Dame Zandra Rhodes looks back on her six decades at the forefront of British style

Dame Zandra Rhodes has been a leading figure in British design for the past six decades – dressing everyone from Princess Diana to Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan.

Now she’s written a memoir – chronicling her extraordinary life and career.

Zandra Rhodes: In the book, I talk about a great big table that I made, and this is a great big grey table that I had. This is a fan that Karl Lagerfeld gave me. See, and he’s got his own signature there.

Ayshah Tull: We’re name dropping about 10 seconds in, I love this.

Zandra Rhodes: Oh 10 seconds in, yes.

Ayshah Tull: The Swinging 60s was a time that was really successful for you. Tell me a little bit about that time. What was it like?

Zandra Rhodes: It started off in miniskirts. I can’t imagine myself in a mini skirt now, walking along the King’s Road in my Mary Quant mini skirt. But then I left Royal College in the early 60s, and then it drifted into flower power and all the wonderful, which was just my time for prints. I even can’t believe some of the stories you think that happened to me. That’s amazing, you know?

Ayshah Tull: [Princess] Diana, of course, who you managed to dress, what was that experience like?

Zandra Rhodes: She came into my shop and chose a dress. But it was black, and it was off shoulder with little pearls on it, and she chose this in pale pink. So I’d have it made in my workroom in my funny little place in Bayswater where we printed it by hand. I’d then drive there in my funny old Mini to Kensington Palace with my passport, so they knew that I could be let in.

Ayshah Tull: But they let you in.

Zandra Rhodes: They had to let me in. And then you go there with the dress over your arm, and then I did a curtsy and then went in and there were all these wonderful mad toys. I said, ‘what’s that?’ And there was this Viking with all these horns. She said, ‘oh, it’s William’s favourite.’

Ayshah Tull: Those were a lot of highs. But there’s also been some really difficult times, too. Your mother died when you were in your 20s. Your partner died in 2019. How do you process that grief into your work?

Zandra Rhodes: My mother has been a guiding force. She came to school open days and she was in high, wonderful lizard skin platforms and wonderful exotic hat. And she’d look different from all the other mothers. And I’d say, ‘mummy please don’t be different from all the other mothers.’ When they passed, their strength went into me.

Ayshah Tull: At the beginning of lockdown, you spoke about a moment where you were in a yoga studio and you realised that something wasn’t quite right, and that was the beginnings of your diagnosis of cancer. Can you just tell me about what that moment was like and what that was like for you?

Zandra Rhodes: I had a 13.5cm growth in my bile duct. And, they said, ‘well, you probably got six months to live’. I don’t understand why it didn’t make me go into that sort of panic. I thought, don’t tell anyone because I want to still be working. And then after about maybe a year of going in for treatment, they said it shrunk to nothing. So I’m still here, which is wonderful, and being able to do lots of work.

Ayshah Tull: Do you think that work kind of defines you?

Zandra Rhodes: Yes, I think work defines me. Whenever I’ve been depressed, always turned to my work, which would somehow cover it over.

Ayshah Tull: We’ve actually taken time out of your day, of your work today. I feel quite guilty that we’ve done that.

Zandra Rhodes: Oh, don’t feel guilty. I’m having a lovely time.