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How Karl Lagerfeld’s 1980s Aurélien Dress For Chloé Became A Timeless Sensation
A conductor of style, Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure at Chloé led to some of the most eloquent embroidery and surrealist designs of the1980s, notably the Aurélien guitar dress.
“E ase, vibrancy, optimism, freedom” was how Gabrielle ‘Gaby’ Aghion (1921-2014) envisioned the Chloé woman when she founded the French fashion house Chloé in 1952. Although Aghion wasn’t the most skilled in needlework herself, she had a meticulous eye for spotting talent, thus among the collective of designers Aghion hired in Paris to bring her vision for Chloé to life was none other than Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019).
Aghion recognised Lagerfeld’s talent, and in 1966 appointed him creative director of Chloé when Lagerfeld was just 33 years old. Chloé would become the first of Lagerfeld’s many stints as a creative director in his decades-long career. The ambition Lagerfeld and Aghion held for Chloé was clear: to depart from the formalities of haute couture and bring ready-to-wear that was as decadent as it was obtainable. Paving a stylistic vocabulary for the house, Lagerfeld’s oeuvre at Chloé looked at bourgeoning the soft look, removing linings and hemming from voluminous garments to introducing dynamic prints and bohemian references. Skilled in uncomplicating the art of dressing, by the 1980s Lagerfeld developed a penchant for drawing creative inspiration from other fields of art, turning to Surrealism of commonplace and mundane objects. Among the most iconic trompe-l’oeil dresses to come out of this period were the Brise “shower dress”, the Angkor “violin dress”, and the Aurélien “guitar dress”.
The visual iconography of Lagerfeld’s Chloé Spring/Summer 1983 collection was witty and playful, from brass trumpet earrings to monochromatic grand piano prints, a notched collar top sporting a violin to striking electric guitars on a black silk crepe de chine dress. Transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, musical instruments were incorporated into lavish embroideries with humorous displacements of scale. Honouring the novelty of imagination, Lagerfeld created a collection that utilised well-cut silhouettes as a canvas to showcase his whimsical expressions, proving that dressing boldly did not have to come at the expense of practicality.
An amalgamation of the crepe dress and the electric guitar, Lagerfeld’s Aurélien dress underpinned symbols of modernity at a time in the 1980s when pop, rock and electronic music emerged. The electric guitar – a relentless pursuit of louder volumes in a testament of human ingenuity – is transposed by Lagerfeld in the Aurélien dress with vividly pigmented colours. Lagerfeld resorted to a ‘Y’ cut silhouette for the dress and unfolding slits that revealed vibrant pops of red beneath the lined blue silk crepon. The dress is worn with the guitar stretched snugly across, precisely outlined in glassy bugle beads, then filled with coloured sequins and crystals. Electrifying under the spotlight, the Aurélien dress as worn by Pat Cleveland rocked the Spring/Summer 1983 runway.
A legacy of Chloé and Lagerfeld, the Aurélien dress continues to inspire and was showcased in the tribute exhibition Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2023. And in tune with the 2023 Met Gala theme of “In Honour of Karl” the Aurélien dress served as a stylistic and figurative reference for Chloé’s then creative director Gabriela Hearst where the electric guitar embroidery was recreated with the guitar neck serving as the strap of her one shoulder gown. Meanwhile Olivia Wilde and Maude Apatow opted to wear iterations of Lagerfeld’s iconic Angkor, and Bugatti dresses respectively, and Vanessa Kirby attended in a vintage Brise dress from 1983. With a new wave of fascination for Lagerfeld’s Chloé creations, the gowns worn by the quartet later travelled and were exhibited at Chloé stores internationally.
Undeniably timeless, the Aurélien dress remains a sought after piece from Lagerfeld’s early career. A collectors’ treasure that is limited and notoriously rare to encounter, the Aurélien dress indeed is the standout star in Lagerfeld’s orchestral symphony.
