Advertisements, publications, PR material: While Karl Lagerfeld was responsible for Chanel’s fashion designs for many years, Éric Pfrunder took care of the image concepts. Pfrunder died on Monday at the age of 74 after a long illness, as his son Jasper confirmed to the specialist magazine WWD.
Pfrunder, a photographer with his own communications agency, was image director at Chanel for more than 30 years. Together with Lagerfeld he developed, among other things, advertising campaigns, catalogs and books for both Chanel and other brands and magazines. Lagerfeld also took photographs regularly, a practice he took up in the 1980s on Pfrunder’s advice.
Pfrunder was one of the three people Lagerfeld worked most closely with within Chanel, along with Chanel president Bruno Pavlovsky and atelier director Virginie Viard. Lagerfeld died in 2019. Pfrunder left the company two years later, in 2021.
“Eric tirelessly devoted his extraordinary eye and vision to surpass Chanel,” Pavlovsky said in a statement obtained by WWD. “His contribution to Chanel has been tremendous.”
In addition to his son Jasper, Pfrunder is survived by his wife Karen and daughters Tess and Candice. Pfrunder’s funeral is expected to take place on Friday.
This translated and edited post previously appeared on FashionUnited.nl.