Could there be a more apt symbol for L’Wren Scott’s bon vivant aesthetic than that of a woman ensconced in gold? The designer cited the work of Gustav Klimt — particularly, his famous 1907 portrait of Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer — as inspiration for her gilded art-nouveau fall collection.

It’s no surprise, then, that Scott paid homage to the protomodernist master with a talk last night at the Neue Galerie, the Upper East Side Kunsthalle devoted to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art and design. Scott joined artist Rachel Feinstein in front of the scintillating portrait to discuss the artist’s enduring influence for an audience of museum patrons, actress Ellen Barkin, and Feinstein’s husband John Currin, an artist who — like Klimt —is to stranger to provocative depictions of the female body.

Scott caught Klimt fever when she saw his work at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris when she was thirteen. The designer spoke about her “obsession with his golden period" as well as her "personal love” of the precious stuff. Scott’s passion for all things gilt was evident in Scott’s decadent fall 2013 collection, where 23-karat gold was a major leitmotif: blinging out everything from shoes to tweed jackets.

For Scott, Klimt isn’t just an icon of fin-de-siècle opulence. He is — first and foremost — a sex symbol. “He was very avant garde and scandalous, in more ways than the children," she explained, referring to his prodigious legacy of 14 illegitmate children: “It was a movement coming from something very strict to loosening up. Klimt was a man who missed the waistline. He painted it in every one of his portraits. He wanted to see the female form. He didn’t want to have it hiding behind a robe. But he was very happy hiding his behind a robe.”