A vintage princess

Lulu Guinness, accessories designer, looks like an illustration. She is sitting in the bright dining room of her Notting Hill house having her make-up done so, as yet, she is devoid of her trademark red lipstick. Nonetheless, as we have come to expect from both her designs and her personal style, she already has a Fifties thing going on.

Her small but curvy body is poured into a black Lanvin pencil skirt and tight black sweater. 'I'm wearing black again,' she announces, 'and God it's a relief. I had a passion for colour for years - good clear colours. I'm not into anything tasteful really, an awful lot of people's taste is formed by other people's opinions. My mission in life is to be different from everyone else.'

Lulu, 43, was born Lucinda Rivett-Carnac to a Royal Navy commander and a mother who came from the family behind Lewis's department stores (which only existed up North).

At 16 she found herself in London, having been expelled from Downe House in Berkshire, 'and that was when I discovered the Portobello Road,' she says. 'Back then you could buy crepe de Chine dresses for 50p. My whole vintage thing started because all my friends were much taller and more sophisticated than I was and looked fabulous in their Jean Machine jeans. I didn't. But when I started wearing Fifties dresses, cinching in my waist and putting on high heels, I realised it suited my look. If I had long legs I never would have gone that route but it felt so easy.'

When she was 17 and planning to study theatre design at Central Saint Martins, her father was posted to South Africa and refused to leave her to her own devices in London. 'I was too troublesome,' she admits now. So she studied graphic design at Cape Town University and then, at the earliest opportunity, fled to Paris where she modelled - 'surprising really, as I'm so short, but I do have a symmetrical face' - waitressed and learned to cook at the famous La Varenne school. At 20, she found herself back in England where she met her husband Valentine Guinness, a musician and writer (for a brief time she was a backing singer for his band Panic while he was still at Oxford), scion of the famous brewing family and grandson of Diana Mitford. In 1986, after a six-year courtship, they were married in Winchester Cathedral and now have two daughters Tara, 12, and Madeleine, six.

'My husband has always thought I looked like Betty Boop,' she says, 'and even back in the Eighties, when I was working in corporate video, I would wear evening clothes to work. I thought it was such a shame that no one got to see them otherwise. Even now, if I've got a sparkly pair of shoes that I love, then I'm going to wear them to the office. But now that's all fashionable.' She wrinkles her nose - Lulu doesn't do trends.

Her bedroom is very boudoir with irresistible objets and artefacts scattered over the surfaces. Even the chair in front of her dressing table is elaborately curlicued. The gilt-painted wardrobe doors open to reveal reams of dresses picked up from Portobello, Rellik (which is round the corner from her Kensal Road studio), sourced for her by Sheila Cook or simply bought from Marni, Sara Berman and Betsey Johnson. Unexpectedly a DKNY sequined evening jacket has sneaked into her collection. 'DKNY has a special store in New York designed by Ilse Crawford which I love. Also it's dirt cheap in America - I think that jacket was a hundred and something dollars - and at the moment Donna Karan is using very good designers with a vintage feel.'

Lulu, now famous for her pretty, witty bags, shoes, scent, sunglasses and vintage style, started her business in 1989 designing a Filofax-style briefcase. 'I just thought, "I can't bear to work for someone else any longer, I've got to make a fortune." At the time having a Filofax was where it was at. Sony Walkmans, Ray-Bans and status symbols like that were starting to count so I thought I'd make a briefcase for women which would operate on the Filofax principle. It had see-through pockets so you could show off your Chanel lipstick and a detachable document case. But the main thing about it was the purple or red suede interior.' The cases - called the Lulu Bag - were bought by Liberty, Browns and Joseph. They sold out.

Lulu Guinness is now global. She's the darling of New York with Barneys having moved her to the first floor (a great honour) along with Luella Bartley, 'because they told me that big labels are over and now it's all about English artisan style', and she has recently opened a shop in the Royal Exchange in the City. 'I say go where Jo Malone goes and you won't go far wrong!' And she's huge in Japan designing a range of fans, flannels and parasols especially for the Japanese market.

But she's bored of vintage now that everyone's doing it. 'Vintage has to have attitude, it has to be personal and worn sparingly. We've been reviving past decades for too long so for me it's over. I see mixing art with fashion as the way forward. I'm going to go surrealist,' she declares.

'I want to look like Elsa Schiaparelli, she's my heroine. And Diana Vreeland is my other heroine. You see I've got to take a stand - I'm 43 and it's time to look elegant and ladylike.' But even when she's being surreal or grown-up, they'll surely be a touch of cartooncharacter chic thrown in.