While much of the fashion world remained quiet about top Dior designer John Galliano's alleged anti-Semitic attacks, Karl Lagerfeld said he was "furious" over the damage done to fashion's image.
"I'm furious, if you want to know," the German designer told the influential American WWD.com website after Galliano's three alleged outbursts, for which he has been sacked by Dior and is facing trial in Paris.
"I'm furious that it could happen, because the question is no longer even whether he really said it," Lagerfeld, who has his own label, said of his British rival's apparently drunken diatribes, one of which was filmed.
"The image has gone around the world. It's a horrible image for fashion, because they think that every designer and everything in fashion is like this.
"We are a business world where, especially today, with the Internet, one has to be more careful than ever, especially if you are a publicly known person. You cannot go in the street and be drunk, there are things you cannot do."
Galliano was sacked last week as chief designer by the French house Dior. Lagerfeld is artistic director at Dior's great Parisian rival Chanel.
Galliano's own-label show at Paris Fashion Week is to be downsized from a catwalk spectacle to a small-scale presentation to buyers and writers but the Dior show is to go ahead Friday as planned.