Tadao Ando-designed tribute to Karl Lagerfeld opens in style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last night’s Met Gala kicked off the museum’s annual Costume Institute blockbuster exhibition, which features a spotlight on the late iconoclast Karl Lagerfeld designed in tribute by his longtime friend and artistic collaborator Tadao Ando.

Attendees were also able to see a special 25-foot-tall flamingo centerpiece and chandeliers created by Ando from 100% upcycled materials as they made their way into the second-floor Tisch Galleries, where they were greeted by a satirical juxtaposition of Lagerfeld’s oeuvre over time. 

The designer’s contrasted black-and-white caricature and more “whimsical” pieces are there displayed along with sketches that serve to exhibit his “complex working methodology [...] tracing the evolution of his fashions from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional,” according to a description from Costume Institute Curator Andrew Bolton.

Each of the space's two galleries is thus divided into nine segmented ‘sublines' inspired by William Hogarth’s essay The Analysis of Beauty. The exhibition concludes with Loic Prigent’s inside documentation of Lagerfeld between 1997 and 2019. An essay from Ando is included in the exhibition’s companion book as well. 

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty will open on Friday, May 5th, and runs through July 16th. 

Additional images of the installation can be viewed below.