Janet Reger, the Queen of Knickers cum Maureen Lipman of the underwear world, is commenting on the storm in a B-cup caused by the Kate Moss underwear pictures in this month’s Vogue. Entitled Under-exposure, the grunge model looks like a 13-year-old. Are the pictures disgusting? Hideous? Tragic? Paedophile?

Kate Moss happened to be wearing a Janet Reger pink lace bra (£100) in the pictures, but it is not a look that Queen Janet usually encourages. ‘We don’t subscribe to that look or find it attractive. I like women to look like women and girls to look like girls.’ Her daughter Aliza, Princess of Knickers, nods approvingly.

Janet Reger has been making slinky bras – and briefs, basques, nightdresses and nightgowns – for the past 26 years, and there is nothing she does not know about what men want.

So what sort of underwear should you wear to get your man? ‘Clean,’ replies Princess Aliza perfunctorily.

‘By the time he gets to your underwear, it’s a question of holding your man, not getting your man,’ interjects the Queen. ‘Men appreciate women who look good. If a woman looks like a slut, men won’t fancy her however kind and loving she is. All men are into black lace and black silk satin.’ Raine Spencer, she of the legendary libido, is a customer and mainly buys silk nightwear. La Contessa is, apparently, not ideally proportioned for mass production. How did she catch her Count? ‘She’s charming and we make her lots of silk nightwear and underwear specially. Sometimes she wants it cut a little higher or slit a little lower. She’s quite tall, of small build and hippy.’ La Contessa netted her Count with couture lingerie, natch. Lord Bath, the Loins of Longleat, visits regularly to kit out his 54 wifelets. ‘He spends lots and lots, and buys outrageous amounts,’ says the Princess, contentedly. ‘Since Christmas, he’s been in three times. He usually buys silk and is well in for a few hundred pounds each time.’ Four sisters from a Saudi royal family spent £53,000 on nightwear and promptly sent it all to the dry cleaners. Fergie always bags a big bag of lingerie. And then there’s Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Diana . . .

Eric Clapton ran up a ‘horrifying’ bill over Christmas. Rod Stewart shops with Rachel. ‘She does a help yourself and goes through all the drawers like a self-service,’ says the Princess. And singing star cum Bosnian relief worker Cher spends £1,000 on each of her visits.

Her business was born in the Sixties in a flurry of silk and lace, spawned a million high street copies and went into voluntary liquidation in 1983. She bounced back and now operates from her Beauchamp Place shop and sells by mail order.

Janet Reger sells a black bra trimmed with marabou feathers (with which you can fish) and glitter for £111; snakeskin Lycra stretch bra and briefs for £122; a beautiful housecoat with hand-appliqued French lace for £499; eau-de-nil chiffon frilly bra, brief and suspenders; a Chinese bustier with brocade and toggles.

‘Men don’t buy that sort of thing,’ she says, twanging a Chinese toggle, ‘because they don’t feel safe with it.’ Currently the most fashionable garment is a Lycra peasant-style body in chenille finish with front lacing. Silk satin bras, briefs and suspender belts with lace are perennially the most popular items with men. They simply don’t buy bodies. And women opt for a greater variety of lingerie, from bodies to camisoles. A standard array of transvestites buy camiknickers and lots of nightwear. ‘One comes in here and spends £800 on his sister,’ intones Queen Janet. So whither Nineties underwear? ‘It’s going stretchy and corsetted,’ she says.

All is not quiet on the lingerie front. There have been strange stirrings amid the famous boned and underpinned negligees, lace G-strings and frothy pink bras. Recently they had a woman in the shop who broke off her engagement because her fiance bought her some Reger underwear. She stormed Beauchamp Place with her ivory silk bra. ‘I presume she was militantly women’s lib,’ says the Queen, drawing dedicatedly on her Silk Cut. ‘She came marching into the shop and screamed, ‘Take this back. I don’t know what he was thinking of. I’ve never been so insulted in my life. What sort of woman do you think I am?’ ‘ Another storm in a B-cup?