In my early 20s I was a fashion editor at Elle and I used to go to her shop in the south of Paris. She was married to Sam Rykiel then who was a very nice man and the father of the two children she had. She was already known, quite well established and I didn’t approach her because I was shy and young and on a magazine. She looked at you in quite a hard way and when I entered the shop I would worry when her eyes were upon me – maybe my tights were ripped or something.

She was more a friend of my first husband, [French publisher] Christian Bourgois, but I would see her at the Café de Flore sometimes. She used to go there for lunch very often. She would be upstairs and I would see her across the room. She created a hamburger without bread there and they put it on the menu in her name; Le Club Rykiel [It’s still there: “Sans pain ni mayonnaise avec ketchup et moutarde. €19.50”].

Sonia Rykiel, queen of knitwear Read more

Her daughter worked with her a lot and a great thing that happened in her life, a beautiful thing, was that her son, who is blind, became a great musician. She was very brave with that child.

Her approach to fashion was quite realistic. She understood women and she wanted them to be happy and to look beautiful. We don’t have the same style you know, she is maybe more couture, more fun, more luxury, than me. She was a good designer, yes. She was “Madamoiselle Tricot’ – Miss Knitwear”. She was very good for knitwear. She was quite a figure on Saint-Germain-des-Prés. She always had a shop there and she lived not far away. She created a Parisian style I think and she has been copied a lot.

This article was amended on 11 December. Christian Bourgois was incorrectly spelled Christian Bourgeois. This has now been corrected