Hadley’s office, 7 or 8 floors up in a new building near Old Street in London. It stilled as we walked through, leaving one person talking quietly on a phone. I can’t reveal the name of the company. It’s US owned, not specifically a luxury brand, and she is one of the heads of a new division, just set up, that specialises in all things to do with weddings. She is closely involved in planning the fashion side, making sure it works for Europe too.

“They didn’t seem concerned that I’m a single parent….Big, splashy, joyful weddings are in. I am glad you have come back. London is interesting and being here could close out something for you. Nice for me too.”

Jake is now 6. I remember that call well: “Off to the fertility clinic to buy my sperm. Thinking Caucasian, Scandinavian, clever but not a geek, and sporty — common choice I’m told. Most fashionistas are gay and we already have that gene in the family pool. Don’t want to be an older mom, and this one can afford it. What do you think of the profile?”

Always that laugh in her voice, with a little bit of bravado.

“Thinking I might suggest a bit more diversity?”

We called Hadley our “ray of sunshine” when she was small. Now I see a beautiful, composed woman, a sense of mischief kept mainly private, but always there.

For little boys it might be trains or cranes or plastic haulage trucks they fill with gravel. For Hadley it was shoes, shoes and shoes. Then it was Barbies. She always wanted more Barbie clothes and loved to dress them.

It was a time when some Mums, some of whom she knew well, were against girly things, but Julie didn’t care and told me how, when their girls came to play, a couple of Barbies would disappear and get dropped back in a brown paper packet.

She got teased when she was older by Mikey and Lonnie and Elsa’s boys about things she did when she was little. I specially remember the Beauty and the Beast story. Hadley loved Beauty and the Beast and played it again and again. She specially used to play and replay a sequence that showed Gaston’s hairy chest which fascinated her.

Madonna was the icon of those years. Like a Virgin and Material Girl came out when Hadley was 8 or 9, accompanied by those controversial videos. Julie didn’t care about them, recognising that Hadley was mostly interested in the look and the clothes.

Then came Julie’s accident and death. I still remember vividly the moment I told her, Hadley saying: “What am I going to do?”, with panic in her face, like every plan and hope had Julie somewhere in there, and now she was never going to be there any more.

Elsa, of course, did a great job of being a Mom to Hadley — the only girl in the whole extended family. But her style was different, calmer, more sedate. (There was always a laugh in Julie’s voice too.)

Hadley says: “The French and Italian fashion houses are bloody, dynastic and slightly corrupt.”

But I sense she might want to go back there if she’s asked.

By the time she was 17 Hadley had decided. She wanted to go to the Parsons Fashion School in New York and had already figured out she would transfer to the Paris campus so she started right away with French classes. Tom Ford’s 1995 show provided her with an aim and an ambition. He became her new icon, the rigour of the design, the media savviness, and the sharp business sense were all in the equation. She told with a laugh about how he had lied about attending Parsons and called designer Cathy Hardwick every day until she gave him a job.

“I’m certainly not a black and beige person but he’s a star,” she says of him.

In 1999 Hadley got hired as a sales assistant at Loewe on Avenue Montaigne in Paris. Narciso Rodriguez, who also studied at Parsons, was the Design Director there.

Hadley’s gift is about getting people to work together. She gets what she wants without any sense that she’s imposing her will on others. I am very proud of her.

Jake is 6 now and I am going to see him later. He has a nanny who came over from France and he goes to a private school in Clapham.