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Born on May 28, 1968, Kylie Minogue signed up with PWL records and hitmakers Stock, Aitken and Waterman in 1987 and scored a number one hit with I Should Be So Lucky. Five albums and a hits compilation followed. After leaving PWL , Kylie tried various reinventions and intriguing collaborations, but her new album Light Years sees her return to her pop roots.

Kylie, 1980s-style - untainted by rock star maulings

SHE is cooing over a pink chiffon scarf, a flimsy diamante number by Versace. Willie, her personal assistant, has just been on a shopping spree for her and they seem to be sharing in a clothes nirvana. He strokes a cherry-coloured suede belt and hands it to her for approval, but Kylie grimaces at the buckle. "Too much gold."

Then the generous mouth breaks into the trademark mile-wide smile. "Woahhhh!" She picks up yet another strappy top. "I must go and try this on in the loo." And she scuttles off through the marbled corridors of the hotel, with Willie in pursuit.

In the gloom and grandeur of the ladies', Kylie finds a full- length mirror and wriggles into the top. She grins at her reflection. "Well, it's good enough for the Radio One roadshow on Sunday, don't you think?" she giggles to Willie. Then she excuses herself and goes into one of the louvred cubicles.

Willie and I stand there for a moment and I feel paralysed by the knowledge that, inches away, Kylie is parked on a loo seat. For a moment it seems infinitely more shocking than any louche tale of Michael Hutchence corrupting her on an aeroplane or of Nick Cave showing her his dark side. Perhaps Willie is struck by the same thought because, as the vacant sign flips to engaged, he whispers: "Hadn't we better wait outside?"

Back from the loo, Kylie settles down for lunch. Without a scrap of make-up, the chocolate-box prettiness is still there: the clear turquoise eyes, creamy skin and chiselled bone structure are luminous. She looks pale, though; understated in black slacks, a black V-neck and trainers.

She's small (5ft 1in), but not quite as minute as I'd expected. After a trawl through the ocean of male interviews that fixate fulsomely on her "tiny" "pixie" or "teenage" body, I was quite surprised that her feet actually touched the floor when she sat down.

She is - shockingly - 32. "I feel like a kid most of the time and I'm quite childish," she says. "But it's a hard thing to define. Other days I feel like I really am 32."

Kylie's attitude to ageing is relentlessly upbeat. Is she in denial? "Nooo! I love it," she grins. "I'm much happier. I've got no reason to want to go back to being young again. I'm looking forward to 40." Even the prospect of wrinkles doesn't dent that formidable optimism. "Ahh, no. I mean, I'll deal with those when I get to them. Maybe I'll have plastic surgery. Maybe I won't. I'll just have to see how kind gravity is to me."

Kylie is currently promoting her new album, Light Years, a return to her pure pop roots. Farewell club diva Kylie, sophisticated Kylie and indie Kylie; welcome back fizz, fluff, gloss and glitter. Yet you can't help wondering if each fresh Kylie incarnation is a confident expression of a complex identity or just part of a self-doubting quest for any identity at all. Hotfooting it back to home territory could mark a mature acceptance of what she does best - or maybe a resignation that she can't really do anything else.

As Kylie tucks into her seared tuna and salad, I suggest that tracks on Light Years such as Your Disco Needs You would make even The Village People sound straight. "There's definitely an element of camp in what I do," she agrees. "The beauty is that I can do that and it's not frightening away the ordinary builders that I pass on the street. They love it just as much. And so many girls also come up to me and say, 'We loved your video, you looked so great and really sexy.' You'd think they'd be more stand-offish." Such an admission would sound immodest coming from anyone else, but from Kylie it takes the form of a genuine pleasure that everyone likes her - that no-one feels left out.

From the moment she bounced into our lives as Charlene in Neighbours 15 years ago and trilled her way to number one with I Should Be So Lucky, she was set up as the cute, indomitably good- natured pixie of pop. You couldn't take her too seriously but you couldn't underestimate her talent either - and she's stayed the course. "Some people guffaw when I say this but I think people see me like a sister - they feel they've grown up with me. You can't manufacture a relationship with your audience - if you're pretending, you can't get away with it - and it has developed, undeniably, over the years."

Certainly, it's impossible to think of anyone who could feel threatened or offended by Kylie. It's her winning card but in some ways a curse - and, quite possibly, the reason for her recent volte- face. In terms of her image, there's nowhere else she can go. She's sexy - well, sort of, in a safe and endearing way - but never really risque, despite the fuss about her new video where she plays a bored wife who flashes at her millionaire husband. So perhaps her real appeal lies in the tantalising promise of her own corruptibility.

According to rumour, Michael Hutchence boasted that "corrupting Kylie" was one of his favourite hobbies. She first met him when she was 21, and still smiles when she talks about him. "He wasn't just a wild man. He was poetic, inspiring and so well-read. I met him at a time in my life when I was ready to see the world and he just took the blinkers off." She has a soft spot, it seems, for the louche men of rock; Lenny Kravitz and Prince have also been linked to her. Then there was her collaboration with Nick Cave and a cheeky magazine cover where she lay on a bed with Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie. "There has been a number, hasn't there?" She looks almost sheepish. Recently she ran into Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder in a recording studio. "I ended up gaffer-taped to a pole and held to ransom," she giggles.

Why does she think these sort of men take such an interest in her? "I guess it's only natural to have an interest in the other side, for want of a better term." She looks a little fidgety. "It's hard to be objective. Perhaps it's also that I like being adaptable, being a chameleon. I love collaborations. I need people and feed off their energy."

Less generous critics have implied that some men are attracted to Kylie because she represents a blank canvas on which to imprint ideas. She's heard this one before and responds indignantly. "I think all the men I've worked with have respect for me. It's not like, 'Little Kylie, we'll make loads of money out of her.' Why shouldn't I be allowed to be a strong, independent woman and have a certain naivety and be childish when I feel like it?" What she doesn't point out is that if she were just a blank canvas, her innocent enthusiasm would have been tainted many years ago. It's down to her strength of character that she emerges from each liaison, no matter how dubious, squeaky clean and unsullied. No wonder the Shaun Ryders of this world find her such a challenge.

At the moment she is, she says tentatively, in a relatively new relationship with someone who "works in the same industry in the broadest sense". She goes on: "Relationships require work, and I wouldn't want to go out with me at the moment. When I get back I'm just exhausted. I just want to stay at home and be terribly boring." Is it more difficult because she's famous? "It's just hard to find someone who you can spend a lot of time with." But she thinks she has now? "Mmmm. It's going very well, thank you," she says primly. In early interviews she always says she looks forward to marriage and children but now she won't commit herself. "I think I'd like them - I firmly believe that if and when I get pregnant, that's when I'll adapt and change. But it seems like such a surreal concept for me at the moment."

Work is always a priority. Kylie is an old-fashioned entertainer at heart and what still drives her is performing. "It's being on stage and looking out at this sea of faces and seeing this pure amazing energy - it's instant and honest and that's what I love about it. And the thought of never having that again is a very sad one."

Light Years is out tomorrow on Parlophone www.kylie.co.uk