All About Karl

We've been chewing on The New Yorker's 9,700-word Karl Lagerfeld profile all week so that we can bring you these choicest of tidbits:

"In the early seventies, however, Lagerfeld fell in love with a witty and mischievous French aristocrat named Jacques de Bascher. Lagerfeld supported him financially, but they never lived together, and friends say that the union was--as Lagerfeld has always insisted--platonic, based on shared affinities for literature, clothing, and style. (De Bascher once told a journalist that Lagerfeld's sole loves were Coca-Cola and chocolate cake.)"

and:

"'I hate name-dropping,' he said. Asked if the host was someone famous, he pursed his lips and muttered, 'I am not knowing so many unknown people, hmm?' Indeed, he calls Mick Jagger 'Micky.'"

and:

"Lagerfeld met [Cat Power] last year, outside the Mercer Hotel, in New York. She was dressed in her habitual combination of jeans, T-shirt, and boots, and was smoking a cigarette while slouched on a pile of her luggage. Lagerfeld was enchanted, telling her that only a true woman could get away with smoking like that. She is now a more or less constant presence at Lagerfeld's gatherings, flown to Chanel fashion shows and events, at the company's expense. (In January, Marshall and her band performed the music for the Chanel couture show at the Grand Palais, in Paris.)"