The most irritating thing about working in the fashion industry is the opinion others have of us folk, namely that we are a load of old bitches. Well, thank you, Karl Lagerfeld - you have confirmed it.
In Lagerfeld Confidential, a film documenting three years of the German designer's life, the 70-yearold head of design at Chanel does little else. "And what does an old woman have between her breasts?" he asks a young assistant at one point. "A navel!" he cackles.
More shocking is Lagerfeld's treatment of one of his many minions. Wearing his trademark rings, which resemble knuckledusters, he slaps her across the arm to emphasis his every point. The poor girl looks like she is about to cry.
He does at least have the honesty to admit "fashion is unfair" - and it is. One fashion world story (not in the film) tells of Lagerfeld booking every leading model in London for an entire day when he only required them for the first half - deliberately ensuring Stella McCartney was left with the dregs for her own show on the same afternoon.
For all this, he insists he is not arrogant. This is a man who once claimed British women were too fat to wear his clothes when H&M increased the sizes of his capsule collection for the high street store.
He was forced to apologise - not least because he used to be chubby himself, having lost four stone and written a diet book to prove it.
To think a size 14 fat - the average British woman is a 16 - would seem arrogant to most. All the same, it has a sort of humour - and Lagerfeld's saving grace is his eloquence. "Chanel before I took over was a beauty but a sleeping one" - there is poetry to his speech.
During his early years in Hamburg, Lagerfeld enjoyed freedom from his mother and the chance to pursue his love of history, architecture, music and 18th century France. For one who loves fashion, if he weren't so damn talented, he'd be easier to detest. And for those who don't? Well, there were only four others in the cinema.
Lagerfeld Confidential
Cert: 12A
