Given the choice, I would spend my money on accessories.

You don’t have to look like an old fuddy-duddy, but I believe it was Chanel who said, ‘Nothing makes a woman look so old as trying desperately hard to look young’. I think you can be attractive at any age. I think trying to look like a spring chicken when you’re not makes you look ridiculous.

I’m a hopeless romantic. I buy things because I fall in love with them. I never buy anything just because it’s valuable. My husband used to say I look at a piece of fabric and listen to the threads. It tells me a story. It sings me a song. I have to get a physical reaction when I buy something. A coup de foudre – a bolt of lightning. It’s fun to get knocked out that way!

Sometimes I think fashion is going to hell.

When you go to a nice restaurant, you want to be relaxed and have a drink and everything, you want to look at people who look well. You don't want to look at some slob with an open shirt and a hairy chest. At least I don't.

I've found that when I was young, all the pretty girls at school got all the dates and went to all the big parties and everything because they were pretty. They never bothered to develop anything. And as they aged, their prettiness faded and they were left as middle-aged women who were very, very unhappy and disappointed. But I can't feel sorry for them because that was their own doing.

The biggest mistake people are making when it comes to fashion is looking in the mirror and thinking you're somebody else. People sit and watch the runway and then some nice little plump lady in Squeedunk will see Angelina Jolie in a very glamorous dress from the runway and she thinks if she buys that dress she'll look like her. It's sad, but it's true.