Zandra Rhodes

Dame Zandra Lindsey Rhodes

Sitter in 13 portraits
Fashion designer Rhodes, whose mother was a fitter in a Paris fashion house, was born in Kent. She trained at Medway College of Art (1959-61), and the Royal College of Art (1961-64), where she subsequently taught. In 1964 she became design partner in the Fulham Road Clothes Shop, and set up her print factory and studio the following year, producing dresses using her own prints. In the 1970s Rhodes designed clothes for royalty and the rock band Queen. From 1987 her clothes were influenced by, and made from the Indian sari. She is known as an innovator in the use of various fabrics including jersey, made up into garments with 'lettuce' edges and seams on the outside. She set up her Fashion Museum in Bermondsey in 2003.