Category: HOT NEWS

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Karl Lagerfeld‘s resume has to be into its second bound edition by now, and it’s going to grow a lot more over the next two years. The 78-year-old Chanel designer is launching an eponymous “masstige” line which will be primarily available online, as well as re-launching a higher end collection, WWD is reporting.

The more affordable line, called Karl, will hit Net-a-Porter on January 25, and then Karl’s website, karllagerfeld.com, on February 28. It’s a 100-piece collection which the designer described as “rock” and “street” and is comprised of lots of denim and leather. While denim and leather might seemed aimed at a younger demo, Karl told WWD the collection was “ageless”–and if there’s anyone who understands ageless, it’s him. Prices will range from $95 to $450, so will sit comfortably in that sweet “contemporary” price point. Expect tons of accessories (which the company expects to account for half its revenues) and a new logo: Lagerfeld’s sunglasses-and-ponytail profile, embedded into the “K.” (Will it be the new interlocking C’s and herald the return to logo-mania? We wouldn’t be a bit surprised.)

There will be complete Lagerfeld saturation to support the Karl line:

-Pop-up shops in major cities, including Paris
-Lagerfeld “experience” stores which will mix his Karl line and a new high-end line, as well as all his other interests, like books.
-Social media marketing
-A brand book
-Revamped website
-Men’s wear will hit in fall 2012

As if this all wasn’t enough, Lagerfeld is also getting back into the high-end arena under his own name. He stopped showing his Karl Lagerfeld collection back in September 2010, but he’ll be hitting Paris again with a new designer line called, appropriately enough, Karl Lagerfeld Paris. It will be available mostly in Europe, Russia, Asia and the Middle East, but will hit select stores here in the US. Prices will range from $411 to $3,425, making it an “affordable designer” line, a descriptor that didn’t sit well with Lagerfeld. He told WWD, “I don’t work in that direction. I just want not too expensive clothes that people may like and perhaps want to wear.” He noted that his investors have tossed enough money at him that he could assemble teams in Paris, Amsterdam, and New York.

At the end of last month, Sidney Toledano, president and CEO of Dior, said he expected to have news on Dior’s new designer “in the next few weeks.” Not a day later came reports that talks between Dior and the front runner for the position, Marc Jacobs, had been tough and at a standstill.

Now, however, WWD reports: “Negotiations with Marc Jacobs . . . to become Dior’s next couturier have been progressing, sources said this week. It is understood . . . Phoebe Philo remains the preferred candidate to succeed Jacobs at Vuitton, should the American designer conclude a deal with Dior.”

Dior, which has now been without a creative director since March, reported that its revenues were up 17.6 percent in the third quarter — suggesting that the brand is more potent than the famous designer behind it.