MILAN — Ks were all the rage at Karl Lagerfeld Maison.
For its third home collection, the house has built upon the design lexicon charted last year, again conscripting Milan-based furniture designer Toan Nguyen, who embedded the letter K into the new furniture and home pieces.
As guest designer of the Karl Lagerfeld Maison Collection, unveiled during Milan Design Week here, Nguyen designed sculptural and somewhat minimalist pieces subtly integrating the letter in coffee tables, shelves, consoles, sideboards and mirrors.
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Crafted from single sheets of brushed aluminum plied into seamless pieces, they boasted sinuous lines, in tune with Nguyen’s first collection. Titled “K/Wellen,” the latter word meaning “waves” in German, the collection also includes a round table with a polished aluminum base and travertine marble countertop, complemented by poufs and dining chairs in a contrasting bouclé fabric.
The new pieces would have perfectly fitted the futuristic studio and apartment Lagerfeld owned on the Quai Voltaire in Paris with a view of the Seine and the Louvre, according to Caroline Lebar, the brand’s senior vice president of image and communications and one of the late German designer’s most trusted deputies. That apartment, where Lagerfeld reportedly spent about 13 years until his death in 2019, sold at auction in 2024 for 10 million euros.
“I think this would have matched very well with that kind of attitude,” Lebar said.
She contributes creatively to the furniture range, which was introduced in 2023 and is produced under license by The One Design, a company headed by a group of investors who are longtime experts in the production and distribution of Italian luxury furniture.
“What I love with this furniture is the lightness of it. It looks extremely simple, extremely light, [although it was] technically challenging, but it doesn’t show….The relationship between Karl and this, it’s that this is the way he was, you know, working hard, doing a lot of stuff, but made it look effortless. Everything was effortless…and I see this effortless vision through this furniture,” Lebar said.
The Karl Lagerfeld Maison’s strategy hinges on inviting new designers every one or two years to interpret the creative legacy of the late designer, who famously bought and sold entire catalogues of furniture as he cycled through eras with his interior designs for various residences.
He was capable of switching from the sort of gilded 18th-century splendor usually found at the Palace of Versailles to an apartment so stark, he compared it to a spaceship.
The home division aligns with the brand’s hotel and residential projects, including The Karl Lagerfeld, a five-star hotel in Macau that marked the designer’s biggest foray into the hospitality segment, and its first branded luxury residences in Marbella, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal, and Dubai, currently in development.
The previous home collection designed by Nguyen was titled “Wellen,” alluding to the undulating shapes of the seating, such as the hero modular sofa. It included designs for the living room, dining room and bedroom, boasting materials such as chrome leather, opalescent marble and plush velvet.
In 2023 the Karl Lagerfeld brand teamed with guest designer Matteo Nunziati for its inaugural interiors range centered on the Art Deco and Bauhaus movements beloved by the late designer.
