'I do write in and say they should have more about farming': Zandra Rhodes on The Archers, getting arrested and making clothes for Freddie Mercury
Lotte Brundle meets the 85-year-old fashion designer in her vibrant apartment above the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.
There are three Dame Zandra Rhodes’s in her central London apartment. The real one has her trademark pink hair, but it’s shorter now, cropped just under her ears. Her eyeshadow is electric blue and goes up to her eyebrows, which have been drawn on in a thin line. On the front of her jumper, which has rainbow sleeves (and which she designed), is a large Andrew Logan brooch: a mosaic of a woman’s face, made up of pink, red and grey shards of glass. This matches the (also large) mosaic flowers which dangle from each earlobe, and doesn’t match at all her socks which have smiley hearts on them and which sit inside a pair of bright orange trainers.
The other two Zandras are just as fabulous, but made of cardboard. ‘Well, I was dressed up and had my hair done by a hairdresser, and proper makeup, so I always look all right for those ones you see. So they stay there,’ she says, matter-of-factly. She has a remarkable youthfulness about her, despite her 85 years of age. Perhaps this is in part to do with her living situation (she has a lodger — a young fashion journalist).
Freddie Mercury performing onstage in a Zandra Rhodes-designed costume in 1974.
The fashion and textiles designer needs no introduction, but I will write one all the same. She was born in Chatham, Kent, in 1940. Her mother was a fitter at The House of Worth in Paris and later an art professor — and one of Zandra’s biggest inspirations. Her father was a lorry driver. Zandra studied printed textile design at Medway College of Art before going on to further study at the Royal College of Art. She initially struggled to find work because her designs were deemed too ‘outrageous’ by many in the industry, so she set up Fulham Road Clothes Shop with the designer Sylvia Ayton in 1968. Eventually, the pair parted ways and Zandra released a solo collection, which was selected to feature Vogue by Marit Allen. Zandra has designed clothes for Diana, Princess of Wales, Brian May and Freddie Mercury, who she remembers as being ‘a wonderful, shy person’. She is still designing and her dream is to design something for Beyoncé: ‘I think it would be quite a fabulous experience.’
Zandra photographed hard at work in her studio in 1985.
She founded the Fashion and Textile Museum in London in 2003 and lives in an apartment above the colourful Bermondsey building. Her most impressive accolade may be that she has appeared as herself on both The Archers (‘I do write in occasionally and say that I think they should have more about farming’) and in Absolutely Fabulous. She has also been arrested, once, for growing cannabis in 1986. ‘I was taken away in a Black Maria. It wasn't very funny, really,’ she says of the experience. ‘I don’t think I’ve smoked since.’
The former president of Warner Brothers, Salah Hassanein, was her long-standing partner up until his death in 2019, aged 98. ‘I’ve got the memories of our relationship and I’ve got wonderful friends,’ she says.
A new exhibition of her work, Zandra Rhodes: A Life in Print, is on until May 10 at The Holburne in Bath. She will be in conversation at The Forum, also in Bath, on March 18.
Zandra was photographed for the Country Life Frontispiece page by Clara Molden — and starred in the February 11, 2026, issue.
Your aesthetic hero
I suppose, my mother. She was always the one who inspired me to do things and feel that the sky was the limit.
I used to say [about her dress sense]: ‘You look different from all the other mothers,’ and she was very exotic in lovely platform lizard shoes. I thought all the other mothers were old, but they weren't really — they just looked old.
She always wore lots of makeup. I suppose, really, I'm just sort of her extension, by accident. She just looked amazing.
An exhibition that has really impressed you
Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London that was downstairs [at the Fashion and Textile Museum]. It was a fantastic exhibition, and they got so many fabulous things together. It really was an extraordinary club scene in the 1980s, and they captured it so incredibly.
That last thing of note that you bought yourself
My Adel Rootstein mannequins. They’re now amazing collector's items, and they look perfect showing my designs.
Your favourite painting
This one by Duggie Fields. That was the first painting I ever collected, and he had to sue me because I only had enough for the deposit — but I knew I had to have that painting. That’s my favourite one that I own. I paid him in the end, but in instalments. He came round with a lawyer to sue me, but then he was so impressed with how I had it in my room with curtains on either side that he became one of my closest friends. I still don’t think people treasure his paintings enough.
A possession you’d never sell
Probably my first collection.
A book that you found inspiring
Well, I don't read enough. Believe it or not. I like A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I think there are always new aspects to it that you don't think of, and he lived locally [in Rochester, Kent] a lot of the time.
The music that you work to
Oh god, you’ve got the wrong person. It’s Radio 4 for me. Compulsory listening in our studio, and when I go out they turn it down.
The last podcast you listened to
I listened to Fashion Neurosis because I was on it, with Bella Freud, but I basically only listen to Radio 4. I think if they're putting me on podcasts then I have a listen beforehand, to prepare.
The person that would play you in a film of your life
Helena Bonham Carter would be quite nice.
What you'd take with you to a desert island
Zandra pattern-cutting in her studio in 1960.
My sketchbook. Might as well keep drawing. Keep me busy.
The thing that gets you up in the morning
Probably just continuing to work and designing.
The items you collect
I have a large collection of stones, and I’ve got an equally large collection of Andrew Logan jewellery that I pin up on a wall.
A hotel you could go back and back to
Il San Pietro in Positano, where I first stayed with my boyfriend, and which is that one with all the glass walls that look out onto the sea — very romantic.
I did also stay in a shepherd's hut in Cornwall. That was very nice.
The most memorable meal you’ve ever had
Zandra and French-born American fashion editor Diana Vreeland (1903-1989) pose together at the annual Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (better known as the Met Gala) in New York, in 1982.
It was around this very table with Diana Vreeland, Larry Hagman and Andrew Logan. A total mix. It was very strange.
The best present you’ve ever received
My Issey Miyake bust. He gave me a signed bust. Kerry Taylor sold hers for quite a few thousand pounds, I think. It used to fit me.
Zandra Rhodes: A Life in Print, is on until May 10 at The Holburne in Bath. Zandra Rhodes in conversation at The Forum will be on March 18. Tickets are available now.
