by Born in Chatham, Kent in 1940, Zandra Rhodes is a fashion and textile designer and founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London. Known for her bold, extravagant use of color and prints, she has dressed royalty and the most famous of pop culture, from Princess Diana to Debbie Harry. Rhodes appears in Absolutely Fabulous, and won a Daytime Emmy award for costume design in 1979. Her memoir, Iconic, has just been published.
Makeup artists are good making you flourish, and my good friend Richard Sharah was great about this. I’m in a dress I designed after a trip I took across America in 1974 in Volkswagen campers. It was gorgeous; and inspired my Cactus Cowboy collection. A wonderful period of my life.
I first started coloring my hair in 1973. When Vidal Sassoon brought out colored wigs I tried them, but they pinched my head. Instead I realized I could color it myself: it was green – like the color of dried grass – pink and blue. I only dyed it brown once but it lasted two weeks because I was so embarrassed by the experience. Pink doesn’t require too much maintenance, so that’s why it stayed that color.
My mother, Beatrice, did not dress like anyone else. She had a passion for style and once worked as a pattern cutter for the couture brand, House of Worth. She would pick me up from school dressed to the nines. I would say: “Please don’t look different from the other mothers.” She always did. Once she sprayed her hair silver and then got a lacquer to fix it. We were on the train and she kept saying: “My head is constantly throbbing.” It turns out that she had covered her head with fly spray.
She was a lecturer at Medway College of Art, so I could try on dramatic clothes there, but I wouldn’t dare wear them in front of the other kids at my school. I didn’t have many friends when I was young – I was a boring child; always hard at work. Everyone in our house was like that; always busy, in a hurry. We were not a family to relax.
Calling him Zandra was always embarrassing. Teachers thought it was a mistake in their program. They would say: “There is no such name!” However, I liked school. Even when I was at home I was always painting or illustrating something. While Mum was at her sewing machine, I would be upstairs designing clothes for my doll, Jacqueline. The first was a colorful dress, hand stitched with striped bias. It was important that Jacqueline was always well presented.
In the early 1960s, I studied at the Royal College of Art, and my lecturers encouraged me to try to sell my designs. The feedback I got from buyers was that my style was too bold compared to everything else at the time. I was making bright, colorful designs, an early print interpretation of pop art. I did not take the difficulties personally. My wonderful mother always told me I would do it.
The turning point in my life was when I went to America with my collection and showed it to [fashion editor] Diana Vreeland at American Vogue. she raved about it; the tide was turning in a new direction. After that, my whole life changed.
Much of the 1970s was spent in New York, promoting my designs. I didn’t have a social life in London – I was always in my studio – so it was completely new to be part of this wild social life. When I was that disciplined, I was at all-night raves or crazy discos. I’d probably go in at 1am, but that was still pretty late for me, especially when I was up early for work.
I had never heard of a Queen, but Freddie was very shy and beautiful; god is not like an unreachable rock. He told me he wanted to look like a showman
It was a great experience to be at the Factory. Andy Warhol would have his office, filled with unusual Karl Lagerfeld furniture, and poets and artists constantly milling around. I would wear very dramatic make-up and have streaked hair with feathers tied at the ends; a scarf around my head. It was around this time that Richard took me to his friend, interior designer Angelo Donghia’s studio. He saw me and said: “Well if you dress this weird, I’d love to see your work.” He bought my textile designs, which I wasn’t selling in the UK. It was like riding high on a wave.
I must have been in my mid-30s when Diana Ross threatened to push me under her garage door. I had been introduced to her before when I was in London, wearing my best clothes. A year later I was in LA, driving with a friend, when she said: “Look, that’s Diana Ross getting out of a car into her house. You know her! Go and say hello!” Diana took one look at this vision of a green-haired woman, like some kind of hippie, and said: “If you come one step closer I’ll close this door on you.” I rushed back into the car. Friends woke me up the next day to tell me that Diana realized it was me, found out where I was staying, and ran in the middle of the night saying that She wanted to come over for breakfast. She came and had a coffee and a snack. It was a very funny experience.
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My meeting with Freddie Mercury it was pretty amazing. It was 1974, and he and Brian May were to visit me in my studio. I had never heard of a Queen, but Freddie was very shy and beautiful; god is not like an unreachable rock. He told me he wanted to look like a showman, and I picked out a white pleated bridal top that I thought might suit him. It was made of heavy ivory silk and had huge butterfly sleeves. I went on to make a custom design of the top and wore it when the Queen performed later that year.
Although I have never been intimidated by any star, I had the terrible experience of dressing Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was like a kitten when you put the clothes on her, but when the men left the room she would say: “I hate this dress.” I met her many years later and asked if she had given all my dresses to her daughter and she said: “No, dear, I love them.” I thought: “What about what you put me through? You had my team in tears.” It was all very strange.
Right at the beginning of Covid, my great friend, the artist Andrew Logan was in my house. He said: “Zandy, you never do yoga. Why don’t you try?” We lay on the floor and he told me to breathe deeply. I did as he said, and I felt that my stomach was full, although I had not eaten all day. It turned out that my bile duct had grown 13.5cm and I was given six months to live.I told three people about my cancer, my main concern was that I wouldn’t be able to do all my work.
About nine months later, the growth disappeared. I still have treatment every few weeks; and I don’t look as well as I used to. Other than that, nothing has changed. I like to think that there is still something exotic about me, even though I don’t often wear my own dress designs. When I’m in the studio I’m in an old pair of trousers, an old T-shirt, maybe a pin. I don’t want distractions; to rip or get paint on something beautiful. I just want to get back to work.
