So, the godfather of fashion designers, Karl Lagerfeld, has passed away.

With a career spanning over 50 years at Balmain, Chloe, Fendi and Chanel, amongst other fashion houses, he lived with his beloved cat Choupette Lagerfeld.  A cat with a jet set lifestyle, two maids, as well as 117k Instagram followers and a successful modelling career.

Choupette may be due of the designer’s £96m fortune – after Lagerfeld’s previous interview admission that he was leaving a chunk to her.

Shortly after he acquired her as a newborn kitten from a male model in August 2011, the designer set up his fluffy accoutrement with her own Twitter account – the first celebrity pet to receive such an honour.

However, it’s Choupette’s Instagram feed, closely-watched by thousands, which has given us the best insight into the life of Lagerfeld’s cat.

The loyal feline companion has round-the-clock care from two maids, who groom her white coat four times a day. They even served her up the same food as her master at the dining table.

During her downtime, she reclines on a £10,000 sofa and plays on her own personal iPad – presumably posting selfies for eager followers.

Choupette also travels by private jet – or a £1,500 Louis Vuitton cat carrier – and stay in the world’s most exclusive hotels.

She has also developed a successful career in her own right, including starring in a film for Net-a-Porter and appearing on the cover of Vogue with supermodel Gisele Bundchen. As a result, she became a personality in her own right – and in 2014 was profiled in book Choupette: The Private Life of a High-Flying Cat.

Karl said in a 2013 TV interview: “I never thought I would fall in love like this with a cat. It was love at first sight.”

The male model who owned the kitten was going on holiday and asked if he could leave her with the staff at Karl’s house while he was away. Karl said “She was still a baby at the time, and I found her so cute that when Baptiste came home I said to him, ‘Sorry but I’m keeping her!'”

And so, what now for Choupette? She must be lost without her master. But very wealthy, and awash with eager staff to dry away the feline tears.

Burberry has come under fire, after sending a “noose hoodie” along its Fall 2019 runway at London Fashion Week. The brand, along with its creative director Riccardo Tisci, is now apologising for the controversial piece and is removing it from the collection.

Model Liz Kennedy first called out the problematic sweatshirt on Instagram, after voicing criticism of the piece backstage at the show. “Suicide is not fashion. It is not glamorous nor edgy,” she wrote, before revealing that her concerns had been dismissed at the show.

“How could anyone overlook this and think it would be okay to do this, especially in a line dedicated to young girls and youth,” Kennedy continued on Instagram, “Let’s not forget about the horrifying history of lynching either. There are hundreds of ways to tie a rope and they chose to tie it like a noose, completely ignoring the fact that it was hanging around a neck.”

“I had asked to speak to someone about it, but I was told to write a letter. I had a brief conversation with someone but the message was: “It’s fashion. Nobody cares about what’s going on in your personal life so just keep it to yourself,'” Kennedy added.

The model also claims that staff were joking about the sweatshirt in the dressing room before the show, hanging a noose from the ceiling. After the piece caused major backlash online, her remarks led to an apology from the brand’s CEO and creative director.

“We are deeply sorry for the distress caused by one of the products that featured in our A/W 2019 runway collection. Though the design was inspired by the marine theme that ran throughout the collection, it was insensitive and we made a mistake.”

The moral of this story. Fashion can only exist in its own bubble up to a point. It’s good to hear that Liz Kennedy’s message eventually struck home.

Reasons Why We Love Gucci

The World’s most popular brand has been revealed – but most of us can’t afford it.

Retail may be on its knees, but online one luxury label rules the world. Gucci has been named the globe’s favourite clothing brand.

Of course, I don’t need to tell you that Gucci has been having a bit of a moment of late. Ever since Alessandro Michele took over as Creative Director in 2015, it’s been Gucci fever the world over. His kitsch, idiosyncratic designs resonated with a younger audience (men and women) and Gucci has undergone a dramatic renaissance. In fact, Gucci is the number one label that customers engage with. A staggering 6million plus shoppers browsed online from October to December last year.

The Soho Disco bag is Gucci’s hottest seller – £805

Interestingly, key consumer searches are for a Gucci bag, belt or shoe, and these genre-specific searches are crucial to the brand’s success. Thanks to the iconic and coveted GG logo, customers who can’t afford the clothes are able to buy into the Gucci dream by investing in a statement belt or shoes.

More affluent customers have been snapping up the £805 Soho Disco bags to gowith their £235 and upwards Double G belts,being the second biggest seller.

The Double G belt is the brand’s second biggest seller

The fact that it’s become a celebrity red carpet favourite has obviously helped.

Information regarding Gucci’s success was gleaned by analysing the online shopping behaviour of more than 5 million shoppers, searching, browsing and buying fashion across 12,000 designer and stores online. Gucci now occupies top spot above Balenciaga.

I personally love Gucci because of how completely and utterly crazy it is. But it’s wearable. Its designs frequently defy conventions, break rules and shouldn’t actually really even work.  But they do.

A fantastical collection of intricate floral and fauna prints, clashing colours, embellishment and fur topped off with oversized nerdy glasses. When Alessandro was designing the collection, any sane person would have told him that it was never going to work. But it did, and the Gucci geek was born. And in less than two years Alessandro has created one of the most photographed and talked-about brands in the world.

It reminds us of our childhood. There’s something about the Gucci show that takes us back to our dressing up days, when fashion was all about fantasy. Hearts, bees, bows, brooches, animals, flowers, flounces, ruffles and army jackets – this is the stuff that our formative years were made of.

It unleashed the nerd in all of us. There’s a reason we all fell in love with the Gucci geek, she’s hiding in all of us. The slightly awkward, clumsy aesthetic is familiar, yet cool confirming that it’s O.K to be a bit different. That you don’t have to conform and get it right all the time.

Pretty much everything Alessandro does influences the way we dress. Next season prepare to wear 80s style cocktail dresses, puff ball skirts, giant corsages, spiked denim sequin hoodies and oriental inspired platform shoes.

It combines the old with the new. You could say that he’s found the strength and future of the brand in the company’s past.The reinvention of the Gucci loafer is the best example of this. The fur lined slip on loafer has been spotted on everyone from Alexa Chung, Sienna Miller, Julianne Moore and Irina Shayk to Claudia Winkleman, and I have TWO pairs myself! It’s come back from obscurity and been reinvented to become one of the brand’s best sellers.

Overall, Gucci is the top red-carpet choice for A list celebrities. Alexa Chung, Dakota Fanning and Margot Robbie are just a few of the celebs who have been spotted wearing Gucci on the red carpet in the last few months. This kind of exposure provides worldwide publicity and translates into global sales.