Karl Lagerfeld’s Big Ego Promotion for Rosenthal Porcelain & Crystal

The always provocative Karl Lagerfeld has brought his boundless energy and talents to EGO, a chi-chi new promotion for Rosenthal, the German luxury table top giant. In the role of creative director-slash-photographer, Lagerfeld puts together a series of artful images to highlight select pieces from the Rosenthal Studio-Line catalog.

He explains his pairing of fine porcelain and fine physique in the photo series this way: “By choosing a male model, I wanted to play with the cliché of ‘becoming bourgeoise,’ which is associated with a porcelain and crystal dinner service.”

 He said it, I didn’t.

 
The photos are a little tame for Lagerfeld, actually, but the vases he chose and handling of chiaroscuro are beautiful.

 
These are some of the Rosenthal pieces chosen for the shoot: Beautifully broken Vase of Phases collection by Dror Benshetrit; origami inspired Surface vases by Achim Haigis; re-issued classic, Biscuite China Statue from the Rosenthal archives collection; and my fave, wonderfully runny Landscape vases by Patricia Urquiola. 

There’s lots more Lagerfeld and Rosenthal at their Web site.