Who dressed Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana: Extravagant "punk princess" Zandra Rhodes

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

She has pink hair and one eyebrow. She carries the title of "punk princess" and creates romantic dresses with psychedelic patterns. She wore Lady Diana and Freddie Mercury, clothes of her brand are already collectible, and there would be enough creative success for ten. Zandra Rhodes is a 70s fashion star who became a legend during her lifetime.

Born in 1940 in Kent, Rhodes sounds pretty boring. But to anyone who is in the slightest degree familiar with the world of modern fashion, Zandra Rhodes is known primarily as a style icon. Unchanging pink hair, crazy makeup, colorful accessories and strange color combinations in clothes … Zandra began working on her image at the age of nine.

Like Vivienne Westwood (they are often confused), her unusual appearance does not frighten her star clients at all. Jackie Kennedy and Lady Diana, both classics, turned to Rhodes for dress up for social events. For Lady Di Zandra created a delicate pink dress studded with pearls and rhinestones, in which the princess made a state visit to Japan. Each Rhodes dress is a story told by shape, color and decor, and this dress, delicate as sakura under dew drops, was no exception.

In the world of fashion, Zandra Rhodes is known as the creator of charming hippie-style dresses made of brightly colored chiffon, in the world of music - as the designer who created one of Freddie Mercury's concert outfits. Among her ardent fans are Uma Thurman, Kaylee Osborne, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Madonna, the Olsen sisters. Dresses from Zandra are collected by Tom Ford - of course, he does not wear, but admires and draws inspiration.

Zandra had her own fashion house … at twenty-eight years old. Her mother worked in the British branch of the Paris fashion house and became a real and only muse for her daughter. In addition, Zandra was educated in the field of textiles from the age of nineteen.

Rhodes was considered a true star at both Midway College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. In the latter, by the way, she was engaged in teaching, earning money to create her first collection.

The brand's success would have been impossible without its own talent, attention to detail, fantastic hard work, imagination and desire to create something fundamentally new. Rhodes was one of those who turned London into a fashion capital and became the most popular designer of the seventies.

All these years, Rhodes has adhered to the same principles in his work. Creating her fabulous dresses, Zandra does not start with a style, not with a form or an image - she starts with a print.

All the fantastic designs on the fabrics in her collections were created by herself, including by hand, using the traditional method of printing - here you can see the influence of the Indian culture so beloved by Zandra. This happened because Zandra was not satisfied with the fabrics offered by the British textile industry, and the factories did not undertake to make prints based on her drawings.

Speaking of India, Zandra presented her collection of sarees in Bombay, where she was highly praised by local critics and buyers.

Zandra prefers flying, light, amorphous fabrics - veil, chiffon and silk. She decorates dresses with scallops, flounces, gathers.

However, Rhodes and his passion for punk did not pass - one of the most "classic" in form collections shocked the public by the method of joining parts not with a traditional machine seam, but with pins. Feminist prints and dramatic colors have earned Rhodes the name "punk princess."

Rhodes also creates jewelry, wrapping paper, porcelain items, lithographs, costumes and theater decorations, and collaborates with the cosmetics company MAC, known for non-trivial shades and textures. Zandra is one of the few designers who does not want to give up working with fur, which she has been doing since the seventies.

Zandra calls her young self "boring," but Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol found her a pleasant companion. Despite the high cost of clothing, she had no end of clients from the bohemian world. Rhodes calls his most favorite work the concert costumes for Queen.

Zandra knew absolutely nothing about Queen - as, in principle, about many of her future customers from the world of music. Despite her extravagant image, in her youth, Zandra was fixated on work and was not particularly interested in the world around her.

When Freddie appeared at the doorstep of Zandra Rhodes' atelier, he saw several rails and heels of sewing machines - a modest studio without interior refinements, catchy advertisements or interesting design elements. Of the few sewn things, Mercury was not satisfied with anything, and he was about to leave when his gaze fell on an ivory cape shirt - it was the perfect stage costume. Unfortunately, after the performance, this thing disappeared without a trace, but for the film with Rami Malek, Zandra recreated it again.

Zandra rejects the notion of "good" and "bad" taste. The main thing is that she and her clients like her work.

Zandra fully accepts her age and is most afraid of turning into a "little gray-haired lady", losing her creative ardor and enthusiasm.

What about her weird image? Rhodes laughs about his experience of becoming a "normal person." Once she betrayed her extravagant style and … they stopped recognizing her - which means they stopped conducting conversations strategically important for work at parties! Zandra could not allow this, and now she herself does not remember what color her hair is by nature - perhaps it is really pink.

Zandra lives in a building part of which is occupied by the London Fashion and Textile Museum, another of her brainchildren. Her working day today lasts from four in the morning until midnight. She, in her own words, "get married at work." True, here she is disingenuous - in addition to work, she has another life partner, producer Salah Hassanein, but the couple adheres to the guest relationship format (this is probably the secret of the long life of their marriage).

She has a dream: to become a character in a film, because her life is a ready-made script.