Trouble, who was born in Versailles during the second world war, is now better known as Agnes b. (the 'b' comes from second husband Christian Bourgeois), founder of the popular French brand of the same name. In Hong Kong for a rare visit recently, Trouble says she has been interested in China since she was a young designer in radical Paris in the 1960s.

'I was on China's side because I was on the left side - I joined the demonstrations,' says Trouble, eyes narrowing against the smoke. 'I admired Mao Tse Tung [her pronunciation] because he was making the people eat and leading them on the Long March. I remember Mao swimming in the Yangtze and I thought he was beautiful.'

Since she opened her first shop in Les Halles in Paris in 1975, Trouble has done things her way. She doesn't let people call her a fashion designer, and she insists that her inspirations are many and various, from the arcane symmetry of the Palace at Versailles to the graffiti of New York street kids.

'I take pictures and I make dresses out of my pictures,' she says, jumping up to reveal a long cotton dress featuring a graffiti image by Manhattan street artist B'ast. 'I am a greedy person, I love art, I take pictures and I draw. Then, with my clothes, I propose things. I don't want people to say, 'This is Agnes b.', I don't like that. I don't want to impose my style. I prefer people to make their own style out of my clothes. This is what drives my work, to make people happy.'

In her B'ast dress Trouble looks as if she could be a few seconds away from jumping onstage to thrash an electric guitar. Her rock'n'roll persona has served her well over the years, and rock stars have flocked to her door since the mid-90s.

'I have been dressing David Bowie for 10 years,' she says. 'I saw him in Paris 12 years ago and he was so badly dressed that I sent him a pair of black leather jeans with a note in the pocket saying, 'You should stick to rock'n'roll style'. He asked me to dress him from then on. I dress Brian Molko from Placebo and [have dressed] Tom Waits since a few months ago. They come to me because they know I love rock'n'roll, that I love music.'

Trouble began making women's clothes but expanded into menswear in 1984, when she found that many of her friends, such as Lou Reed, who led Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground in the 60s, were wearing women's jackets. This led her to create an innovative line of tight-cut jackets that would later propel her firm onto the world stage.

'It is easy for me to make men's clothes,' she says. 'I have the same mechanism for making men's clothes as women's. I imagine people in their lives, they could be at the airport, in the office, or they could be going downstairs to take out the garbage.'

This unpretentious approach is evident in all her work, which manages to be chic and functional at the same time. But don't dare call it fashion. When I do she curls her lip with Parisian disdain.

'There's a big difference between clothes and fashion,' she says. 'Fashion very quickly becomes unfashionable. I like items of clothing that last and you can keep. It becomes your own personality and you mix it with new things and you become confident in your clothes. You cannot be confident in fashion because it vanishes too quickly. I don't like it when I see too much fashion on someone. I love it when I see someone with a ruined Agnes b. jacket and they tell me they have had it for 10 years.'

Her approach could almost be called anti-fashion, especially in quick-change Hong Kong. But for Trouble it represents fidelity to her radical roots, an aspect of her personality that she has nurtured through another one of her interests - independent film. Now owner of her own film production company, O'Salvation, she recently completed Mister Lonely with avant-garde American director Harmony Korine. It's a movie about four misfits who work as celebrity lookalikes. Trouble also designed the clothes for the project.

'I am very close to Harmony,' she says 'I love his bravery, his originality, his personality. Harmony is so quick - he is a poet and he is so funny. He has a distance from things. These are all things I love in people.'

Trouble met Korine when he was drawn into her first New York store, where she had decorated the walls with torn-off pieces of movie posters. She does the same thing today, and this foraging in cinematic history is a key element in her design process.

'I love to work with materials,' she says, firing up another thin cigarette. 'I like to handle things and then to make my drawings. I start the day with the curtains drawn, with very low light. I need to concentrate then, because I am not from the morning, I am from the night.'

The hard work has evidently paid off. Trouble has 137 stores worldwide, all of which have enjoyed a strong year. With interests in retailing, movies and music, her activities have considerable reach.

'I try to convey a message,' she says, looking at a huge ring on her finger that has the words 'Give Love' engraved in large letters. 'When I buy bread I take my change and people look at my ring and say, 'That's nice'. For me, giving love is the best thing you can do.'

However, business is business and Trouble knows that's where the future lies, even in these turbulent times.

'The [financial] meltdown is like a big boomerang - but there was no morality before, and that comes back to hit you,' she says.

'We are looking to Asia. It's incredible what has happened here. France is like a petit pois [small pea] compared to China.'