Late fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld’s villa sells for RM23.3m in rare French candle auction

PARIS, July 2 — A villa outside Paris once owned by late fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld sold at auction yesterday for €4.7 million (RM23.3 million), under a traditional method where time is counted by candles.

Bought in 2010 by Lagerfeld, who died in 2019, the villa in Louveciennes west of Paris fetched just above the asking price of €4.6 million.

Abandoned after his death, the house was purchased in 2023 by a real estate company.

Held in a style the late designer himself may have approved of, the sale took place according to the traditional notary auction method, as a so-called “candle auction”.

In a candle auction, which is still commonplace in France, the sale time is defined by the burning of two small candles, each lasting about fifteen seconds.

The villa is in a two-hectare park with three separate houses, a swimming pool and a tennis court. The house is surrounded by trees or walls ensuring “discretion and anonymity”, said Jerome Cauro, of Arias, the firm handling the sale.

This photograph shows the swimming pool and poolhouse at a former residence of the late German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, in Louveciennes, near Paris, on May 15, 2025. — AFP pic

The designer’s studio occupied a large part of the first floor of the main house.

“He put everything into this last house; he really loved it. He called it ‘the true version of himself’,” his muse and associate, Amanda Harlech, told Vogue in 2021.

The former Chanel creative director even had his childhood bedroom recreated in a small room with leopard-print walls.

According to Arias, the fashion legend carried out “colossal works” on the property, which belonged to the 19th century poet Leconte de Lisle and members of the Rothschild family in the first half of the 19th century.

“We don’t have the bill, but we estimate that the cost of the work is close to the asking price,” said Arno Felber, also a notary at Arias.

Legend has it that Lagerfeld only slept there one night.

The mansion was above all “a property for peace, rest and study”, where Lagerfeld liked to entertain guests, said Felber.

In March 2024, Lagerfeld’s futuristic three-room Paris apartment was sold for 10 million eurosy firm Althemis, twice its asking price. — AFP