Stephen Jones

And Thierry and Claude had been great friends.

I mean, they became competitors, but they had been great friends and they lived in London together.

And I never heard anything back.

And I sent another letter as well to Thierry and tried to call him up and there was no reply.

So I was in Paris a few months later and I went to his office.

I went and sat down and...

Basically, he would not see me, and I was sitting and waiting, and then the chairman of the company came out and said that Thierry had said that if I didn't leave the property, he would call the police to come and get rid of me.

Oh, my God.

So that was a fashion flim-flam, if ever there was one.

However, I have to say that many years later and just a few years ago when he had his big retrospective exhibition at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, we saw each other for the first time in many years and we really closely hugged and embraced and spent quite a time together and it was lovely.

And the saddest thing was about two weeks later he died.

God.

So I'm very lucky and we sort of made it up.

But working, he was the most extraordinary designer.

The refinement of proportions that he worked in were the most rarefied.

I mean, it was as rarefied as Mamboche.

Or Patou.

Gosh.

I mean, more than grey, more than... Dior was about the big splash, the glamour, so was Jacques Fath, so was Balenciaga to an extent as well.

But...