Coco Chanel as a French icon by Karl Lagerfeld. Original drawing.

Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019)

Original drawing signed – Coco Chanel.

Black pencil, blending of grease pencils and makeup on paper.

Format 33 x 25 cm.

Undated.

Extraordinary large-format drawing by the German couturier, celebrating Coco Chanel as a French icon.

__________________________________________

Sporting a hat with a cockade, blue-white-red earrings and a suit also in the national colors, the founder of the House of Chanel – which Lagerfeld took over in 1983 – is presented, in a magnificent symbolic tribute, as a figure of French creative genius.

Note that the colors applied to Chanel's clothes and hat were achieved with makeup.

Outline drawn with a red felt-tip pen.

Signature in the left margin in black felt-tip pen lined with red.

Document presented in a silver-plated wooden frame.

__________________________________________

Karl Lagerfeld was appointed artistic director of the House of Chanel in January 1983 to revive the struggling brand. From the outset, the German designer celebrated the Chanel institution by opening his first show with three models dressed in the national colors: one in a blue suit, the second in white, and the last in red, to the tune of Charles Trenet's "Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance…"