Agnès Bourgois is a busy woman. She has just been awarded a medal and hailed a Commander of the Legion of Honour by Fran?ois Hollande at the Elysée Palace. This evening she is travelling to her home town of Versailles (she was born within sight of the palace) to open the 297th Agnès b store. After our meeting she will fly to the Cannes Film Festival to hang out with Jim Jarmusch, for whom she makes western-style tuxedos.

Agnès Bourgois — born Agnès Troublé — is one of those wonders who seem able to bend time. She oversees her hugely successful eponymously named fashion business, designs 10 collections a year, runs a film company and several exhibition spaces, is an accomplished photographer, and has her hand in many philanthropic enterprises. Forty years after she sold her first striped T-shirt, she’s more energised and creative than ever.

“This was never what I set out to do,” she says, flicking through the proofs of the book marking her brand’s anniversary and smoking her third cigarette of the hour. “I just thought I’d end up with one cool little shop, and very few responsibilities. But I love what I do. Which is just as well, because I’m always doing it.”