Karl Lagerfeld sent me 50 roses - I don’t think he’d ever met a large Brummie

Many years ago, I made a film for the Money Programme about Chanel. We were taken by a fragrant phalanx of PR people to Coco Chanel’s apartment just off the Place Vendôme in Paris. We were told it was exactly how Mademoiselle, as they always referred to her, had left it. Her spectacles were lying there on a little desk. It felt as if we were at the still-beating heart of a personality cult.

Later on, we had an interview booked nearby with the great Karl Lagerfeld. He was fashionably late, and then unfashionably late and then, as the hours passed, the eternal wait came to feel rather fashionable all over again.

Eventually he appeared and the phalanx collectively drew breath. I don’t think he had been interviewed by a large Brummie type before. We got on rather well. All I remember clearly is the moment I asked him about Coco – pardon me, Mademoiselle – and he said: “Huh! I tell you what kind of bitch she was!” One of the phalanx made a slight screaming noise.

That night, I stayed in a very small, cheap hotel room. At around 10pm there was a knock at the door from a chap bearing a huge bouquet of roses. There may well have been more than 50 stems. The card read: “Adrian. Love from Karl.”

I slept badly, mainly because the pollen in that tiny hotel room was overwhelming. In the small hours, gagging, I had to put the bouquet outside.

Come morning, I had a train to catch. Not really being the type to carry roses on trains, I gave them to a startled woman at the patisserie across the road.

“Pour moi?” she asked. “Oui,” said I. I’ll never know if it was his or a PR’s idea – but thanks anyway, Karl.

May you rest in peace. We’ll always have Paris.