Una mostra a Roma restituisce il lato più umano del leggendario stilista Karl Lagerfeld
A new exhibition titled "C'était bien" at Spazio Opis in Rome reveals the intimate, human side of legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) through his personal correspondence with Armelle de Bascher, the mother of his late partner Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1989. Curated by Clara Tosi Pamphili, the show presents over six hundred letters and faxes exchanged over more than twenty-five years, along with books, invitations, notes, photographs, and drawings. The materials offer an unprecedented portrait of Lagerfeld not as a public persona but as a private man grappling with grief and loss through writing and visual expression.
The exhibition matters because it reframes a towering fashion icon through the lens of emotional vulnerability and aesthetic resilience, transforming personal mourning into a shared artistic experience. By focusing on the handwritten word and intimate ephemera, the show challenges the spectacle-driven narrative of fashion celebrity and highlights how creativity can serve as a refuge from pain. It also underscores the enduring power of correspondence as an art form, making the exhibition relevant not only to fashion enthusiasts but to anyone interested in love, loss, and the human condition.