French designer Christian Audigier talks about his friendship with Michael Jackson

Ahead of Michael Jackson's funeral and huge tribute, one of the stars's favourite designers, Christian Audigier, talks about his friendship with the star and his plans to buy the last house which Jackson lived in and make a permament tribute there.

The French designer, who lives and works mainly in the US, says Michael Jackson was feeling very happy last time he saw him, and was very enthusiastic about the London tour he was preparing for. Audigier has designed some of the costumes Jackson was due to wear in the future. The star visited the designer's store in Los Angeles a few weeks ago with his children and he was dancing and playing with the photographers, Audigier said.

Audigier recently announced that he had decided to buy Jackson's last home in Los Angeles to create a museum in it, and he says he will open it to fans each year for the anniversary of Jackson's death. He wants to keep the legend of "King of pop" alive he said.

"I was a friend of his and I want to give an hommage to him, so I believe every 25th of June, each year, I am going to open his house to the public and I am going to try to make his legend alive."

Audigier and Jackson met in 2008, initially to talk about business, but the two men developed a great friendship, Audigier said, sharing private moments as well as public appearances. Michael Jackson came to celebrate Christian Audigier's birthday, both to please his friend and to test the reaction of the public, after the scandals which had followed him, ahead of his London tour.

"He came to my birthday for two things, first to come and celebrate this birthday, and he was also testing the public at this time, so it was two years after the problems he got in different lawsuits, and it was the first time he appeared in front of the public. So he came to this birthday and started to talk to the public with 4000 people completely hysterical. So, it was just one huge sound, and people screaming, and Michael was so happy and he took me in his arms and he told me "Christian, you are the king of fashion" so that's a memory for me that I am never going to forget," he said.

Now the so-called King of Fashion is preparing his tribute to the King of Pop, and is in contact with the Jackson family to talk about what he will do with the special collection he had designed for his late friend.