My colleague Tom Johansmeyer mentioned the other day that the Art Basel exhibit in Switzerland was bracing for a slump but the art affair has had a boost from a celebrity buyer. Brad Pitt caused a stir when he showed up to check out the exhibits and spent $1 million on a new artwork to add to his collection. He bought Neo Rauch's 9-foot rainbow-coloured racetrack painting Etappe which shows a driver behind a red, Formula One-style race-car. Pitt was in good company, he was seen with billionaire art collector Eli Broad. In fact, the Daily Mail reports that Broad encouraged Pitt to buy the painting telling him that if he didn't buy it than Broad and his wite Edythe would. Also seen at the exhibition were Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and his girlfriend Daria Zhukova, designer Karl Lagerfeld and model Naomi Campbell.

Jinyoung Jo, a talented car designer at Hong-ik University in South Korea, has created the Chanel Fiole concept car, branded with the name of the famed French luxury goods firm. The design is "centered on simplicity of lines" and a classic black and white color scheme in the best tradition of Coco Chanel and her tailored suits. The ultra-aerodynamic coupe features Chanel's famed interlocking C's on the front grille and has three seats. It's not an altogether far-fetched idea given that Chanel kingpin Karl Lagerfeld is something of a car nut (he has three Hummers) and recently designed a Chanel version of the Segway.

If you were to commission Louis Vuitton to create a bespoke trunk made to hold anything you desire, what would it be? Last year we wrote about Karl Lagerfeld's custom Vuitton trunk made to hold his collection of 20 iPods. Pretty cool if a little over-the-top. A Chinese gentleman has commissioned something more grandiose and yet more mundane from the famed French luxury goods house, which will produce anything within reason.

The client "wanted to be able to watch television and offer coffee to his friends wherever he traveled in the world, including the remotest desert," LV's Patrick-Louis Vuitton recounts. "We agreed to put two solar panels linked to a battery for the flat-screen TV and DVD player, two-way radio, tuner and coffee machine." The trunk (above), covered in Damier canvas, took a year and tens of thousands of dollars to complete.

Meanwhile, Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs remarked at the Met Costume Institute Gala in New York last night that luxurious trunks are not likely to make a comeback. "I don't think there's anything practical about travelling with a trunk," Jacobs said. "Luxury travel is traveling with a toothbrush. That's it, end of story. The people who really live luxurious lives don't need to pack. They've got stuff wherever they go."

At his Paris fashion show on Sunday, the ever-entertaining Karl Lagerfeld debuted a new line of luxurious mink-covered scooter helmets with built-in iPod capability. The over-the-top accessories were created in collaboration with French luxury helmet maker Les Ateliers Ruby and Apple. They're road legal and feature full carbon fiber shells and ultra-soft burgundy nappa lambskin linings. The iPod hookup lets you pipe music directly to the earpieces.

Lagerfeld, who also heads up Chanel and Fendi, showed matching mink vests and other garments in the futuristic fashion show for his eponymous label. Apparently the haute helmets are Lagerfeld's comment on the recessed economy. "Now everyone is on scooters, even chic women, so we had to do the helmet," he explained. No word yet on when the helmets might be made available for sale or what their price would be, but safe to say they'll be extremely expensive.

Karl Lagerfeld, creative director for Chanel, may choose to ride about town in a trio of larger-than-life HUMMER H1s, the largest of all the mil-spec SUVs, but the design house is apparently thinking a bit smaller on behalf of its customers with a new take on the controversial Segway Personal Transporter. The pairing may actually make some sense considering that Dean Kamen's Segway has taken on iconic status since its inception back in 2001, though perhaps not quite to the point of the classic Chanel 2.55 handbag that adorns the handlebars of this self-balancing machine. Other tidbits unique to this model are quilted handgrips and mudflaps in matching black leather and Chanel badging on the wheels, steering head and handlebars. Top speed is listed at 12 miles per hour and range stands pat at the same 12 mph as the rest of the Segway line.

[Source: Yatzer]

Tuesday brought another round of dazzling shows in Paris. Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel show was black and white and true to the heart of Chanel. Against a backdrop of white paper flowers including Chanel's signature camellias, models paraded by in silhouettes that were blocky but ornate with details like sequins and passementerie and topped by giant flowered confections serving as hats. The entire collection was a showcase of the intricate detail that defines haute couture. One could look at the pieces and imagine the hours of painstakingly detailed work.

Of course no Chanel experience is complete without a Karl quote. Reuters delivers another one of Lagerfeld's pronouncements on the recession. Lagerfeld's latest words reiterate the statements that he made earlier on the healing qualities of the recession. He likens the recession to "having an upset stomach from eating too many good things." His bright white and cream wardrobe of baroque simplicity is meant to be an antidote to the age of excess.

Those of you who have been following the saga of Karl Lagerfeld's newest purchase, an 1800s Greek Revival house in Vermont, will recall that he staged a photo shoot there not long after taking possession. The results, and an inside peek at Lagerfeld's Lake Champlain digs, can be seen in the new Chanel Spring / Summer 2009 ad campaign starring leggy blonde German model Toni Garrn (above). The interior looks quite bare as Lagerfeld had not yet moved into the house at the time of the shoot in November. While far from the opulence one usually associates with the Kaiser, the house obviously has an appealingly pared down, classical aesthetic. Perhaps this is emblematic of the designer's somewhat scaled back lifestyle these days.

Chanel may have slashed 200 jobs and pulled the plug on its Mobile Art project, but the label's creative director Karl Lagerfeld says the recession is actually a good thing. "I see it like a cleaning up - it was too rotten anyway - so it had to be cleaned up," Lagerfeld tells the BBC. "I see it like a healthy thing - horrible but healthy, like some miracle treatment of the world."

As for the uselessness of designing luxury goods that many can no longer afford to buy, Lagerfeld insists the premise is faulty. "People have different kinds of dreams," he declares. "After all, people need a handbag, there are cheaper handbags. But if you can buy a beautiful one and if that's your dream to buy, why not?"

We're not sure Chanel's business can solely be sustained on dreams, but that doesn't faze the Kaiser. "I can be interested in a $20 million diamond I will never buy, without desiring the diamond," he notes. "If you want only things you can afford, it's boring too. It's great to see things you may not buy - because you don't have the money - but it is very ugly to think they shouldn't exist because you can not buy them."

As we reported last month, Lagerfeld himself has cut back somewhat these days, but still employs a full domestic staff and three chauffeur-driven Hummers.

This past summer we reported on the burgeoning modeling career of 16-year-old Georgia May Jagger, Mick Jagger's daughter by Texan stunner Jerry Hall (above). Now her mom's doing a bit of modeling once again; she's been picked by Karl Lagerfeld to star in the new Chanel ad campaign. The campaign is based on Cheri, a novel by French author Colette about a woman who embarks on a sexual relationship with a much younger man. Hall will star alongside male model Baptiste Giabiconi, who will be portrayed seeking the uber-cougar's affections on a bed strewn with a quilt - and one of Chanel's iconic quilted handbags, WWD reports. We wonder if the campaign is the one shot at Karl's new spread in Vermont?

Chanel has decided to pull the plug on its avant-garde and attention-getting but extremely costly Mobile Art Pavilion exhibition due to the economic crisis. In October my colleague Tracy Chait reported on the Pavilion's installation in New York's Central Park. Designed by starchitect Zaha Hadid in collaboration with Chanel kingpin Karl Lagerfeld, the high-tech Pavilion (above) is full of self-serving if stylish art inspired by Chanel's iconic quilted handbag. For the Central Park installation alone Chanel paid $400,000 for the space plus a charitable donation. Originating in Hong Kong, it traveled to Tokyo before landing in NYC and was scheduled to continue on to London, Moscow and Paris. Chanel reps cited a "refocusing of investments" in deciding to bring the tour to a premature end.

Even larger-than-live Chanel kingpin Karl Lagerfeld (above with Lindsay Lohan) is scaling down - sort of - during these straitened economic times. For one thing, "I have moved to a smaller house in Paris, and I don't fancy having so much staff now," he reveals to German weekly Die Zeit. However, "The chambermaid, chauffeur and chef are still musts," he says, "around the clock." His passion for gas-guzzling Hummers - the largest model, H1 - continues unabated. "I have three of them," Lagerfeld tells the mag. "Two here in Paris and one in Monte Carlo.... The Hummer is like a tank and gives me a feeling of security. I don't want to drive at the same level as the others." He also weighs in on his new house in Vermont, which we've covered here extensively, noting, "It's very Emily Dickinson. In fact it's almost Puritanical. For me it's a new form of modesty."

It's said that the champagne coupe is inspired by Queen Marie Antoinette's breast. Karl Lagerfeld took that idea and ran with it in the form of a new breast-shaped bowl that is based on the estimable bosom of German supermodel Claudia Schiffer's bosom.. Lagerfeld's version is a generous bowl with a rosy base which sits on a stand of three porcelain replicas of Dom Pérignon and a platter signed by Lagerfeld and Schiffer. It will be sold for with a bottle 1995 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque for $3,150. It seems a bit ungainly for drinking but I suppose the goal here was admiration and not utility.

Coin collectors and fashionistas can now have the same object of desire. To celebrate Coco Chanel's 125th birthday, Karl Lagerfeld has designed a €5 coin. The coin is a limited edition which features a Coco Chanel portrait on one side and the iconic Chanel quilting on the other. Lagerfeld's signature appears on the front of the Coco coin. It has been approved by the French Mint and is offered in gold and silver. The gold version costs €5,900, and there are only 99 of them in existence. The silver version cost €45 and there are 11,900 of them. The coins go on sale in December.

My colleague Annie Scott recently wrote about how Louis Vuitton custom makes one-of-a-kind cases for special clients who can afford the service. One of our favorite examples of Vuitton's bespoke art is the iPod carrying case trunk (above) the famed French firm made for Chanel kingpin Karl Lagerfeld. Made of black Taiga leather with brass fittings and a red microfiber interior, it contains an interior case which holds 20 iPods and a power charger. There are compartments for JBL iPod speakers and subwoofer, and Lagerfeld's initials are stamped in red near the handle. Vuitton will custom make a case for just about anything, provided that it is portable. The process of creating a bespoke case like this can take four to eight months and costs tens of thousands of dollars.

As you know we've been following the story of flamboyant Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld's purchase of a historic house in Vermont's Lake Champlain Islands. Now Vermont independent paper 7 Days has come up with the first photo of the house, above. The 3,800 sq. ft. spread consists of a Greek Revival-style brick house dating to 1850 with a newer addition. "Amenities include a small apple orchard, a couple of pear trees, a paneled library and an awesome view of the lake," 7 Days reports, noting Lagerfeld paid just over $500,000 for it. They also note that the house, which is "sizable though far from opulent" is basically right on the highway. Last week Lagerfeld staged a Chanel photo shoot there, as we reported he would, with a crew of 40.