Karl Lagerfeld was known as much for his scandalous statements as he was for his elegant designs for Chanel.
The fashion designer who died Tuesday mocked the #MeToo movement, had a habit of commenting on famous women’s weight, and slammed Kate Middleton’s sister’s looks.
Here are Lagerfeld’s most outrageous remarks.
ON #METOO
“I’m fed up with it,” Lagerfeld told French fashion magazine Numéro last year of the movement against sexual harassment and assault. “What shocks me most in all of this are the starlets who have taken 20 years to remember what happened. Not to mention the fact there are no prosecution witnesses.” And while discussing allegations against a magazine creative director who was accused of yanking models’ breasts and pulling their underwear down during shoots without asking them, Lagerfeld added, “If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery.”
ON PIPPA MIDDLETON
When the-now Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton wed Prince William back in 2011, her younger sister Pippa stole the show in a form-fitting gown that showed off her backside. The next year, Lagerfeld praised Kate’s looks, but trashed her sister. “I don’t like the sister’s face,” the late designer told the UK paper The Sun. “She should only show her back.”
ON ADELE
English singer and songwriter Adele now has 15 Grammy Awards among dozens of other honors. But apparently her talent, fame and good looks weren’t enough for Lagerfeld. “She is a little too fat, but she has a beautiful face and a divine voice,” he told Metro Paris in 2012. After much backlash, the designer apologized and told Metro, “I’d like to say to Adele that I am your biggest admirer. Sometimes when you take a sentence out of the article it changes the meaning of the thought.”
ON HEIDI KLUM
German-born Lagerfeld added to the trashing of fellow countrywoman Heidi Klum in 2009. After German designer Wolfgang Joop said Klum was “no runway model” in 2009 and “she is simply too heavy and has too big a bust,” Lagerfeld claimed “I don’t know Heidi Klum.” By then, the supermodel had already been on the cover of Vogue magazine several times, was a Victoria’s Secret Angel, and was host, judge and executive producer of the fashion-themed reality show “Project Runway.”
ON CURVY WOMEN
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s aware of his other comments, but Lagerfeld didn’t want curvy women on the catwalk. “No one wants to see curvy women,” he reportedly told magazine Focus in 2009. “You’ve got fat mothers with their bags of chips sitting in front of the television and saying that thin models are ugly.”
