KARL LAGERFELD'S CHANEL GIRLS

The creative force and genius of Karl Lagerfeld goes beyond the endless blockbuster collections he has designed for Chanel in his trend-shaping career. Equally successful are his girls, or A-list muses, who the Kaiser launched and by whom he was inspired. Ladies who have swung through the doors of Rue Cambon, the storied Chanel atelier in Paris, with elegance and grace, leaving a mark in the Maison’s imagery. From sexed-up Nineties supermodels to Oscar-winning actresses to doll-faced beauties, Lagerfeld’s tastes were also showcased at the Mademoiselle Privé exhibition in London last year, a journey through Chanel’s creations that captured the irreverent spirit and legacy of Mademoiselle Chanel and of Lagerfeld, also through a flurry of muses - Kristen Stewart, Lily-Rose Depp, Vanessa Paradis, Keira Knightley, Stella Tennant, Lily Collins, Gisele Bündchen, Claudia Schiffer and Julianne Moore, among others. More recently, Lagerfeld’s fascination with Kendall Jenner, who debuted with the Chanel Fall 2014 show, has fueled the whirlwind modeling career of the sexy brunette. Not by chance she is good friends with Cara Delevingne, who regardless of the fact that she has put her modeling career on hold, always manages to find time to open and close Lagerfeld’s shows. A short mop of dark hair characterizes two of Lagerfeld’s most iconic muses of the past. In the Eighties, long before Jenner and Delevingne, Inès de la Fressange was Lagerfeld’s haute lady, an icon of the house, of Parisian style and natural elegance. Ditto for the aristocratic beauty and glamour of Stella Tennant, who signed an exclusive contract with the house in 1996. The androgynous, bold and singular looks of Freja Beha Erichsen and Saskia De Braw also wooed Lagerfeld, their strong personalities switching from manly tailoring to romantic bridal swooshes with nonchalance and ease. As different as frost from fire were supermodels Claudia Schiffer, the bombshell blonde of the Eighties, and Linda Evangelista, who Lagerfeld met in 1985. From sexed-up to toughed-up contemporary glamour, they both became household names in the early Nineties.