This new interview with Karl Lagerfeld in The Sunday Times is beyond fantastic. Even better than the interview from March that made me stop thinking of him as a mean old fop and begin respecting him as a person. He's genuine, and though he has the luxury to say exactly what he thinks, I still respect him quite a bit for his honest take on life.

The best part of this interview are the insights into what made Karl Lagerfeld what he is today. I'm torn on whether these tidbits are too good to be true, or if they're so perfectly, dysfunctionally fitting that they HAVE to be true.

(Surprise!) His mother:

His mother was free-spirited, stylish and harsh. Lagerfeld recalls he was not allowed to chatter on when talking to her and had to be quick, the reason why he now talks so fast. “ ‘You may be six years old, but I am not,’ she used to say.” She refused to let him wear glasses although he was short-sighted, saying: “Children with glasses are the ugliest thing in the world.” She also took little interest in his schooling, never attending a parent-teacher evening. Nor did she ever attend one of his fashion shows later in life, despite his success. “She said, ‘Well, I didn’t go to your father’s office either,’ ” he laughs.

On why he owns so many books:

He shrugs his shoulders, purses his lips, then tells a story from his childhood: when his uncle (“I adored him, he was the chicest man I ever knew”) took him for a walk, Lagerfeld failed to recognise the name of a minor German poet on a street sign.

“I was 10 and he slapped me in the face. I had never been slapped in the face by anybody. When we returned to the house, my uncle shouted at my mother, ‘Your son is as shallow and superficial as you!’ I will never forget that.”

And the best one:

“I buy my shoes a size too small,” he says. “I like the way it feels.”