Dame Zandra’s knitting cir cle
by Katy Bevan
The eminent textile designer Zandra Rhodes has dressed Diana, Princess of Wales, Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Helen Mirren and Freddie Mercury, and now she has created something especially for Rowan.
I met Zandra Rhodes at her busy studio. I arrived at nine and already the studio was full of people who had been there for two hours, plus I discovered they have a café that does great coffee. I needn’t have worried about meeting such a grande dame of fashion. Zandra is disarmingly friendly in her working uniform of pink hair with boiler suit to match and over-sized jewellery. Now a real Dame, she has been honoured in the Queen’s birthday list.
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The studio and her penthouse flat are in the same building as the Fashion and Textiles Museum that she founded in Bermondsey Street in 2003. The colourful yellow and pink building announces itself from some distance. Designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, it’s reminiscent of Frida Kahlo’s house, or photos I’ve seen of it. The inside of the studio is not any quieter in terms of colour and pattern. The walls are covered in tests for prints in paper — the technique that she still uses is to print onto paper and hold it up to the
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body before trying it out on fabric. The rest of the space is filled with rolls of fabric, piles of books, photos and bottles of ink and dyes.
Zandra says she remembers being taught to knit by her grandmother and making some babies boottees, though she wasn’t sure what baby they were for. Her grandmother took over for the tricky part of turning the heel. Her knitwear ranges throughout the 70s and 80s necessitated a whole knitwear department. Her jumpers were
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01. Knitted Circle Felt Coat, British Vogue, David Bailey 1969. 02. Knitted Circle Chiffon Dresses, British Vogue, David Bailey 1969. 03 A Dame at last: Zandra Rhodes received a CBE in 1997 and was made a Dame in 2014. Here she is outside Buckingham Palace after meeting the Princess Royal, February 2015. Photo: Joan A. Quinn.
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