LONDON - Veteran German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld says recession could affect fashion and design industry in a good way as it might bring out the creative best from designers.

‘This whole crisis is like a big spring house-cleaning - both moral and physical. I see it like a healthy thing, a horrible but healthy thing, as we were not doing quality work. It is like a medical treatment of the world,’ said Lagerfeld.

‘It is a difficult moment for a lot of people, but in the end it was really needed, because it had really gone too far,’ telegraph.co.uk quoted Lagerfeld as saying.

Talking about the impact of the meltdown on his firm, Chanel, Lagerfeld said: ‘The business in the last years has increased so much that if suddenly there is 25 percent less sales, we will be exactly at the same point where we were three years ago.’