Meryl Streep won't wear Chanel to the Oscars unless the brand pays her

Karl Lagerfeld has never been one to remain silent. Yet it comes as a bit of a shock that the designer has openly spoken about the murky world of paying celebrities to wear your designs.

Speaking to WWD, Lagerfeld revealed that Meryl Streep had chosen a grey silk gown from Chanel’s recent couture collection for the 2017 Oscars.

The actress, who is nominated for an Oscar for Florence Foster Jenkins, approached the Parisian house, asking for the dress to be adjusted with a higher neckline. Chanel’s atelier soon began work in order to have the design ready for this Sunday’s ceremony but were soon met with a cease and desist from Streep’s team.

“I made a sketch, and we started to make the dress,” Lagerfeld said. The phone call received days later told the designer: “Don’t continue the dress. We found somebody who will pay us.”

Chanel has a firm policy of not paying celebrities – no matter who they are or what the occasion is. “After we gift her a dress that’s 100,000 euros, we found later we had to [pay for her to wear it]. We give them dresses, we make the dresses, but we don’t pay.”

Understandably, Lagerfeld wasn’t too happy with the situation: “A genius actress, but cheapness also, no?”

However, the decades-long designer still said the actress could keep the dress if she wanted to, commenting: “It’s couture. It’s perfect for her.”

Streep’s team has refuted the claim, telling The Hollywood Reporter that Lagerfeld’s statement is “absolutely false” and that “it is against [Meryl’s] personal ethics to be paid to wear a gown on the red carpet.”

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