A tell-all book about Karl Lagerfeld, written by Lagerfeld's former assistant Arnaud Maillard, shows a different side of the designer. The book made waves when it was released two years ago in France, and now we can get it in English. Here are some of the most interesting excerpts I could find:

"He surrounds himself with a kind of royal court, nobody disagrees with him . . . He can also be merciless. I've seen him simply stop talking to people, stop acknowledging their existence. In the fashion industry, nobody raises their voice; they say the worst things in a very polite tone."

"Wherever he goes, there is Pepsi-Cola in a Baccarat crystal glass waiting for him and it gets replaced every 30 minutes. It's like the 18th century."

"Lagerfeld employees have to be available 24 hours a day. He can be very generous. When I was looking for my first apartment in Paris, he discreetly slipped me an envelope that made it possible to afford."

"Yes, I still remember how Karl sent me the first sketches for the H&M collection under extreme time pressure. Our team worked day and night for three months on the collection, but never saw any extra pay. I can remember well the two half-days that Karl worked on the drafts. Then he got millions from the Swedes."

"At first, he made fun of the fact that I was writing a book. Later, he tried to prevent certain passages from being published — for example, the chapter about his tax debt. My publisher refused and since then he has acted as if he never read it."

Also, Maillard mentions how Karl "takes photos of himself at every photo shoot" and how he uses the most expensive body cream every day, twice a day.

Ouch. Do you really think we'll look at him differently now, though? If anything, it's clearer now why he and Anna Wintour get along so well.