Fashion Neurosis with Zandra Rhodes

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1:31Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Sandra Rhodes. Hi there, I'm pleased to be here. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I chose one of my favourite dresses that I did for a lovely Spanish company called Celia B, which is just all my prints in different colours, so I'd look very colourful on your couch today. and I have it with an Andrew Logan heart brooch and my usual Indian silver necklace and lots of Andrew Logan rings and a bracelet but I won't clatter while I'm talking. What about these special plimsels that you're wearing with coloured flowers on?

2:18Did you make those as well during lockdown I did lessons on um for older people and one was painting painting your sneakers so that they'd liven your life up so that I I did sort of one hour painting lessons and these were the sneakers but I've sort of worn them to death they're looking a tiny bit tired oh they're so nice they're great I love that you've been a famous fashion designer for almost your entire life and you described your mother as your greatest influence setting you on your path by calling you Zandra which also set you apart from your peers and you said that she had a job doing pattern cutting for worth in Paris even though she wasn't professionally trained and where did this confidence come from?

3:15I think she was just this wonderful exotic person that decided she wanted to do something and then went ahead I mean she'd probably had basic lessons and then she just think of it in sort of like the middle of the 30s going to Paris and and getting a job in that house of worth and and then she'd say to the Patman Caller well show me how you want it done first because I want to do it the way you want it and not make any mistakes so she was very clever in the way that she could involve people and she was like that with her teaching in the college that I went to in Rochester Kent I mean it's so intrepid to do that I mean Worth was one of the biggest names in the fashion industry then and I mean the level of expertise and and to be able to just have this ability to absorb it and do that.

4:14I mean, so impressive. What great blood to be flowing in your veins. I just think how brave it was to think of someone in the 30s going to France and getting a job and doing something like that. I mean, it didn't run in her family. But, you know, I just think, and she did the most wonderful fashion drawings and lovely watercolors, and she's always doing things at home. So I know it was sort of like an influence that I took for granted, which is terrible, really. It's good to take some things for granted because they feel closer like that way. I suppose there's less kind of apprehension about going into it.

5:04Because you wrote that she wore green lizard platform sandals and had a Persian lamb coat and sprayed part of her hair silver. And I wondered why you found it easy to admire her radical style and that you were never embarrassed by it. because my mum dressed differently and I found it, I wasn't embarrassed, but I felt incredibly self-conscious at being the focus of being different. Well, funnily enough, when she'd come to school open days, I'd say, Mummy, please don't wear too exotic because you look different from all the other mothers, you know, with these platform shoes and everything. But now I think, what a wonderful example.

5:52She was always sort of wonderful. And the other thing about her was she taught dressmaking and people would really, you know, with kids that couldn't, that weren't very, very good at anything else, they could end up with a career, whereas they were considered hopeless in academics. And my mother took care of that with so many children that I've met or grownups who've said she meant so much to their lives. That's such a gift, isn't it? Incredible talent. Neither of my parents ever told me anything they wanted me to do. So you made your own way? Yeah, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. I always longed to be told what to do, but of course if anyone did, I reacted against it.

6:41And did you have a piece of clothing you were obsessed with as a child? Oh gosh, she used to make me quite wonderful things and she'd go to the market in Rochester and buy bits and pieces of fabric so I had this wonderful turquoise sort of like tiered skirt with all fish on it. I mean they were probably ends of things that no one else would buy and she used to find them in the market and they were always very colourful so I suppose that's why I became quite colourful. Did you have any kind of crushes on weird, kind of very conventional things? I find that when you grow up with someone who looks different, like my sister, her ambition was to have a brown crimpling trouser suit.

7:35And our mother wore these like gorgeous velvet caftans and things. but did you have any kind of desires for anything weirdly normal? Well, I was just this weirdly boring sort of academic student during my school days. I didn't mind wearing school uniform because it was an all-girls school, so it wasn't that we were trying to impress people. and I think I wore the same knotted tie for the whole time I was there, slid up and down. It was a, what was it called now? Chatham Technical School for Girls and it was at Fort Pitt which was a sort of like right on the top of a hill and Florence Nightingale had used some of the, it had been used in the Crimean War so it was probably very cold in winter but you didn't notice then in those days and because you also talked about a teacher Barbara at art school I think and who wore black Victorian dresses with ripped lace and and she told you to draw all the time and she said you can't rely on talent you have to work at it and you said drawing helps you remember things more than a photograph and do you find an idea embeds more if you're drawing it out well I still do drawing and I still find everything that I do when we do collections I would draw out the initial bit before we scanned it because now other people help me scan it and put it into into proportion and everything but I mean I always paint the whole thing out first of and I loved looking at things.

9:27I was always drawing flowers and trees and local churches even when I was at school and really enjoyed doing that. It's amazing to have that ability. It's actually quite rare among designers to draw. There's a few great people like Yves Saint Laurent, John Galliano, you and I can't think who else does really great drawings but it's such a... Molly Goddard actually. Karl Lagerfeld drew these things too. He drew really well didn't he? Yeah I wish I could. Vivian Westwood used to do great drawings as well. It's such a wonderful thing to watch and you started as a textile designer and became friends with Ozzy Clark who and I think he used some of your prints and I used to know Ozzy and he once said to me I can make a pair of shoes I can make a bra and I wondered were you influenced by him in any way or was he just one of you right at the beginning of my career he and Celia were great friends and we did it together with Alex who I was living with at that time we did a trip to Rome and everything but then at that time I was really just a textile designer but it was the fact that I couldn't sell my textiles because everyone said they were so extreme and I kept thinking but I know they could look all right on clothes and I got another designer friend who was who had been a librarian and then went into fashion to show me how to make patterns and And then I put a collection together and took it to America where they didn't know that I was a textile designer and took me at face value being a dress designer.

11:29Because you made this very interesting comment, which is ugliness accentuates beauty. And I wondered if you could give an example of that. Oh, gosh, this sounds so intellectual now and I don't remember being so intellectual. I mean you can do designs and you could do something that once was considered ugly and then by working at it it becomes beautiful or it becomes the next theme or it becomes the next idea that leads to something and you never know where the ideas are going to lead from it's like a strange adventure into design land. I thought it was such a good observation because I mean I suppose there are certain things that I know are ugly that I really love and I feel they enhance my look like certain types of shoes which are kind of on you know they're unelegant but they give me an elegance that comes out in a different place and I love that you you said about um ugliness can accentuate beauty yeah i mean our ideas of beauty are always changing so one time although i can't imagine i'm in a bright colored frock at the moment but i and i can't imagine myself being in um dull colors but i mean i might go through a period like that i'm not sure yet and you got your big break from diane of reeland who had your dresses photographed for american vogue and um you you describe her assigning you a chauffeur when she discovered you were taking your dresses on the subway and in a just a normal cab she said here's your chauffeur and that and that person drove you around new york for the rest of your visit i know it was like a fairy tale without having one's feet on the ground did she ever wear any of your dresses because she loved color as well didn't she she was always so wonderfully enthusiastic she was she was one of those people that you walked into the room and her character was so overwhelming that you forgot everything else and everything else disappeared and you did you were just overwhelmed by her amazing character the fact that she raved about what I'd brought and said it was a very new image and and she immediately got it photographed and phoned up the top boutique in New York and said you've got to take these clothes and then top society ladies that she said should be wearing my things I mean when I look back it's like a living fairy tale that I don't believe that happened it's so different now isn't it I mean none of those things happen there's no sort of personal endorsement really from anything or the enthusiasm and the support for an up-and-coming designer the way she got behind you and it was so exciting to read about in your your brilliant memoir iconic which I enjoyed so much oh good it's fantastic and you describe yourself as an introvert but you dress like people would imagine an extrovert would dress and I wondered when you started dyeing your hair and how people responded to you at first soon after the very taking my clothes to america i then um started to work with leonard the hairdresser and um at the time v del susun brought out green colored wigs and i wanted to wear a wig but it pinched my head you know so um i then went funnily enough i went to um v del susun they didn't know me you know it's I was very small fry and at time and asked my hair to be bleached and it was dark brown and they said oh we won't touch it and then I went to Leonard and that started a friendship that lasted oh years through all my shows and all the experiments of doing wonderful colored hair with Daniel coloring my hair and John Frieda working on my shows so we did lots of exotic experiments yeah and you talk a lot about leonard in in your book and i love the story that he'd seen this film called coiffure pour dam about a man who'd been a sheep shearer and then got into the hair business and become the darling of paris which i thought was just i love the idea that he'd watched that film and that had been his kind of catalyst for for becoming such a genius and all the brilliant people who came Trevor Sorby and John Frieda and um Daniel Galvin and I know they all they all worked on my shows right from the roundhouse show that often someone's put put up on the on the the the tv you can see it sometimes and with all and I used the Warhol girls all flew over for me like I had Donna and then I had Pat Cleveland and all these amazing, amazing girls who did my first show that I did at the Roundhouse.

17:06And Michael Chow worked up with me on the poster. And I had Tina Chow, who I introduced him to. So it was a fantastic period of my past. God, it must have been amazing. I mean, it's like, I mean, just hearing you describe that is like a dream a fashion dream come true with so much kind of wild energy and uh so chic and glamorous and everything and um because you also started shaving your eyebrows which is so radical and um has been you talk about not wanting to be anonymous and do you have a horror of being anonymous because you're a discreet person as well and an introvert and I love this this uh contrast that you're very visible and noticeable um I always believe I mean what I design I always imagine myself wearing you know I feel as a designer I mean I've met designers before who say oh I don't wear my clothes but then you think well what are you selling I'm selling a Xander Rhodes dream and hoping other people would like to be part of that dream really I suppose you know I and I love the fact that when you can take a plain textile and then you can print it or do all sorts of things to it and the the print will take over and make it another sort of experience and do you find that by wearing your clothes because i agree i if i didn't wear my clothes i'd feel like well there's no point being a designer because somehow putting them on even if it's too late to do things to adjust them i know what to do next and I know I have to feel a visceral connection to them.

19:12And do you find that when you're wearing them? Well, as a designer, if you wear them, you suddenly find out that the neckline's too low or the shoulders don't stay in position. And you think, well, that's got to be corrected. You know, there's nothing better than wearing it yourself and thinking, well, my God, it's not going to be, you know, you find out what's wrong with it soon. Yeah, I know. So you're really selling something that if you wear it, then you know you believe in it. Yeah, I completely agree. Support for this show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

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22:27And you were friends with the magnificent divine who you called Divvy and who John Waters described as looking like a cross between Godzilla and Elizabeth Taylor. It's amazing. And he'd come and stay with you and you said he dressed your Christmas tree. And was he interested in your work as well? Oh, if I put any caftans near him, he'd be in them instantly. but he was just a wonderful wonderful warm fabulous person I mean he came he came one Christmas and he'd sit in a chair because he'd be sitting in a big chair eating chocolates and he'd have a wand and he'd say he'd be telling us oh the tree needs more Christmas tree balls up there we'd be the ones running about putting the balls in position and then years later you know I'd see someone like I'm trying to think of the photographer in LA Greg Gorman he said oh I came to your house years ago for tea with David Bowie and I go well I wasn't there I'd leave for work I'd leave for work at 7 30 in the morning I didn't know what was going on and I hear there were wonderful tea parties that people would go to in your house did he like tea parties And I liked your description of him running up a huge tab in Fortnum and Mason's and then being barred for not paying his bill.

23:56Well, he had desires far beyond his pocket that he could afford so that they banned him from various places. And a lot of my friends all used to meet him, whether it was Fortnum's ice cream parlor or the chocolate division at Harrods. he went to all those places wow such a cool thing to have and he made a special thing that you still put on your christmas tree a goat i think you said he he was doing appearances in sweden and he bought one of the christmas animals that they make out of straw oh yeah i think has a special name but it always comes out at christmas and reminds me of him which is fabulous it's so adorable and your You've also been friends with the performance artist and jeweler Andrew Logan for a long time.

24:54Yes, and you're wearing his amazing creations today. And he founded the alternative Miss World, I think, in 1972. That's right, yes. I actually, funnily enough, I didn't know him then. It was through the painter Dougie Fields that I went to that actual show. And that was really the beginning of our friendship. And then after that, I've always made the women's half of his. He comes in as a half and half person. Oh, yeah. He's a man on one side and a woman on the other side. And I make the woman's side of the dresses for all the different ones that he's done. Oh, that's amazing. I didn't know that.

25:37Because I went to, I definitely went to one of them when I was a teenager. and I always remember there was that woman, Luciana Martinez, who would wear... She'd be his special secretary. Oh, right. And she'd be on the stage with him. And then, I mean, it's become a complete cult and the gold one was absolutely marvellous and that was an absolute dream of gold pleating that I made. And, you know, he just... And it's... that people go in for it and they can be men, women or machines. One year a machine won it. And then Russians all come over and love dressing up and looking amazing. So it's a performance like nothing else.

26:24And what kind of machine won it? I'm trying to remember the name of the... He was an artist who lived in somewhere like Norfolk and he made a machine that came on and moved around as a person. Oh, my God. Well, a semi-person. It didn't pretend to be a person, but that won that year. So fabulous. I always remember Luciana Martinez wore a dress which showed one of her boobs and she had this perfect breast which was completely still and never moved. And she went around a bit like, you know, totally composed with this bare breast. And somehow or other, it was so matter of fact that you just accepted it.

27:12Do you remember that? Definitely, definitely. And she was his secretary on the stage. It was quite wonderful. Yeah. And you said if you stick at fashion long enough, you'll fall out of fashion and you'll suddenly coincide with it again. and be popular and you've done so many things outside of fashion including creating the textile and fashion and textile museum which you bought the building and um and invented this forum for people to to see things and do you thrive on the spirit of and soul of fashion being visible to people? Well, I believe fashion is an art form as much as being a painter or being an industrial designer.

28:06They're art forms of things we create. And the one thing that mustn't destroy itself in the world at the moment are the wonderful art colleges that are in the UK. and, you know, I mean, I went to the Royal College of Art and I owe my career to my training there. And our art colleges were the best in the world and I do hope that we keep people coming to them. They seem like they're producing amazing talents and many of the houses in Europe are, you know, helmed by our art students from Royal College of Fashion. and St. Martin's. St. Martin's.

28:53We may not have industry, but we still have flair, which is worth everything, isn't it? Well, we've just got to keep that blossoming and have that. I mean, I do think the UK breed individuals. You know, if you've got to think of Alexander McQueen, you know, or Vivian. Yeah. They're wonderful individuals that came out of the, well, the vague arts school system in this country. Maybe sometimes I thought the lack of industry produced more individualistic geniuses for that very reason. because there was so little kind of industrial support that people become incredibly resourceful. And, you know, you make all your prints and have a print studio and literally you are hands-on.

29:59Do you think that's... I think there is that aspect. I do worry now that with the division from Europe, it's closed many doors for our youth to to go forward into different things you know it was I like the idea of the wonderful art colleges training people and then they go into Europe or into the states and then can come back do you know and they're going forward all the time it's hard times at the moment isn't it I think for all the art kind of you know art and fashion i feel very worried that um that our schools aren't teaching art enough they're going towards other subjects where you need the art and the other things including calling something like cookery and art where they learn to use their hands they're not just on a computer and and so terrible that they only with phones they've got to be able to express themselves.

31:05You know, even someone like David Hockney, who's just had this wonderful exhibition in Paris. I know he uses computers, but his artwork originally only came because he learned to use his hands and where they took him in his life. Yeah, I think there's something to do with the neural pathways that if you don't do something if an idea travels down your arm and into your hands and you manifest it physically it you're you're you learn how to make something is in like you described about your teacher saying you have to draw all the time that makes that happen. And if you don't learn that, it's like you break something in your system that there's no recognition of, that an idea actually comes not from a screen, but from your bloodstream almost.

32:14I know. I mean, it might be a shortcut to turn to something like computers, but I think you have to learn the use of your hands and everything like that and what your eyes see or it will go and we're passed into nothingness. Yeah, it's true. And to describe cooking as an art too, it's a really good way of linking everything because it is in the end to do with being a maker. And I find that fashion, I feel like fashion is my kitchen. It's if I can get something on a body, I can mess around with it a bit and make it work. But if it's on a screen, I don't know what to do. You know, it's just too distant, distant from my instinct.

33:06I do worry that we're going into a plane, but maybe that's my age and everything. because, I mean, I think there's nothing more exciting than actually playing with real fabric and designing a textile print. I used to do them big prints and put them on paper and then stand in front of the mirror and cut the hole for my arms and what it looked like and imagine would I wear it, which has always been my, you know, my reason for that. If I wouldn't wear it, then what am I selling? Yes, no, I agree. because someone has to wear it and if you wear it you can enroll people if they're kind of a bit nervous of the color or whatever then there you are embodying that and it's so um it's such a great advert and it's so infectious I mean I tend towards dark clothes.

34:10I wore a shirt with some yellow stars on to be spiritually aligned to you. I mean, I'm like a black lad in the distance, but it is, you know what you're talking about from experience. And that, I think that means a lot to people who are learning, even if they don't want to be emulate that. they understand what you mean when you're talking from from actual experience and I and you you've never been married but you've had big love affairs with some powerful men and you you never seem intimidated by men and including your father where when he chastised you when you were a child you responded something like well mommy pays for it so what's the problem that must have been awful for my father I think when I when I look back and it was only really on writing the book together with Ella Alexander who got all these stories out of me which I'd hidden away and never talked about before and thought about how awful it must have been you know because it was so interesting what you said about your father that he had this incredibly traumatic childhood and um and that you didn't know about it until later and it made you have some sort of understanding of of what he was like it really it was amazing because really it was Ella talking to my sister's granddaughter who'd been doing ancestry and all those things, finding out the real truth about the fact that his father had gone out to war or wherever.

36:10And then the lodger, his mother had an affair with the lodger and then she had an affair with another lodger and then was brutally murdered and it was in all the newspapers. And I think my father suffered from that for the whole of his life. And of course, Chatham was a small town there. Yeah, yeah. Did you get closer to him eventually? Or, I mean, your mother sounded so like she had sort of enough nurture for a thousand people. She was so inspiring. I think really my mother was the inspiring one. Yeah. and my father really didn't comment at all you know and to to people maybe your to the younger generation they've never watched Elf Garnet in those car those those um tv comedies but he was like Elf Garnet this very sort of and we didn't have people home because I wouldn't have wanted people to meet him and yet my sister who then had grandchildren he softened and was much different but my mother had then died and he married another lady who thought he was wonderful and it brought out different bits of his character god that's so interesting and did you get closer to him when he softened up I never really got he came he came with his he my mother died and then he um he was alone for about two or three years and then went to ballroom dancing classes and met a very nice lady and they got married and they lived together and um and they come I'd invite them to my dress shows but apart from that um I didn't I hardly ever I didn't go down to um Chatham where I came from originally yeah it was very moving that whole um story but also a great great to be a woman in the fashion world not afraid of men because there are a lot of men who are very keen to take the credit perhaps or just minimize one a bit and it doesn't sound like you had those experiences um gosh I don't know that's this is getting very deep um I suppose I it's just when you describe that I thought of the times where I've just acquiesced to suggestions from you know business men and thought why am I going along with this it just doesn't add up but I didn't have that confidence but it seems like you did have this confidence and it made you extremely successful I'll try to I mean I'd say that my relationships in the main usually collapsed because I was a workaholic and the and the work took the forefront to the relationship except when I then finally met the ultimate workaholic who didn't notice that I was because he was always working.

39:36Yeah. It was perfect. I know. It's great when someone comes along and just is your complement and you don't have to scale back or you can just thrive. I mean, I do think that seems to be very difficult for a lot of women because they usually have to bow down to what the man wants, whereas, you know, it's good if it's fairly equal and they've got their own work that they're getting on with and you've got your own work. How do you feel about the way men dress? If you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction? Oh, gosh, that's a difficult one. I mean, if they were dressed so extraordinarily, I suppose one might.

40:23I don't think it ever cropped up in any of my relationships because when you talked about your first relationship you both dressed up to the nines and I suppose was that quite a playful kind of collaborative thing or but you've never no one has ever worn something where you've just thought god do I have to think again about this person um I don't think so I'm trying to think very hard I mean um with with my first sort of Alex who I lived with first of all um you know was a definite character in his own it's his own right um I didn't I didn't really get involved in their wardrobe I don't think that's very magnanimous of you i love

41:21correcting people men no i i don't think gosh no i don't i i i suppose i don't mean i go around blind i mean i suppose they they looked all right their character was something probably i was found more intriguing have to think about that one I think it's a testament to your generous nature that it didn't even cross your mind and you've talked with a lot of fondness about receiving a damehood from the late Queen Elizabeth second and as you said before it's hard to stay visible in the fashion world and And is this feeling truly acknowledged having received this, this, it's not an award, what's it called?

42:16An honour. An honour. Yeah. It was, it's a great honour that I received the Damehood and it was wonderful going to Buckingham Palace to receive it and sort of line up there and feel that my work was appreciated and um and I think it's there's nothing I think it's quite wonderful I mean I've always been a royalist so it was great going to um Buckingham Palace to receive it and um my for my damehood I had a wonderful little tiny hat with a rhinestone egg on the top and my sister who looks like a wonderful county lady in her sort of like her straw hat. And when I came out, the lady next to my sister nudged her and said, would you wear something like that?

43:12And my sister said, no, but it's my sister. She said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And my sister said, people always say that, but don't worry. That's so nice. Gosh. And did you make something for Princess Diana? I made about five outfits for Princess Diana. She came into my, first of all, she came into my shop, which was in Grafton Street, which is just off of Bond Street and was very, very grand. I wasn't there because I used to be working at the factory and she came by with her friend and they came into the shop and there were all plainclothes policemen standing around trying to look invisible.

43:59And then later she came into my shop and ordered a, tried on an off-shoulder black dress that had all little pink pearls hanging from it. And I was then commissioned to make it in pink, which was the dress she wore when she announced she was pregnant in Japan. and it was quite wonderful doing dresses for her she loved to wear I mean she wore clothes so well and she had such a great figure and it seemed like it really you know the whole thing of as a designer you literally have someone's back and you took care of her and protected her through these beautiful dresses that you made for her did it feel a bit like that it felt like a great honor and seeing the dresses because there's nothing as a designer it's wonderful seeing your dresses actually being worn by someone and realizing people like them and wear them do you know what I mean yeah and and then when she did that amazing sale in uh um in in in America I went to that because there were four of mine in that sale and it was like the most amazing experience where the whole world world's eyes were on these dresses and they were fetching the most astronomical amazing prices like the whole room stopped breathing it was just the most incredible experience wow so you didn't get to buy them back oh I wouldn't have been over god what a wonderful experience that must have been and you're a very private person but at the end of your memoir you reveal that you've been diagnosed with cancer and you're so matter of fact and unsentimental about this too and you said i refuse to wallow in self-pity i've had a fabulous life and i wondered how do you pace yourself now as you're clear that there's a lot you still want to do and you're 83 is that really possible i'm 85 oh my god sandra you're just the dyed hair disguises you're just so youthful and your skin is so beautiful i i forgot what the question was because you paid me compliments well i've been waiting this whole time to shower you with compliments but um how do you pace yourself knowing you've got so much you still want to do you've had this diagnosis how do you kind of adjust or do you not well what happened first of all was yo andrew used to do just before lockdown um and everything was about to close andrew who did yoga classes, insisted that I try.

47:03He said, Sandra, you never do a yoga class, do it. And I breathed deeply when he said breathed deeply. And my stomach was full and I hadn't eaten. So I thought this is very funny. And for some reason, I then contacted my doctor and got myself x-rayed and found out that. And then there was the diagnosis. They said, you've got a growth in your by the side of your liver and you probably got six months what I don't understand is it made me feel determined that I had to put my house in order I had to make sure I got a will I had to make sure everything was was was all in in order yeah and it was then that I formed the Zandra Rose Foundation and found out that I had squirreled away over 6 ,000 of my dresses because unlike my lovely friend David Sassoon, I never sold the ones I liked best.