First Published on WWD - Karl Lagerfeld company has unveiled a completely new brand for spring 2023 with Gen Z in mind.

“We believe that down the road the Karl Lagerfeld Jeans line can generate a similar size of business like our main line and we will resource accordingly and will connect with our target audience with this opportunity in mind,” said Pier Paolo Righi, chief executive officer of Karl Lagerfeld.

There will be separate men’s and women’s collections, though many of the styles are considered gender-neutral “as Gen Z is dropping restrictive labels and embracing fluidity more than ever,” according to the executive. “We continue Karl’s legacy by embracing his wit, playfulness and style — we are just connecting it to the younger generation.”

To be sure, the brand’s late founder wholeheartedly embraced jeans as part of his uniform after a dramatic weight loss in the early 2000s.

He favored black denim, and often wore jeans from his signature brand printed with a camouflage-like repetition of his cameo.

“They were his daily ‘go-to,” is how Righi puts it.

The project fits the late founder’s vision for his signature house, reconfigured in 2011 as a digitally driven brand in the “masstige,” or affordable luxury, category.

Righi said Karl Lagerfeld Jeans will be sold in physical stores eventually.

“But for launch we have decided to take a digital-first approach with the exception of our Marais store in Paris, which will become a dedicated Karl Lagerfeld Jeans store for the second drop on Feb. 2,” he said, referring to the unit at 25 Rue Vieille-du-Temple.

Campaigns will be digitally focused for a digitally native generation, spanning user-generated content, social-media activations and influencer initiatives, according to the brand.

The company noted that denim is finished with techniques that use less water and energy than traditional denim manufacturing.

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