The art of Zandra Rhodes

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From Princess of Punk to Queen of Fashion, designer Zandra Rhodes has always cut a colourful cloth in the world of fashion, says Gilly Turney

When Zandra Rhodes burst on to the fashion scene in the 1960s her designs were considered so outrageous and whacky by the conservative British fashion trade that no one would back her. So she set up her own business making dresses from her own fabrics, with their highly original prints.  Newly graduated from the Royal College of Art and in her early 20s, it was a huge gamble.  But Rhodes has never been one to shy away from a challenge, and it paid off.

She took her collection to New York, where the legendary fashion editor, Diana Vreeland, featured her garments in American Vogue, putting her on the world stage, and the rest, as they say, is history.

A major exhibition now showing at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, ‘Zandra Rhodes: Unseen’, celebrates the designer's 50 years in the industry with a rare opportunity to see her spectacular textiles, ravishing dresses, and original never-before-seen-sketches.    

The exhibition is a double celebration as it also marks the 10th anniversary of the Museum that Rhodes founded and opened to the public in 2003, and although the Museum has showcased her work before, this latest exhibition focuses on her lesser-known creations, including her beaded hand-crafted 1980s dresses, and videos of her extraordinary catwalk shows.

With her bright pink hair, theatrical make-up, distinctive art jewellery and exuberant style of dressing, Rhodes has always been an extrovert, dramatic presence in the glamorous world of fashion.  Her designs are worn by the rich and famous, by royalty and rock stars, her clients as diverse as Diana, Princess of Wales, Jackie Onassis, Freddie Mercury of the rock group Queen, to Princess Anne, HRH Princess Michael of Kent, pop icon Deborah Harry, Bianca Jagger, socialite Paris Hilton, and the comedienne, Joan Rivers. Helen Mirren wore one of her dresses when she received a BAFTA for her performance in the stage play of The Queen earlier this year.

Born in Chatham, Kent, in 1940, Rhodes was introduced to the world of fashion by her mother, a fitter for the Paris fashion House of Worth and later a lecturer at Medway College of Art, where Rhodes first went to study printed textile design before graduating from the Royal College of Art.

She was possibly unique in that she trained as a textile designer who also designed fashion.  ‘I think I was the only one doing this at that time’, she said. But the established British fashion industry did not know what to make of her.  They considered her early textile designs too outrageous so she decided to make dresses from her own fabrics and pioneered the very special use of printed textiles as an intrinsic part of the garments she created.

Rhodes has never bowed to the constraints of fashion or real trends.  ‘I don't think I could have been the designer I am if I wasn't British’, she says. ‘My designs are very personal. People either love them or hate them but they are always Zandra Rhodes!’

Her textile designs come from what she sees around her, from nature, from her trips abroad to Egypt, or India.  She will fill copious notebooks with sketches wherever she is, to be translated at a later date into her designs.   The strength of her clothing is the relationship of the print to the garment, where she allows the shape of the dress to be formed by the textile.  It is a painstaking process: ‘It is very exciting to see what happens to pattern as it is worn around the body’, she explains.

It can get distorted and you have to think how to work it out. I sometimes walk around with the fabric pinned to my jeans, or whatever I am wearing, to see how it works on the body. Sometimes they just don't work at all!

Rhodes is recognized as one of Britain's best-loved designers (she was made a CBE in 1997). She was one of the new wave of British designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s. The exhibition is an up-close-and personal view of her archive, studio and the creative process. It charts her progress from those early days in New York, to her recognition in London when she was given her own area-within-a-store in Fortnum and Mason. In 1972 she was awarded Designer of the Year, then Royal Designer for Industry in 1974, followed in 1975 by the opening of her own shop, just off London's prestigious Bond Street, W1.

Then in the autumn of 1977, in tune with the Punk revolution, came her 'Conceptual Chic' collection, which rocked the establishment. With its torn, slashed, and safety-pinned dresses, the black and shocking pink sub-cultural styles delighted some, shocked many and ensured her fame as the ‘Princess of Punk’.  In reality, Rhodes was never a punk.  Whilst the collection was influenced by the punk movement it was also linked to her own art school training and the group of artists and designers she associated with.  It was, however, the first collection created by her that did not include a printed textile. The garments on display reveal the craftsmanship of her 'punk' designs, the rips and tears beautifully edged in diamante, satin, and tiny delicate pearls.

The 1980s garments on show reveal in close-up the intricate workmanship and exquisite hand-beaded details and finishes that were to become Rhodes’ trademark.  Many of these were made in India, where in 1984 she began working with artisans, producing fully beaded dresses for the first time. The complex designs were worked out on paper in the London studio, sent to India for beading and embroidery, then the beaded fabric was sent back to London for construction. 

She drew inspiration from the country and created entire collections around it. Her ‘India Revisited’ and the ‘Indian Saree’ shows, featuring her interpretation of traditional saris and the salwar kameez, were among her legendary fashion shows that were the highlights of London Fashion Week in the 1970s and ’80s.

The exhibition is vibrant, quirky, and fun, like its subject. It moves from beautiful hand-worked dresses, to fascinating previously unseen sketches and notebooks, to a bust of ‘his muse’ by her good friend, the artist Andrew Logan, to an enormous 10-foot-plus moving Raja Zandra sculpture of the designer, also by Logan.

It also shows her work for the opera, in which she has been involved since 2000, designing sets and costumes for both the San Diego Opera and Houston Grand Opera, including her triumphant Aida with its Egyptian-inspired designs, which she referenced from her sketch books and which showed at the English National Opera in 2007–8.  

Then there are her newest dress designs for 2013, The Sketchbook Collection of digitally printed dresses made from prints taken directly from her sketchbooks.  Sketching has been a part of her daily routine since she was a schoolgirl, and these digital prints are a new direction as her prints are usually painted and screen-printed by hand.

They show that 50 years on Zandra Rhodes is as much in fashion as she ever was.  Her vintage dresses are collector's items (designers Anna Sui and Tom Ford are fans) and the new digital print garments are those of the future. She is delighted that people love her designs so much: ‘I think the decorative arts are as valid as fine art. I save one of every single garment that I make.  I refuse to sell them – they are like my children!’