Karl Lagerfeld Vintage Sketches To Be Sold at Auction

A collection of sketches from the 1960’s created by German fashion designer, Karl Lagerfeld, are hitting the auction block on Jan. 11. The drawings hail from Lagerfeld’s time working at the Rome-based House of Tiziani.

“These are more works of art,” former Carolina Herrera designer, Bill Hamilton, told the New York Daily News. “I don’t think people put that much effort into the sketches of today.”

Just as Lagerfeld has kept Chanel current for today’s fickle fashion industry by sprucing up the brand’s signature patent leather, quilting and gold chain, his unique design aesthetic also comes through in the vintage Tiziani drawings. “His sketches are much younger-looking than whoever else was sketching at the time, much freer,” Hamilton explained.

Though the sketches are likely to fetch a pretty penny at the upcoming auction, Lagerfeld doesn’t deem them nearly as valuable. In fact, if they were still in his possession, he’d have discarded them years ago. “I throw everything away!” he told The New Yorker in 2007. “The most important piece of furniture in a house is the garbage can! I keep no archives of my own, no sketches, no photos, no clothes — nothing! I am supposed to do, I’m not supposed to remember!”

Photo credit: Associated Press