is telling us about the hero pieces from her Resort 2014 collection: a snakeskin printed wrap dress with a jersey top and flared cotton skirt. ‘Last week I realised that I made it in the same fabric as my very, very first dress but I didn’t even make the connection’, she says.

We’re in an apartment above her Bruton Street store and DVF is here to walk us through her latest pieces. She’s tired, jetlagged after flying in from New York yesterday morning with her granddaughter. ‘I was exhausted when I left and now I’m very tired. I’m glad I’m going on holiday next week to my boat in Spain, I need sun and I need to sleep.’ She adds a pair of sunglasses to her monochrome outfit. She looks fabulous.

‘It’s all about honouring the body, it’s all about body language, and every detail is all about how we make it more flattering’, she says of the collection. ‘My clothes I like to think are friends, when you’re out of sorts and you don’t know what to do and you don’t know what to wear, that’s what you go for. It’s about being effortless, sexy and on the go.’

It’s the ultimate travelling wardrobe, from the graphically printed dresses and sheer snake blouses to the little striped shorts and chic cropped jackets. ‘If you can’t pack it in a suitcase then it’s not on brand’, she says. ‘I always call my resort collection ‘Petites Valises’ because everybody goes in different directions, some people stay in the city, some people go to Aspen, some people go to St Barths’.

We ask about her archive – she must have an impressive collection of pieces to revisit. ‘I do. I just took everyone from the design department into the huge room underneath my studio in the country. I keep all my favourites and it’s pretty amazing. Every time I go down I find something else that I’d forgotten about, and they’re all very, very timeless.’