The three-decade professional relationship between Karl Lagerfeld and Pritzker winner Tadao Ando will be continued in a new exhibition designed by the architect for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Opening to coincide with the Lagerfeld-themed Met Gala during the first week of May, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty promises to be a treatise on Lagerfeld’s work organized around the duality between straight lines and the “Serpentine line” first theorized in William Hogarth’s 1753 essay The Analysis of Beauty. 

The essay was supposedly an inspiration for the late fashion designer throughout his decorated career, the arch and milestones of which are covered in the introductory segment to the exhibition. This introduction will be followed by two galleries that hone in on themes derived from each type of line and are divided into nine ‘sublines’ included as examples of contradictory impulses throughout his friend’s long oeuvre.

Several clothing designs permeate the exhibition in order to highlight Largefeld’s synthesis of these impulses, along with sketches that “underscore his complex creative process and the collaborative relationships with his premières,” according to the museum.

The notion of lines and symmetry is once again taken up by Ando in the Tisch Galleries with a two-part satirical line that juxtaposes Lagerfeld’s synonymous black-and-white “uniform” with the “whimsical embroideries” and other designs characteristic of his sometimes playful imbalance.

The exhibition ends with filmmaker Loic Prigent’s documentation of Lagerfeld between 1997 and his final collection presented shortly before his death in 2019. It was put on with support from his longtime employer Fendi and will feature an essay reflection from Ando (whom Lagerfeld first met in 1996) inside a companion book that also includes Lagerfeld’s drawings and interviews with his former premières d’atelier.

The museum's Director Max Hollein says the show will help “unpack his singular artistic practice, inviting the public to experience an essential part of Lagerfeld’s boundless imagination and passion for innovation.”

Curator Andrew Bolton added: “The exhibition will explore Lagerfeld’s complex working methodology, tracing the evolution of his fashions from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional. The fluid lines of his sketches found expression in recurring themes in his fashions, uniting his designs for Chanel, Chloé, Fendi, his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, and Patou, creating a diverse and prolific body of work unparalleled in the history of fashion.”

Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty opens to the public on May 7th and will remain on view in the Met's Tisch Galleries until July 16th.