Karl Lagerfeld, the long-time designer of Chanel (as well Fendi, as well as his own eponymous line, as well as, this season, a collection for the Italian shoe brand Hogan) is a provocateur, with little patience for ignorance or stupidity or anything that smacks of the bourgeois. This we know. But even by his standards, the nose-thumbing he just gave to the various budget crackdowns going on in the countries of his various customers, not to mention those customer themselves, was jaw-dropping.

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