''Isn't it amazing that he doesn't fly away?'' she comments, utterly perplexed, about the emerald green-and-red parrot that is sitting patiently on the man's chair.

The bird's name is Caesar, the man tells us, and he's simply a docile sort.

Greensmith, though, can't fathom it.

''He looks quite happy, doesn't he?'' she replies quizzically.

There could be no better interlude to exemplify the free-spirited approach that has propelled Greensmith from making rock'n'roll T-shirts out of her garage to celebrating, this year, her 25th year of running a global brand that can claim Kate Moss, Dita Von Teese and Katy Perry as dedicated fans.

For though many of her peers have hitched their wagons to major fashion conglomerates in a bid for global prominence and steady cash flow, Greensmith has bucked the trend and held on to her independence for dear life.

''You know, a while ago, I was offered a shitload of money to just be the creative director [of my company],'' she says, taking a sip of jasmine tea from a dainty china cup. ''But once they told me I had to kind of go into an office and work by a plan and a budget and all that, I went, 'Oh, no'. That's just where I lost interest.'' She chuckles. ''I like running my own race. There's a wonderful feeling about having your own freedom.''

Indeed, rather than painstakingly reinventing her label's aesthetic every few years - or even every season - as many of her peers have done in a bid to stay relevant, Greensmith has remained unwaveringly faithful to a look best summed up by her label's tongue-in-cheek tagline - ''clothes to snare a millionaire'' - regardless of whether it's in fashion or not.

Perennial items include low scoop-neck tops with frilly lace inserts that fan up from one's decolletage, tight chinoiserie-style dresses and skintight button-up cardigans in pastel shades. They may change colours with the seasons, such as a recently released cardigan that now comes in hot pink thanks to a collaboration with burlesque star Von Teese, whose kitchen colours inspired it, but Greensmith's look pretty much stays the same.

As she says plainly: ''I've spent years making the hot girls look the hottest they can be. I only want to do what I like.''

That her attitude smacks of rock'n'roll insouciance is, of course, one of the brand's main drawcards.

Because when you purchase a T-shirt from the label emblazoned with the slogan: ''F--- Off. I'm With The Band'', you're connecting not only to Kate Moss, who wore it to the Glastonbury Festival in 2003, but also to the glamorous life of Melanie Greensmith herself.

The daughter of a Bluebell showgirl who danced at Paris's famed Lido club and an English cricketer, Greensmith, 47, has enjoyed a startling evolution - from high school dropout to Playboy model and patron saint of stylish wild girls everywhere - largely as a result of her connections with rock royalty.

Since meeting her partner, former Divinyls songwriter and guitarist Mark McEntee, in 1987 after he wandered into her original Crown Street store looking for shirts, she's lived a life that begs to be made into a film starring Sienna Miller.

Greensmith survived Fleetwood Mac-esque complications after hooking up with McEntee, who was married at the time to fellow Divinyl Chrissy Amphlett, and still takes regular ''inspiration'' trips to celebrity haunts such as the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles and the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. (The latter, for instance, inspired spring-summer's new Opium dress, a blood-red confection featuring a mandarin collar and sheer mesh fabric.)

In lieu of business consultants, Greensmith has, through McEntee, had career advice from Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry and troubadour Bob Dylan.

Harry - an early model for the brand - taught Greensmith to avoid getting ''sucked in. And don't believe the hype.'' (She also opened the door for Leah Wood and Daisy Lowe, the progeny of, respectively, Rolling Stone Ron Wood and Bush's Gavin Rossdale, to model for the designer.)

From Dylan: ''I learnt to be the real deal. And be the best. He always has the best musicians with him and he runs his own race, you know? He kind of tours all the time, does what he wants to do, hasn't had a hit record in years. Doesn't matter. He's sort of beyond.''

Still, it's Greensmith's level head, rather than the other-worldly milieu she inhabits from time to time, that enabled her to survive the global financial crisis.

When it hit, taking several local fashion labels with it - Herringbone and Ksubi went into voluntary administration for a time - Greensmith stayed afloat largely because of her decision three years earlier to refocus on the Australian side of her business.

It was then - even though the bulk of her profits came from the 70 retail and concession stores in Britain and the US that sold her goods - that she opened her second retail store on Perth's fashionable King Street, alongside brands such as Gucci and Tiffany & Co.

''I'm lucky I had that focus,'' she says.

Since then she's further pared back the business. She now sells only through her two Australian stores; her own website; fashion site asos.com; and just 40 local wholesale accounts.

She will reinforce her Australian commitment when she refurbishes her Crown Street store this year to double its size and also add chandeliers, ''an amazing counter that looks like a stage'' and French antiques from her own Tudor-style mansion outside of Perth.

Greensmith remains dedicated to her cherished and singular aesthetic but as she ages she has become aware of a certain rock'n'roll-related irony. ''I mean, I used to look at pop groups when I was a kid and they were older and I'd think, 'Bloody hell, can they just give it a rest? It's embarrassing, you know?' But as you get older, I found that you kind of go, 'Well, yeah, this is actually what I love to do.' You know?''