have many personal memories, is to be auctioned at the Paris Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday at 10 a.m. at a starting price of 5.3 million euros. Registered interested parties can also bid by telephone. It can be expected that everything will happen very quickly, says the notary. Everything can be decided within 10 to 15 minutes.

The decision to go to auction was made by the estate administrator in Monaco, where Lagerfeld drew up his will for tax reasons.

Because the legacy of the sophisticated fashion designer, which is estimated at 200 million euros, turns out to be complicated. Five years after his death, his heirs are still waiting for the money. So far, only Choupette, the cat he idolizes, has benefited from it, to whom he bequeathed 1.5 million euros. The amount is managed by his cat guardian Françoise Caçote, who takes care of them and helps manage their Instagram account.

According to media reports, seven heirs are named on the handwritten will. Including Baptiste Giabiconi, Sébastien Jondeau and Brad Kroenig. The reason for the delay in enforcement is apparently outstanding tax debts. The former financial manager of the former head designer of Chanel Lucien Frydlender invested the assets in a nested structure in various countries. The now 91-year-old man is no longer able or willing to help unravel all of this.

A good price at the auction of their patron's last apartment, which will probably be used to pay off part of the tax debts, would come in very handy for the heirs.