The Hirst lady: Maia Norman

The Mother of Pearl show at Haunch of Venison was un-questionably one of Frieze's more glamorous events. Taxidermy artist Polly Morgan and Damien Hirst along with The Kills singer Alison Mosshart and model Valentine Fillol-Cordier were in attendance, while the artworks, by Glaswegian-born Jim Lambie, were presented on mannequins whose heads had been replaced by ball-like bouquets.

Have you ever seen a pair of motocross trousers?' she enthuses. 'They're amazing! The amount of panelling... I think they're hot! And I love board shorts. A lot of sportswear is quite pared-down but it's pretty dashing.' The line is going from strength to strength and is now stocked at Liberty, Colette in Paris, Harvey Nichols in Hong Kong and Boon The Shop in Korea. Mother of Pearl's USP is unquestion-ably the calibre of artists Maia has persuaded to collaborate with her. 'The art is really the star,' she says. Our styling and silhouettes stay pretty consistent, but the art is what changes.' She's done prints with Mat Collishaw, Walton Ford and Alex Rutterford.

Last season, Carsten Höller (the man who put the helter-skelters into Tate Modern) had his Giant Triple Mushroom emblazoned on luxurious silk tops. Now Lambie's Found Flowers series and Acid Perm prints have been turned into T-shirts and jumpsuits. 'I was kind of nervous asking him but it turns out I know his gallerist, Sadie Coles, and she knew the label, so she wasn't wary at all. Next year, well, I've summoned the courage to ask Keith Tyson [winner of the 2002 Turner Prize].'

Clearly the Hirst connection doesn't hurt when it comes to securing such high-profile collaborations, although Maia says she doesn't get him involved in the process. 'Damien does put some artists my way as suggestions, but he doesn't see it in the same way as I do – what's going to make a really good print,' she says. 'It's about the graphics, really, and ultimately, I'm the one who makes the choice.'

She hasn't even got round to asking him to collaborate. 'It has piqued his interest,' she says with a naughty smile. 'He'd like to be asked – but I have my plate full at the moment.' It comes as a slight shock to hear Hirst dismissed in this way, but then Maia is an accomplished designer in her own right. What's more, she and Hirst have been together for 20 years, meeting before he was even a twinkle in Charles Saatchi's eye.

Maia hails from what we've now learned to call 'the OC', Orange County, in California. The youngest of four children, she never knew her father, Bob Norman, a military man who died in a motorbike accident when she was a teenager. 'I don't know what he got up to,' she says a touch wistfully, 'because my mother never wanted to talk about him. But I do wish I could have met him. I think he was kind of wild and crazy.'

Her mother remarried and her stepfather managed rock bands. 'It was lots of fun,' she says, 'but it didn't bring in much money. None of them ever made it.' (History appears to be repeating itself since she has taken on the co-management of the Rotten Hill Gang rock band with jeweller Stephen Webster. 'I saw them play at Glastonbury and I fell for them,' she says.)

As money wasn't plentiful, Maia's mother Jean was obliged to economise and learned to cut patterns, making all Maia's prom dresses. 'She was a wonderful seamstress,' says Maia. 'The insides of all her clothes were as beautifully made as the outsides. She was always very careful about doing every-thing properly. As my dates were arriving at the door, my mother would still be sewing the hem; you couldn't do any of this iron-on business.' It sounds very Beach Boys, what with the prom dresses, the surfing and the hanging out with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. But in the past, Maia has talked of sexual and physical abuse. Today, she insists that what caused her to leave the States for good was her discovery of contemporary art. 'I just got curious. I realised that a lot of what went on in the States came from Europe.' So she packed her kitten heels and left America for Paris in 1983, borrowing some money from her grandmother to pay for a fine arts course at the Sorbonne. Then she moved to
London, joining the costume jewellery firm Erickson Beamon where she became head designer. After two years, she went into art direction, working on pop videos for Paul McCartney, Erasure, Fine Young Cannibals and Joni Mitchell. 'You have to think on your feet and be a problem-solver, which I really enjoy.' Naturally, she hung out with a boho, arty crowd; by 1989, she was dating Jay Jopling, who introduced her to Damien Hirst. She started out as his assistant, painting spots on his canvases, and then the couple fell in love. It was clearly the right decision – not so much from a financial perspective, as they were both penniless when they got together and had to get their furniture out of skips – but emotionally. 'We see eye to eye and he knows not to see me as lesser,' she says firmly.

Not that this is imagin-able in any case. For Maia, despite admitting to shyness when it comes to schmoozing fashion buyers and the press on behalf of Mother of Pearl, has a kind of buccaneering spirit that it's impossible not to admire. I don't know many other middle-aged mothers of three who tour the world in pursuit of the gnarliest waves (her tan is the result of last week's jaunt to Biarritz). She's had her share of wipeouts; in fact, seven years ago, she almost died when her board trapped her beneath the waves, an event she describes to me in gruesome detail. Naturally, this hasn't put her off: her life's ambition is to surf a wave three times her height. 'I'm quite cautious actually,' she insists. 'I always know my limits and what I'm in the mood for.' All I can say is that Maia's definition of caution isn't mine: she did the roving global car race Gumball Rally last year, she's had her cruciate ligament replaced after a motorbike accident, and she's just discovered the joys of horse riding. In London, if she's in need of a little adrenaline, there's a power boat anchored off the houseboat.

These days, Hirst is reputed to be Britain's richest living artist, with a fortune estimated at over £215 million in the last Sunday Times Rich List. The couple own the 60-bedroom Gothic former boys' school, Toddington Manor, where Damien houses his art collection, which includes Bacons and Warhols as well as works by Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas. Maia is so uninterested in this monstrous mansion ('It's too far from the sea') that she's not even sure where it is. 'It's near Chelmsford,' she says vaguely. 'You know, where that Ladies' College is... [it is in Gloucestershire].' Then there's the holiday home in Mexico, where the family used to flee for the winter. 'It's the most beautiful place, with gorgeous food and great surf, and not a cloud in the sky,' says Maia. 'But Mexico is too troublesome at the moment, security-wise. We went in the past year, but we've decided not to take the kids.'

The family's main home for the past 14 years has been a converted stone inn in North Devon, with an indoor pool, 100 acres dotted with modern sculptures, several ponies and a giant veg garden. There, Damien likes to bake bread, while Maia, when she isn't designing, urges her sons, Connor, 15, Cassius, ten, and Cyrus, five, on to greater feats of derring-do. 'Sometimes I think I out-tomboy my boys,' she says slightly guiltily. 'I say to my son the skateboarder [Cassius], "Why don't you ride the bowl?" He says, "But Mummy, I can't do that yet," and I say, "Let's go down to the skateboard park really early, because I want to try." They may not have inherited all her testosterone, but her sons clearly have artistic leanings. Last month's Halloween celebrations were a major production, involving carving ten pumpkins and creating seven giant eyeball headdresses for the family to wear for trick or treating, at the behest of Connor. 'A couple of years ago, he decided he was a bit too cool for trick or treating. I said to him, "It doesn't have to be scary, goony stuff, it can be conceptual and Dadaist." So he said, "OK." I sense a bit of Hirst rubbing off, but she denies it. 'Creatively, I'm good,' she says, 'but I always knew I was never going to be a fine artist. You have to be a philosopher, really. I don't have that kind of intelligence. I do get Damien's work – some of it needs explaining, but not a lot. It's not referential art. Going to Frieze, without having someone explain it all, 80 per cent is lost on me. It's not "what you see is what you get" in the beautiful world of contemporary art...' Which can be rather pretentious and annoying? 'Absolutely!' she laughs.