Designer Lagerfeld riles animal lovers

The New Paper 5 Jan 08;

IF WE don't kill them, then they will kill us.

And that's why it is all right for fashion designers to use fur from animals to create their pieces, believes Karl Lagerfeld, supremo of fashion house Chanel.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Lagerfeld defended the fur industry saying that 'beasts' would kill humans if we didn't kill them first.

In fact, the 75-year-old fashion icon said, killing off the fur industry would affect the livelihood of many people. Hunters in the north 'make a living having learnt nothing else than hunting,' said Lagerfeld, who ironically does not wear fur or eat meat.

'In a meat-eating world, wearing leather for shoes and clothes and even handbags, the discussion of fur is childish.'

His statement drew an immediate response from animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), which described Lagerfeld as a 'dinosaur' who had got his facts wrong.

'The vast majority of fur these days comes not from hunters as he suggests, but from Chinese fur farms, where no law protects the millions of animals who are routinely beaten and skinned alive,' said a Peta spokesman.

Lagerfeld also riled health experts with comments about his use of size-zero models to showcase designs.

Doctors have criticised the use of these skinny models, saying it has contributed to a rise in eating disorders among girls who feel pressured to conform to this idea of beauty.

However, Lagerfeld said: 'In France there are, I think, less than one per cent of people who are too skinny.

'There are nearly 30 per cent of young people who are too fat. So let's take care of the zillions of the too fat before we talk about the percentage that's left.'

A spokesman for the support group Beating Eating Disorders said Lagerfeld's comments were 'a very sad reflection' on attitudes within the fashion industry.

She said: 'We talk to thousands of people every year with eating disorders, who say 'If we look like that, we are told that we should be in hospital.' Yet these models are being celebrated.'