That could also involve NFTs, he says. (According to Lukso, not all digital assets registered on the blockchain are NFTs; they must be registered in the NFT format.) With all the fan worship of Lagerfeld, the public is likely to want to own a piece of the designer’s world and with crypto-collecting exploding, Pfrunder is thinking about non-fungible tokens, purchased using crypto currencies and authenticated with blockchain technology. The first potential digital garment: a white shirt Lagerfeld designed exclusively for Pfunder.

With blockchain, a product’s lifespan can be followed from creation through distribution, making authenticity completely verifiable. Digital identities or certificates, interoperable across the network, enable continuous record-keeping. Photographs will live on. Fashion processes and products enhanced with blockchain technology allow for the authentication of garments, increase supply chain transparency and offer greater protection for creators’ intellectual products, as well as enabling safer secondary markets. The co-sign of a former Chanel executive to trust Lagerfeld’s vast collection of photos to the blockchain could help others in the industry see its use cases.

“Unlike physical items, digital assets don’t degrade over time,” says Marjorie Hernandez de Vogelsteller, who co-founded Lukso with her husband, Ethereum developer Fabian Vogelsteller.. “It’s quite the opposite, they can gain in-depth content and performance through their lifespan. Digital assets on Lukso are more than just products. They’re small programmes, or smart contracts, that can do anything a piece of software can do, making these photos dynamic and potentially perpetual.”

Pfrunder, along with his son Jasper, is currently in the throes of cataloguing and describing each photo, and giving context and colour to every image. If his memory ever fails him, Pfrunder has notebooks filled with copious notes, descriptions of locations and sittings and his former boss’s many witticisms.

“Karl called me one time, and I went and got him at his house, and we went to the Tuileries Garden [in Paris],” Pfrunder recalls. “We were shooting pictures and the ducks were running after us. At night, we’d sometimes shoot at 2am, and then he’d go back and print the pictures. I lived with Karl for 36 years, and it was [24/7], day and night. Now, I’m getting into something else. The Lagerfeld photographic collection is a great case study of what blockchain can bring to the creative world.”