High Society

Fashion Plate

To get an invitation to the annual Met Gala you need to be rich, beautiful and famous, the more so, the better; or you can be a nepo cat.

This year’s event will take place on May 1 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the theme will be ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’, in honor of the German fashion giant who died in 2019 at 85. Representing Mr. Lagerfeld will be his cat Choupette.

“She got the invitation,” Choupette’s agent, Lucas Berullier, told the New York Post.

Yes, the cat has an agent.

The Met Gala is referred to as the ‘Oscars of Fashion’ and is not only the exclusive event in the Big Apple, but perhaps the world. To have any chance of receiving a RSVP, you need to be the hoitiest of the toitiest or be a blue-cream tortie Birman. That’s a chichi cat in case you’re wondering which Choupette is.

The event supports the Costume Institute located at the museum. The Gala was founded in 1948 and wasn’t the swank affair it is today. It was not even held at the Metropolitan Museum but smaller venues around the city. It also only cost $50 a ticket. If you want in on the high society fun now, you have to be invited, then you’ll need to fork over $35,000 a ticket. If you want to sit with your chummiest friends, you can buy a table ranging from $200,000 to $300,000. Don’t worry, if you’re invited, you have the dough.

Choupette doesn’t have to pay.

Top names at this year’s shindig include the co-chairs – actress and screenwriter Michaela Coel; actress Penélope Cruz; tennis great Roger Federer and pop star Dua Lipa. As for the others, the guest list isn’t out yet but past habitués included Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Elton John, Cher, Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Halston, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Raquel Welch. Recent big names like Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid and Madonna have strutted their stuff for the paparazzi and their fellow beautiful people.

Lagerfeld’s affection for Choupette began in 2011 when he reluctantly agreed to catsit the kitten for a friend. That friend was French model Baptiste Giabiconi, who saw how much Lagerfeld loved the cat, so he gave Choupette to him.

“It became clear to me that Choupette brought Karl great joy,” Giabiconi told The New York Times. 

Lagerfeld recounts the story a little differently about Giabiconi giving Choupette to him.

“Baptiste was going on holiday and asked if he could leave her with the staff at my house while he was away. 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!’,” Lagerfeld recounted to Numéro.

Choupette made an impact on Lagerfeld, who said the feline was his Muse.

“Fortunately, it’s not something you can analyze. By her mere presence. She has a very calming effect. By the way, it is medically recognised. People who have a cat have far fewer health problems compared to all those who do not. Apparently, it’s amazingly therapeutic. I read a detailed, serious, scientific article about it,” Lagerfeld told Euronews in 2016, one year after winning the British Fashion Award for Outstanding Achievement.

“Choupette was a phenomenon. Karl Lagerfeld wasn’t really perceived as a warm and fuzzy person, so it made it incredibly ironic that he basically fell in love with Choupette and she did become his furry muse which kind of humanized him which was sort of lovely,” Kathlin Argiro, a fashion designer professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told the Post. 

Since Lagerfeld’s death, Choupette has been taken care of by his former housekeeper, Françoise Caçote, according to Numéro. He’s apparently been taken care of quite nicely financially by Lagerfeld too.

Asked by Numéro in another interview if Choupette was in line to inherit his estimated $200 million fortune, Lagerfeld said his feline would get plenty.

“Among others, yes. Don’t worry, there is enough for everyone,” Lagerfeld said of Choupette, who he referred to in several interviews as “the heiress.”

Not that Choupette is hurting for money. Remember her agent, Lucas Berullier? He seems to be doing his job. The feline fashionista raked in over $3 million in modeling gigs from German automaker Opel and a holiday makeup collection for Japanese brand Shu Uemura.

Choupette is also up on her social media skills. She has an Instagram account with over 221,000 followers and another with 137,000.

Back to the Met Gala.

“[I’d imagine] her [Choupette] entering with a big entourage — maybe Anna [Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour], or Grace Coddington [former model and Vogue editor]. I think the way to show stop would be [entering] by herself, or with the biggest celebrity, maybe Beyoncé,” Michelle Baron, who worked on the book, “Where’s Karl?: A Fashion-Forward Parody,” told the Post. “Or maybe she’ll be escorted by Karl’s old bodyguard, Sébastien Jondeau.”

No matter the entrance, Choupette will do her catwalk down the red carpet, making sure she shows off her big fluffy tail for the assembled star gazers.

Asked by Numéro how he viewed the way cats raise their tails seems “somewhat shameless”, Lagerfeld said, “No. I’m not a sex maniac, and I see nothing indecent in the way cats lift their tails. Choupette always does it very graciously.”

That’s sticking up for your cat.