Whether you think Karl Lagerfeld is a terrible monster or you think he’s a brilliant, hilarious shade-throwing madman, can we all agree that Karl gives great interviews? And that his ability to give a good one-liner is practically an art in and of itself? Lagerfeld has a new interview with the New York Times in honor of his 50 year anniversary with Fendi. You can read the whole piece here – it’s full of amazing quotes, per usual. Some highlights:

On Choupette: “I have a famous cat,” said Mr. Lagerfeld, glancing over the cat-printed notepads offered to him and Choupette. Mr. Lagerfeld said he hoped the cat would become more famous than him. “Then I can disappear behind Choupette.”

He prefers working with women: “I’m not crazy to discuss fashion with men. I couldn’t care less about their opinion.”

He doesn’t believe in stress: “I don’t believe in it. It’s a job, one should not become hysterical.”

He hates celebrating any anniversary: “No, no, no, no. This is one of the sicknesses of our period, to look back. No, forget about it. Fashion is now and tomorrow. Who cares about the past? But at Fendi, they like to tour the past. In Germany, they made a huge exhibition of everything I did, Fendi, Chanel, Lagerfeld, Chloé and all that. I’m not even going to the show. I don’t care.”

No archives: “There’s no history. I don’t even have archives, myself. I keep nothing. What I like is to do — not the fact that I did. It doesn’t excite me at all. When people start to think that what they did in the past is perhaps even better than what they do now, they should stop. Lots of my colleagues, they have archives, they look at their dresses like they were Rembrandts! Please, forget about it.

He likes doing fur lines, haute fourrure: “The problem with fur. … For me, as long as people eat meat and wear leather, I don’t get the message. It’s very easy to say no fur, no fur, no fur, but it’s an industry. Who will pay for all the unemployment of the people if you suppress the industry of the fur? The hunters in the north for the sable, they have no other job, there is nothing else to do. Those organizations who are much against it, they are not Bill Gates.

Sympathy for the anti-fur people: “I’m very sympathetic. I hate the idea of killing animals in a horrible way, but I think all that improved a lot. I think a butcher shop is even worse. It’s like visiting a murder. It’s horrible, no? So I prefer not to know it.

Humor in fashion: “I don’t think that most of the designers have a very quick sense of humor. They take themselves very seriously because they want to be taken as artists. I think we are artisans. It’s an applied art. There’s nothing bad about that. If you want to do art, then show it in a gallery.

On selfies: “We live in the world of selfies. I don’t do selfies. But other people do, and they all want to do selfies with me. No, no, no. Thank God, Sébastien, my assistant, he’s mean to the people in the street, mean and rude. I’m a nice person.

His competition: “I don’t see it like competition. I like when there are many people who do good things, because you work better if there is competition than if there are only third-rate people. Paris cannot be Paris only with one. But from me to you, there are very few who have, in terms of craftsmanship, the craftsmanship of high-quality couture. For me, the best — I won’t talk about Chanel, because they have the biggest operation, with 250 workers for the whole couture — is Dior and Givenchy. The others, I prefer not to comment. I am not a fashion journalist.

[From The New York Times]

So much shade, thrown with such a light touch. He likes Dior and Givenchy, but the rest? Third-rate people. Fendi wants to celebrate his 50 years with the fashion house and it’s not worth his time. Talk to a man about fashion? Please. Of course not. Lagerfeld also says he wants to die in his 90s, while still working. He doesn’t plan to retire at all. He takes his cues from Coco Chanel, who he says “died in the middle of a collection when she was in her nearly 90s.” So we’ve still got a long time to enjoy the wit & wisdom of Karl Lagerfeld.

Photos courtesy of WENN.