Victor Edelstein, one of Princess Diana’s favourite designers, is having a mid-life crisis. He’s 46 years old, has worked in fashion for 32 years and has clients from the Duchess of Kent to Princess Yasmin Aga Khan. Now he’s closing his couture house and starting his second life. ‘I’m going to be very poor for a long time,’ he says. ‘But I don’t mind. I want to be free.’ In 1967, aged 21, Victor was assistant to Barbara Hulanicki at Biba. Next he was assistant designer at Christian Dior. Then in 1977 he started on his own, but went bankrupt. Instead of slinking away and becoming a pattern cutter, he salvaged something out of his liquidation and moved into couture.

At its height in 1989, the turnover was £1 million a year. (His dresses – flattering, elegant and heavenly – start at £2,500.) Now he refuses even to look at his accounts. Couture, he says, is no longer fashionable and he doesn’t have the resources to wait for a revival. ‘I don’t want to get deeper and deeper into debt.’ He intends to spend his time painting watercolours, writing travel articles, illustrating a Cinderella book and designing for the stage.

Victor has an unconventional marriage and lives alone in a one-bedroom flat. He stopped living with Annamaria, his Catholic wife and dealer in old master drawings, 12 years ago after eight years of marriage. They never divorced, remain good friends, still go on holiday, spend four nights a week together when she is in London, and divide their time between four properties in Paris, Spain and London.

‘Now we’re together for more than half the year. A lot of people envy our marriage,’ he says. ‘We both have flats in London. Sometimes we entertain or spend the weekend in the other’s flat. It works marvellously.’ He doesn’t always include Annamaria when he’s entertaining, and isn’t offended if she doesn’t involve him. ‘I don’t feel insecure. She’s like a second self.’ He first met Annamaria at a friend’s party. ‘I saw her and in some weird way just knew that we were going to get married.’ She had a boyfriend at the time, but they met again six months later when she didn’t – and married in 1973.

Why did they break up? ‘She had this job buying works of art and was away half the time. We were apart too much and the whole thing went sour.’ They split but never stopped seeing one another. ‘We’re together now more than ever.’

Are they sexually loyal? ‘It’s not discussed. We do what we like. There are no rules. Whatever happens happens. But what we like is to be together. Whoever we meet, there is a kind of inevitability that we’re going to remain together.’ He says he doesn’t feel sexual jealousy or possessiveness. ‘The way you keep the love of your life is by making that person feel absolutely free.’

They don’t have children. ‘It wasn’t a decision not to. But nothing happened and she felt there was no point investigating and going through hell trying to have them. She felt if it was meant to be we would have them. I’m sorry we didn’t. But it’s too late now.’

Victor is wearing a Ralph Lauren paisley tie and Prince of Wales suit, and has the looks of a Sir Ralph Halpern crossed with a sartorially equipped daddy-longlegs – he’s 6ft 4in with long face, long hands and long legs. He speaks in a mannered way and is charming and courteous. He’s Mr Nice Guy: ‘I’ve never lost my temper in my whole life. I wish I were more confrontational.’

He is a ‘lapsed’ Jew of Russian Polish extraction. (‘I do have a faith. I believe in God.’) His father and grandfather were dressmakers, and his family was close. As a child, he read a lot and played with a toy theatre. ‘School was hell until the last couple of years because one was artistic, sensitive and taller than everybody else.’ He was already more than six foot at the age of 12.

‘I was quite weedy and used to get knocked about. Thank God I didn’t go to boarding school. I’d have been one of the children who hung themselves in the first week.’ He went to the local grammar school and gained six O-levels.

His father died when he was 19. ‘It was horrible. He was a heavy smoker and died of lung cancer.’ His mother then worked as a secretary. ‘Six years of father being ill depleted what money there was.’ Victor was fired from his first job, and then sacked from the following six. ‘I was too dreamy. You imagine yourself throwing lengths of silk over beautiful models and then find yourself chained to a pattern-cutting table.’

He works very hard but is moderate elsewhere in his life. At the age of 21 he got drunk at a Biba party – and has never done so again. Nor has he ever touched a cigarette. And drugs? ‘Well, one’s had the odd joint. But one’s getting old.’

He’s excited to be entering a new era where he’ll be rid of hemlines and deadlines. ‘Lots of people are stuck in jobs and think, ‘God, if only I could do something else’. Well, I can.’ The official reason for the closure is his financial problems. But that is only part of the story. ‘Balenciaga said before he died that a couturier’s life is a dog’s life. It is in many ways. I’ve spent 11 years being polite and constantly watching what I say. I hold an awful lot back. I look at something that’s tight and instead of saying, ‘We’ll let that out’, I have to say, ‘We’ll ease that over the hips’.’ Doesn’t he feel like crawling up the wall? ‘Why do you think I’m stopping?

‘I’m certainly not retiring. I can’t imagine myself staring at the walls or the television from now until the Big Day.’ He thinks of himself as lazy. ‘Like most lazy people I work twice as hard to fight it off. I’ve always had this suspicion that left to my own devices I’d do nothing. Now we’ll see.’ What is he going to live on? ‘That’s my business. Not a lot.’ He’s not materialistic or avaricious. ‘Most of the time I’ve had so little that I count myself as very happy when I know I can pay my bills.’

We return to the subject of his sexuality. Are his inclinations exclusively towards women? He pauses. ‘How are yours?’ he says curtly, before replying in the affirmative. In an industry where many designers are homosexual, he admits he has a feminine side. ‘Maybe she is just getting out in those dresses,’ he says, hamming it up. ‘But I’ve certainly never felt tempted to put them on!’