Karl Lagerfeld told French magazine Numéro he's 'fed up' with the #MeToo movement. Photo / Getty Images
Karl Lagerfeld told French magazine Numéro he's 'fed up' with the #MeToo movement. Photo / Getty Images
Karl Lagerfeld has slammed the #MeToo movement while revealing that he is "fed up" with models and actresses speaking up about the sexual harassment they have faced over the years.
In an interview with French magazine Numéro, the 84-year-old German designer suggested that models should know what they are getting into, while defending former Interview magazine creative director Karl Templer, who has been accused of "aggressively" pulling down models' underwear without asking them.
"If you don't want someone pulling down your panties, don't become a model," he said. "Join a nunnery, there'll always be a place for you in the convent. They're recruiting even!" he said.
Lagerfeld is the head creative director of Chanel and Fendi, as well as his own eponymous fashion line, and he believes the accusations being made by models are making it nearly impossible for designers to do their jobs, reports Daily Mail.
"I read somewhere that now, you have to ask models whether they feel comfortable when they are posing," he said. "That's opening the door to anything. From then on, as a creator, you don't do anything anymore."
The designer said he didn't believe a "single word" of the accusations against Templer, noting that "a girl is complaining that he pulled on her panties and he gets excommunicated from an industry that, until then, worshiped him."
Fashion photographers Mario Testino and Bruce Weber have also been accused of sexual misconduct this year, while Kate Upton called out Guess founder Paul Marciano for "sexually and emotionally harassing women."
Models Gigi Hadid (left) and Kaia Gerber are pictured on the runway. Photo / Getty Images
But Lagerfeld has taken issue with the fact that that many of the women are sharing their stories of sexual harassment decades after it happened.
"What shocks me is all these starlets who needed 20 years to remember what happened," he said. "That and the fact there is no prosecution witness."
With that being said, he admitted that there was no love lost between him and disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
"I hate him," he said, adding: "He is not what one might call a man of his word."
Lagerfeld also made it clear that he is not a fan of the fashion industry's rising designers — Simon Porte Jacquemus, Jonathan Anderson, and Virgil Abloh, the new artistic director of Louis Vuitton's menswear collection.
When asked to choose which one he would want to be stranded on a desert island with, he replied: "I'd commit suicide first."
No love: Lagerfeld said he hates disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Photo / AP
The interview did take a lighter turn when Lagerfeld discussed how his new facial hair makes him look like his beloved cat Choupette.
He said that they are like an old couple, explaining that they sleep on the same pillow and Choupette maintains his beard by licking it.
Over the course of his career, Lagerfeld has never been on to shy away from controversial comments.
In November, he sparked outrage by evoking the Holocaust as he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for opening the country's borders to migrants.
He argued that his country "cannot — even if there are decades between them — kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place."
Lagerfeld also blamed Kim Kardashian for being robbed a gun point, claiming she brought the horrific ordeal on herself by flaunting her wealth, and he made waves when he said no one wants to see curvy models on the runway.
