Return of fashion’s magpie designer
Zandra Rhodes defined style in the 1970s and she’s as colourful as ever at age 76
Zandra Rhodes is off to a southwestern England festival, where the designer will be the main attraction of Zandra Land, the site of a talk, print master class and fashion show of her new collection for Matchesfashion.com, all staged in a facsimile of her flat.
The original sits atop the Fashion and Textile Museum that Rhodes calls “the rainbow penthouse” — after the colour spectrum that waves across its walls and floors. Her decorating philosophy is magpie chic, with sequins, mirrored mosaics, Z-shaped side tables, cacti and sparkling bric-abrac in abundance. Tying all the ebullience together is a colour: Zandra Pink, the nearly neon hue that’s been her hair colour since 1980. It’s instantly recognizable and more than a little uplifting.
“Colour makes me happy,” Rhodes says. “You can always paint it or change it if you decide it isn’t right.”
Rhodes designed some of the most energetic British fashion of the past 50 years, having opened her first shop in London in 1969. She took her collection to New York in 1970 and found fast support from U.S. Vogue editor Diana Vreeland (“an overwhelming, amazing lady”), who commissioned Richard Avedon to photograph actress Natalie Wood wearing one of Rhodes’s dresses. “When you look back, you say to yourself, ‘How did you dare to do something like that?’ ” Rhodes says of her singular debut. “But it worked out.”
In London, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury clomped across her studio in batwing stagewear and platform boots, and Rhodes took dresses to Kensington Palace for a “very shy and lovely” Diana, Princess of Wales.
The studio was a training ground for generations of British designers.
“I don’t think there’s anybody in any industry who Zandra hasn’t touched in some way,” says Grace Woodward, stylist and brand director of her archive. Rhodes recently wrapped her term as chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts — she relishes meeting the new generation. “Who was that boy we were talking to the other day?” she asks Woodward. “He comes up with some very original thoughts.”
As fashion’s mood has ventured away from minimalism, it’s turned back toward Rhodes. The renewed love affair started with Matches’ release of several reissued designs under the Zandra Rhodes Archive label in September 2016.
“There are so many women who are huge fans of her designs and wanted to invest in one of her dresses,” says Natalie Kingham, buying director at Matches Fashion.
Then Pierpaolo Piccioli, the Valentino designer, called asking Rhodes to create prints for his spring-summer 2017 collection. The parade of mostly pink looks came across as an homage to her. “You’ve got to say, ‘There but for the grace of God go I,’ and don’t let it go to your head,” Rhodes smiles. “It’s great that people want what I’m offering.”
Walking to her studio and print room (Rhodes produces all of her designs on-site), we pass an assistant applying that classic wiggle pattern to a motorcycle helmet for a forthcoming shoot. Rhodes turns her attention to the Port Eliot festival in the Cornwall, U.K., region, the latest stop in a victory lap that will culminate in her 50th year in business in 2019.
Asked if she sees the world in a different way, Rhodes pauses. “I can only contribute what’s me. And if it isn’t me, if I started to look like someone else, then people would walk by. I just have to hope that people go along with my way of thinking, that I have customers that come back, understanding that some will say, ‘No, I’m not in that mood anymore.’ ”
But what a mood to be in.