SEA SWALLOW

Chloe Ad Campaign featuring Naomi Campbell & Jason Olive • Spring / Summer 1994 Collection • Villa Kérylos • Beaulieu-sur-Mer • Designed & Photographed by Karl Lagerfeld • March 1994 • Vogue Italia

Karl Lagerfeld payed tribute to Ancient Greece both as designer and photographer in his 1994 Ad Campaign for Chloe, shot on location at the archaeologist and renaissance man Théodore Reinach’s beloved Villa Kérylos on the Côte d'Azur. Closely modeled on the noble houses on the island of Delos in the 2nd century BCE., the villa was named Kérylos, meaning sea swallow, a poetic bird of mythology which announced a good omen...

Villa Kérylos • Circa 1902 - 1908 • Théodore Reinach & Architect Emmanuel Pontremoli • Beaulieu-sur-Mer • Image courtesy of Philippe Louzon

“I have passed much time at the Villa Kérylos. I took photos for days and days and I walked all over as in a book of history. Kérylos is a place with a unique voice... It’s a place made for silence, solitude and company all at the same time. At Kérylos only beauty is the religion of a state of mind... The hour of ‘Beauty’ is never to return, looming up without ostentation, as if by surprise, on the shores of the French Mediterranean. The light of eternal Greece so highly praised has lingered here and even when it’s raining... this place ignores sadness.” • Karl Lagerfeld

Chloe Ad Campaign featuring Naomi Campbell • Spring / Summer 1994 Collection • Villa Kérylos • Beaulieu-sur-Mer • Designed & Photographed by Karl Lagerfeld • March 1994 • Harper’s Bazaar

“Nestled between Nice and Monaco in the Riviera village of Beaulieu sur Mer, the elegant Villa Kérylos is an ode to the sea as imagined through the aesthetic of Ancient Greece. This magnificent jewel, perched on the edge of the shimmering Côte d’Azur, has served as an inspiration to many... His passion for Greek antiquity made him one of the leading Hellenists of the Belle Epoque. Reinach was also heir to a banking fortune and spent his inheritance living in exotic magnificence, eventually collaborating with architect and fellow Hellenist Emmanuel Pontremoli on a villa for his family.... Beginning in 1900, it took eight years to complete the villa... Organized around a classical central courtyard, the villa’s rooms emanate restraint and subtle wit, and almost each one has a sea view. They feature historically accurate mosaics, murals and are furnished with replicas of Greek, Roman and Egyptian pieces.” • Courtesy of Steven Adams for Cabana Magazine

SOLOMON’S SEAL

THE EMPEROR STRIKES BACK