Maverick and inspirational fashion designer who is a byword for the avant-garde and once jumped on a policeman’s back during a punch-up. Fervent and shy woman who is not afraid to shock and put punk, bondage and conical external bras on the catwalk. Humorous and scholarly lass who wore a fig leaf on her body suit on television and wants people to appreciate the intellectual curiosity behind her designs.

Enter, often on platform shoes, the weird and wonderful Vivienne Westwood; the erstwhile Punk Prophetess and Queen of Street Cred who is fed up with being dubbed a rebel.

‘I’m a bit tough looking today because I’m on my bike,’ she says in her soft northern accent. (Her intonation used to embarrass her, but now she’s more interested in what she says than how she says it.) For best, she currently wears her eponymous black velvet dress with Boulle – 18th century French furniture designer – print on it.

Right now she’s wearing polka-dot jeans – ‘how could I say I invented the polka dot? But I never saw a giant one until I started doing them’ – Azedine Alaia cap, rock-climbing boots, masculine ribbed camera and a leather thong around her waist, ‘which looks a bit like a whip’. She looks a mess. She’s wearing none of these in the picture because she didn’t want to be photographed. ‘It’s such a bore – I’d have to do my make-up and hair, which takes about one-and-a-half hours.’

The first impression is of a dizzy, gentle woman who is warm and friendly. She has an ageless face, marvellous cheek bones, pencilled eyebrows and pins in her hair. At the age of 35 she changed her blonde and spiky punk hairstyle and went reddish brown; now she has just gone blonde again. ‘So half of it is the colour of cabbage leaves with this other colour over it.’ Her eyes light with humour and she fiddles with her hairpin. ‘I like myself physically. I probably see all kinds of things in my face that other people don’t see – I think it’s very nice with all kinds of secrets and depth to it.’ She later says: ‘I know I’ve got these horrible saggy things around my chin – but I wouldn’t dream of having a face-lift or anything because I know I wouldn’t look like me.’

She rests her head on her hand, fingers across her brow. ‘I’ve amazing confidence in my looks – I think any man is either mad or stupid who wouldn’t prefer me to every other woman in the room, wherever I go!’ And how does she feel about her body? ‘That’s fine as well. I’ve always taken pleasure in it.’

She’s 50 years old, with a disco soul. ‘I don’t care about my age. If I were advertising in a lonely hearts column I’d say, ‘I have all the intellectual and sexual advantages of being a 50-year-old’.’ She’s a gorgeous woman: slightly dotty, warm, soft and unconventional with an extraordinary imagination. She sits relaxed, with open body language, and talks non stop – darting around in conversation seamlessly while she puffs on a Gauloise.

I ask if she could be a little briefer in her answers. ‘As Aldous Huxley said, ‘Brevity may be the soul of wit, but it can be the very body of untruth’.’ She laughs. ‘I prefer to tell the truth about everything,’ she says later. She thinks she’s very direct and honest.

How would she describe herself? ‘More than anything, I’m prepared to work for the future. I know it’s stupid to talk about horoscopes, but I’m a snake in the Chinese ones and I identify with that very long-term plotting sort of person.’

She says she wouldn’t want people to think she had an interest in matters mystical or religious. ‘The greatest function humans have is to be as critical as possible. That’s my function – but I wouldn’t say purpose because I don’t think we have a purpose apart from the ones we invent for ourselves,’ says the former teacher.

‘What am I meant to talk about? My virtues? My vices?’ She goes off to get a cigarette, claiming that it bores her to think about herself. I kept thinking she might be a prima donna, that she might throw a wobbly – but nothing like that happened and she remained scrupulously polite. ‘I think I’m kind. I’ve got a good sense of humour – I take pleasure in amusing myself and knowing that what amuses me will amuse others.’ She clearly enjoys making fun of herself. ‘More than anything at all really really really I am unorthodox. It’s like completely instinctive – I’m never satisfied to do things the way other people do them, never was.’ She’s also concerned about genius and style and being an artist.

Although pedagogic and serious, she seems light and content with herself. ‘I’m sorry if you think I’m complacent.’ I don’t, just content. ‘I suppose that’s because I had a sane mother who loved me and thought me wonderful.’ Her mother was a cotton mill worker, her father a grocer. ‘The other reason is that I really don’t care about myself – and also because I’m doing what I want.’

Is she an anarchist? ‘I’ve been asked that – but it was such a long time ago that I’ve forgotten what I’m meant to say . . . I think I’m a civilised woman. I can’t imagine myself killing anyone – and you have to ask yourself that sort of question if you say you’re an anarchist.’

And is she eccentric? ‘Yes, undoubtedly – and proud to be so in such an age of conformity.’ Shy? ‘Well, funnily enough, I am shy until I get in front of people. I hardly ever use the telephone.’ Vulnerable? She appears to be so – and friends have described her as a marshmallow. ‘I don’t feel at all vulnerable – I never get upset about injustices to myself. I don’t care if I do get knocks, because I have faith in what I’m doing.’ She’s not rich. ‘But I think I’m going to be quite rich, possibly very rich. Oscar Wilde said, I never waste money, I spend it . . . My ambition is to have a salon, a base in the middle of town where you invite intellectuals to talk.’

And what about her relationships? She married dance hall manager Derek Westwood when she was 21; and she has a son by her erstwhile lover, former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren. She gives brain stimulation priority over that of the body. ‘I don’t mind if I don’t have a relationship because I love to be on my own so much. But I’m a very loving person.’ She lives alone in Clapham, in the flat she’s had for 20 years. She’s choosy about men and often finds relationships too much of a compromise.

‘I’m quite happy not to have sex again until the day I die. I can manage without it.’ Don’t you like sex? ‘Oooh, I think it’s brilliant.’ She wants an uncomplicated relationship, but doesn’t have the time to look for one. ‘I wish men would proposition women more and that I could proposition men. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, a little recently on somebody – but I’ve given up.’ (Little laugh.) ‘They say art and creativity are a sublimation of sexual drives – and maybe that satisfies me. You know, what do you call this thing where you do it yourself, you’ll have to give me the technical word, ah yes, masturbation – I find that very satisfactory.’