An afternoon with Karl Lagerfeld in Paris (Quai Voltaire) - Autumn 1996

In October, the Quai Voltaire smells of wet stone and fading linden trees, of tobacco and the silt of the Seine, which flows sluggishly and dark green beneath the bridges. I stand before one of the tall white portals, notebook under my arm, and read one last time the address written for me on a small piece of cardboard—in handwriting that brooked no doubt: angular, clear, without a single superfluous flourish.