Why Karl Lagerfeld Won't Have a Funeral
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Fashion world fixture Karl Lagerfeld passed away on Tuesday, and though his loss has been felt across the industry and beyond, there will be no formal service honoring his life.
As incredible as it would be to see Lagerfeld’s worldwide impact squeezed into one star-studded room (à la Versace circa ’97), a funeral service was not in the designer’s wishes. In fact, he found the practice “awful.”
In an April 2018 interview with French magazine Numéro, he reiterated his long-held opposition to a traditional burial and service, stating, “There will be no burial. I’d rather die.”
Instead, Lagerfeld requested to be cremated and have his ashes scattered near those of his mother and late partner Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1989.
Lagerfeld once revealed that he kept the ashes of both his mother and Bascher in a “secret” place. “One day, we will add mine,” he shared, “But I do not want a burial, nothing. I arrived one day, and one day I will leave. But let it be said, there is no urgency. I am like Madame Porgès, who lived during the Belle Epoque. When she died, people said that she was the only survivor of a world she was not part of. Well, me, that’s it, this world, I was not really part of it […].”
Were she to die before him, the designer also planned to scatter the ashes of his beloved cat, Choupette, in the same area.
A post shared by Choupette Lagerfeld (@choupettesdiary) on Feb 20, 2019 at 3:28pm PST
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A spokesperson for Lagerfeld’s namesake brand confirmed that the late tastemaker’s “wishes will be respected” in regard to a funeral and cremation.
Rest in peace, Karl.
