Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld's already packed schedule is getting a little busier. The quirky fashion icon has signed a deal with Dubai Infinity Holdings to design limited edition homes on Isla Moda, the world's first dedicated fashion island, located on Dubai's The World project. Lagerfeld will design 80 homes total.

Lagerfeld has designed for Chanel and for his own lines for years, is also a photographer and has created campaigns for brands such as Dom Perignon. He has opened a bookshop on the leftbank of Paris and start a new venture as a publisher of art books with his publication house, 7L. He has designed his own homes but this is his first commercial residential project. In a press release, Lagerfeld described Dubai as "a fashion bud on the verge of blossoming into the next fashion hub of the world."

Isla Moda will include a fashion hotel and a variety of luxury residential villas. The Hotel Moda will have approximately 250 rooms and serviced apartments as well as boutiques representing the world's most prominent designers.. There will also be design studios and dedicated areas for fashion shows and project launches. Isla Moda is set to open in 2011.

Hotels are fine as far as they go. For a really luxurious vacation however, renting a private house or villa is much the better choice. Of course the prices at the top-end can be astronomical. If money is no object, however, a new book called Luxury Houses: Holiday Escapes is a perfect guide to the best high-end hideaways around the globe. One of the standouts is Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld's former villa in Monaco (pictured here), which can be yours for a mere €30,000 per week. For that you get six bedrooms, panoramic views of the ocean and the mountains from an enormous terrace, a pool, Jacuzzi, game room and a tent on a private beach. The interior is described unironically as "quasi royal."

Also on display is the Birkenhead House in Hermanus, South Africa (about $7,000 per night) with eleven bedrooms and three pools, dominating a steep cliff above Walker Bay where whales frolic; and Villa Indigo in the Caribbean Sea within a protective reef in Anguilla with two pools and a private beach and sandbar, for $16,000 - $38,000 a week depending on the season; as well as dozens more ritzy rentals from ski chalets in Switzerland to modern palaces in China.

From what I know of the nouveau-skinny fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, he doesn't eat a lot. Sure he used to in indulge back in his zafitg fan-flapping days but that was before he fell in love with Hedi Slimane's clothes and dieted himself down to fit them. So you can understand my surprise at the news that Lagerfeld had designed a cake. But lo and behold, he has collaborated with Parisian baker Lenôtre to create a unique Buche de Noel. The holiday log is made of gingerbread with almonds and hazelnuts filled with a compote of sweet orange and apricot and a chocolate coulis. It comes in a mirrored box with a tiny ax made of hard sugar.

[via Sybarites]

Fashion designer and iPod aficionado Karl Lagerfeld has lent his name to a rather distinctive project, a Steinway Limited Edition Lagerfeld. The piano is done in black lacquer with glossy red accents and has an angular style. Lagerfeld's design includes a rounded rectangular music desk and legs inspired by Lagerfeld's childhood growing up in Hamburg, Germany. The piano sells for around $100,000.

[via The Globe and Mail]

We've mentioned Karl Lagerfeld's collaboration with Dom Perignon's 1998 vintage before. He shot the ad campaign and now Fashion Week Daily reports that he has designed a special gold studded bottle of the bubbly which will be sold in a limited numbered edition. The champagne known as A Bottle Named Desire is in a jeweled case that bears Lagerfeld’s signature and sells for $2,500. If you are more interested in what is actually inside the bottle, you can pick up a bottle (sans Uncle Karl's bedazzling of course) for $108.99 at Costco.