Kate Moss, Helena Christensen, Michaela Coel, and Kendall Jenner Celebrate What Goes Around Comes Around’s Karl Lagerfeld Retrospective

April 29, 2023

Kate Moss, Helena ChristensenMadison McGaw/BFA.com

A troupe of mannequins presided over party guests during last night’s celebration at What Goes Around Comes Around’s Wooster Street atelier in Soho. Sporting layers of pearls, gold chains, leather, bouclé, and, of course, many, many logos, they were unmistakably plucked from Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel oeuvre. Among them: a peach skirt suit that debuted on the runway in the spring/summer 1990 haute couture show, worn by Helena Christensen.

Christensen herself, who fronts a campaign for the blue-chip vintage purveyor displaying many of the wares, was also on hand to host the festivities. “I spent a lot of time with Karl, more than any other designer in my career, and he absolutely started my career,” she told Vogue. “I lived with him in the South of France when we shot all of the campaigns, and I am more and more grateful for how much time I got to spend with him late at night because he never slept, so I stayed awake because I always wanted to hear more. He was so sharp, and so witty, and ridiculously talented. He is a magical creature, and I feel so incredibly lucky. I have everything to thank him for.”

The peach ensemble is just one of over 2,000 items from Lagerfeld’s tenures at Jean Patou, Fendi, Chloé, and Chanel that were amassed during a 6-month “global mission" to find the best existing specimens of Lagerfeld’s work. Though each of the pieces is indeed museum-worthy, unlike the works set to be displayed starting Monday in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Anna Wintour Costume Center in Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty, these are shoppable across What Goes Around Comes Around’s three brick and mortar locations and Amazon’s Luxury Stores.

The pièce de résistance? Another skirt suit with a matching fringed chapeau, gloves, and bag, all rendered in a glittering plaid bouclé from Lagerfeld’s fall/winter 1991 Chanel couture collection. “At the twelfth hour, we came up with six couture sets,” the shop’s co-founder, Gerard Maione, recalled. “The truth is, items like these are not out there. They’re in closets because people don’t want to get rid of them. There’s a woman I’ve known for seven years that I’ve been hoping to get these from, and we finally came to an agreement last Friday.” Affectionately referred to as “the tinsel look,” it’s one of several rare items from couture collections that will be sold based on incoming offers, though it's expected to fetch six figures.

Also joining in on the festivities, which saw guests traipsing through with cheeky to-go containers filled with chips topped with caviar from a three-kilo tin courtesy of CaviAir’s Ariel Arce, were Kate Moss, Kendall Jenner, Michaela Coel, and Rita Ora; all of whom gamely posed for photos before perusing the shelves and racks. It will come as no surprise if we see these items on the steps of The Met come Monday night.