Sexy confidence from Roland Mouret, as the man who created that Galaxy Dress returns to London Fashion Week

Worn by everyone from Victoria Beckham to Cameron Diaz, Rachel Weisz, Scarlett Johansson and Nigella Lawson, the Galaxy Dress became the noughties most famous dress.

Yesterday the man who created the dress that defined a decade - 55-year-old French designer Roland Mouret - returned to London Fashion Week to unveil his 20th anniversary collection; an homage to his design work so far as well as a seductive study of what his faithful customers actually want to wear.

It was exactly this sense of utility which led to the creation of his most famous piece, the origami-folded Galaxy - a close-fitting shift dress made of a strong power mesh crepe that was near ubiquitous on the red carpet in 2005, and much-copied by the high street.Mouret made it so he could cater to women who needed more structure than the flimsy draped pieces he had so far been offering.Today it remains as a permanent part of his collection.

???It was the first piece I made that was properly established as a ???Roland Mouret???,??? the designer says of that seminal outfit.???That dress is more famous than me.It meant I could hide behind it, and go off and live in Suffolk [where he resides with his husband the artist James Webster] and just be Roland from the village.???

Mouret???s signature skill from his first naive untrained efforts has been his deft way of draping fabric into garments that hang with a sexy confidence - yet allow the wearer to feel comfortable rather than trussed up.Long before the Galaxy, one of the first dresses he created was fashioned from a single square piece of fabric: this is one of five reworked pieces in this new AW17 collection, where he has taken archive garments and looked at them with fresh eyes.

There is an ease and fluidity to the collection which allows the wearer to fashion the pieces in an individual style.A Tyrian purple jacket has a section of fabric that can be worn across the sleeves or pushed up to ruffle around the neck; a voluminous sleeved top in a putty oatmeal can be left loose with its extravagance on show, or with the two sides tied up together - helpful for when eating soup.???I???m practical,??? says Mouret.???Even if a dress is very glamorous, it has to work in the woman???s life; she controls it.???

Mouret was on his usual charming and effusive form: for the last ten years, whilst being based in London (his atelier is housed above his artfully styled store on the corner of Mount Street in Mayfair - a location efficient for both lunching ladies and stylish executives) he has shown his collections in Paris.Why return????I had to put myself in danger again and take a risk,??? he explained.???I???m not the young one anymore, so to creatively compete with the other shows here - is a great challenge.Do I still have something to say????

Mouret???s work is always led by a knowing sexuality.For winter he subtly employed sadomasochistic (who said ladylike dressing couldn"t have a few surprises?) references: tops were fastened by a trailing thick rope tie; models wore thick black chokers around their throats.There was a feeling of the undone; louche, flowing metallic knitwear, half sleeves, open draping at the back and dresses which hung loosely from drop shoulders.

After the show, Mouret hosted a salon for his clients to view the collection and - crucially - make their orders.Up against the London ingenues, Mouret is doing just fine.