From the gallery above the Union chamber, I survey the audience. DVF’s entourage are noticeably set apart in the front row. One is even wearing one of her boss’s trademark wrap dresses, in pink and red. Of the Cambridge students, many have made a large effort. I spot Chanel, Valentino and a smattering of conspicuous SS16 trends.

DVF herself stops at the entrance to the chamber; she pauses and holds aloft a small digital camera, snapping her own personal photo of the audience. Then she strides in, a picture of assured self-confidence.

Von Furstenberg starts by talking about the origins of the wrap dress. Her early 20s were a time when “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I did know the woman I wanted to be. I just didn’t know how to get there.” She took an unconventional route to where she is today, studying economics in Geneva in the late 1960s before working as an apprentice in Angelo Ferretti’s textile factory, where she learnt “how to buy” and “all the ways to print on fabric.”

After some experimentation with different fibres, jersey was born. She recalls an important trip to New York with her “boyfriend” (Prince Egon Von Furstenberg, later her husband), where “because he was invited everywhere, I was invited everywhere.” When she returned she had the idea of making fabric samples, but she went about this “trying to be as unnoticed as possible.”

It was around this time that DVF discovered she was pregnant: “I sent a telegram [to Egon]” she says dramatically. Suddenly she found herself not only pregnant but engaged, and moving to America. She still wanted to work. She persuaded the factory to let her make samples. “I had no experience and I didn’t know anything. I worked out of my dining room.” Not long after, the wrap dress was created. “It was very different to anything that was available. And with it I was more confident. I began selling confidence.”

“Men like it, and their mothers don’t mind it.”

The dress was so versatile that DVF can boast that “Men like it, and their mothers don’t mind it.” Through she was not trying to make a huge fashion statement, she ended up “making a sociological one because [she] sold so many.” At the wrap dress’s peak 25,000 were being sold each week.

She smiles a loaded smile when asked about stories surrounding the dress. “Oh”, she smirks, “there are soooo many stories about the dress.” One she divulges. When talking to Anne Hathaway’s mother at a party, DVF was told about how Anne’s mother had “seduced her father in the wrap dress. Anne was conceived in it.” To this, Hathaway herself responded, “Oh, is that the one with the tulip print?” DVF pauses, “I guess it’s because you can open it easily…” she says calmly, while the audience erupts around her.

For our interview DVF opts for a cosy round table, rather than the banquet table she is first offered. Without the show around her, she seems more at ease, and pays close attention to each question and her responses.

What would you say to people who still believe that fashion and feminism don’t mix?

Fashion can be frivolous. But firstly, it is a reflection of your time, and a reflection of who you are. Everyone has his or her own style, because it’s your way of expressing who you are. In that way, women have more freedom and more choices. Being a feminist doesn’t mean you have to look like a truck driver.

After celebrating the 40th anniversary of the wrap dress, do you ultimately think that style and shape, or print and colour are more important?

In my case, colour and print is definitely a very big part, and I realise it more and more. It was very interesting that in the exhibition [the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s ‘Journey of a Dress’ in 2014] it was clear to see where the DNA [of the brand] is. Shapes are very important: silhouettes do change, and then they come back. For me everything has to be effortless, and the fabric very soft. Colour and print are for me, more and more important. My role in fashion is to be the best friend in the closet.

You decided for your AW16 show to offer a ‘Fall 2016 Experience’ at your headquarters. Vogue described each room as “representing a vignette of a woman’s life – from work, to travel, and, fittingly for Valentine’s day, for love.” What was the creative process behind this?

I have a new young CEO – for the first time I think that I have a leader who really understands the potential of the brand – and he very much wanted to bring the fashion into the house, so it didn’t really make sense to do a catwalk. So I said maybe I should go back to doing vignettes – which is something that I used to do – and so that’s what we did. Downstairs was travel, and then there was work and so on. Then upstairs I wanted to create an atmosphere of women dressing up and getting ready for a party, and so that’s where I kept all the top girls. When it started they were supposed to dance and do make-up, and then I realised ‘Oh My God, they have to do this for one hour’. I felt so bad for them that I went in with them because I felt that if I am with them, at least they won’t feel so stupid because I will feel stupid too.

What are the biggest changes you have seen in fashion and what are the most important lessons you have learnt?

The first thing you learn is that the business of fashion is about fashion, therefore you have moments where you go with the waves – and when a wave crashes, you find a new wave. And that’s important because that’s the essence of what fashion is. I have actually resisted this sometimes – the fact that that one dress is still there – that’s never been heard of for a dress, so that’s pretty amazing. I was lucky to have a product that did that, not many people do.