- Zandra Rhodes
Zandra (Lindsey) Rhodes CBE (born 19 September 1940, Chatham, Kent) is a British fashion designer.
Zandra Rhodes was introduced to the world of fashion by her mother, who was a fitter in a Paris fashion house and a teacher at
Medway College of Art . Zandra studied first at Medway and then at theRoyal College of Art in London. Her major area of study was textile design.Her early textile fashion designs were considered too silly by the traditional British manufacturers, so in 1969, she established her own retail outlet in the fashionable
Fulham Road in West London. Zandra's own lifestyle has proved to be as dramatic, glamorous and extroverted as her designs. With her bright green hair (later changed to a pink and sometimes a red), theatrical makeup and art jewelry, she has stamped her identity on the international world of fashion.She was one of the new wave of British designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s. Her designs have always been clear, creative statements, dramatic but graceful, bold but feminine. Zandra's inspiration has always been from organic material and nature. Her innovative approach to the construction of garments can be seen in her use of reversed exposed seams and in her use of jeweled safety pins and tears during the punk era.
Zandra designed for
Diana, Princess of Wales , and continues to design for royalty and celebrities. She notably designed a lot of famous costumes forFreddie Mercury of Queen. She has a loyal, if small, following in the USA. Over the years, she has had many academic and professional honours bestowed upon her and was made a Commander of the British Empire by the Queen in 1997.She has made
San Diego her second home and it was theSan Diego Opera that commissioned her to design the costumes for her first opera,The Magic Flute in 2001. Zandra is the founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London which opened in May 2003.On
22 September 2006 , she appeared as herself on the long-runningBBC Radio 4 soap opera "The Archers ".Rhodes also appeared, as herself, in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous (Ab Fab) during the BBC show's second season.
Zandra was a Guest Judge for the first episode of the third season of
Project Catwalk (Season 3) .In December 2007, Zandra Rhodes hosted a dinner party at her penthouse, along with guests such as
Andrew Logan andMarios Schwab . The dinner party was filmed by a London-based photographer Ben Charles Edwards, entitled Eat Your Chiffon.Zandra continued her association with the San Diego Opera in 2008 when she designed the set and costumes for Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers).
References
* Morgan, Ann Lee (ed.) (1984) "Rhodes, Zandra (1940-)" "Contemporary Designers" First edition, Gale Research, Detroit;
* O'Hara, Georgina (1986) "Rhodes, Zandra (1940-)" "The Encyclopaedia of Fashion" Harry N. Abrams, New York;
* Parry, Melanie (ed.) (1997) "Rhodes, Zandra (1940-)" "Chambers Biographical Dictionary" Sixth edition, Larousse Kingfisher Chambers, New York;
* Crystal, David (ed.) (1998) "Rhodes, Zandra (1940-)" "The Cambridge Biographical Encyclopedia" Second edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England;
* San Diego Opera News Release: http://www.operaclick.com/comunicati/20080208pescatorisandiego.pdfExternal links
* [http://www.zandrarhodes.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0722549 IMDb]
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