Zandra Rhodes

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1983.

Speaker 30:12

And the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

This week, our castaway is the fashion designer, Sandra Rhodes.

Presenter0:35

Sandra, I think we'll start with uh

Presenter0:38

Today, Miss Rhodes is wearing, and you'll help me and correct me if I go wrong.

Zandra Rhodes0:42

Okay.

Presenter0:42

Uh now from the top here, it's usually pink, but it's got deeper, hasn't it?

Zandra Rhodes0:47

Well, I I sort of had the tips painted black. I thought I ought to try and look different in New York last week, and I had all the tips painted black, so it's pale pink with black tips.

Presenter0:57

Right. And make up

Zandra Rhodes0:59

Make up well, I took my eyebrows off in nineteen seventy one and they've never grown back again, so I draw little lines on that look like fake eyebrows. I think they look exactly like eyebrows, but someone said I looked like something out of cats once.

Presenter1:10

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes1:12

M

Presenter1:12

And your dress lacy?

Zandra Rhodes1:13

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes1:14

It's um suede that's been printed in one of my designs and then little holes punched in between the pattern and little flowers made out of suede and then it's a sort of checked wool. It's one of my day dresses.

Presenter1:26

Yeah.

Presenter1:27

The colour rather Puritan style.

Zandra Rhodes1:29

Oh. I never think of myself as Puritan style, but I suppose if it's this it's a big diamond with my head sort of shaped in the middle.

Presenter1:32

Do I suppose

Zandra Rhodes1:37

And then sort of it's a loose smock type dress. And I've got grey boots with bits tied round them.

Presenter1:43

And accessories? You have no accessories. You're not wearing any jewelry.

Zandra Rhodes1:46

Don't bring it.

Zandra Rhodes1:47

Well, I had on originally a necklace, but I took it off so it didn't clatter as I fiddled with it while I was talking to you.

Presenter1:53

Very considerate. We appreciate that. Well, the whole it all adds up admirably. So now let's talk about music. What's your first record?

Zandra Rhodes2:01

My First Records Twelfth Street Rag

Presenter2:03

Yes?

Zandra Rhodes2:04

because I think it reminds me of my mother and when we first had a record player that played Seventy Eights as as it was then. And um it's a very cheery s I think I'd dance by myself on the desert island if I had this.

Presenter3:18

Pee Wee Hunt and his Orchestra, Twelfth Street Rag.

Presenter3:21

How important is music to you, Sandra? Do you listen to it a lot?

Zandra Rhodes3:25

I wish I listened to it more. It's nearly always associated with people that have moved into my life very closely that then put music on and very memorable occasions, you know, like one might be walking in the country and a music will come through your mind.

Zandra Rhodes3:40

With the risk of sounding uh sort of rather like a creep, I'm actually a Radio Four listener and I tend to I listen to all the talking. It's my talking newspaper and I work with that on as opposed to music.

Presenter3:52

You don't play records when you're at your drawing board.

Zandra Rhodes3:55

Never. Well, I mean, I'm always surrounded by people working for me. So in my factory they have um lightweight music on, and then in my studio where I'm designing with two others working with me, I as I say, I have news programmes on and with Radio Four.

Presenter4:09

Yeah.

Presenter4:11

Have you any musical skill? Do you sing or play an instrument?

Zandra Rhodes4:14

As a child I had sort of early lessons with playing the piano, but they never really advanced and I didn't take to it then because it was extra outside of school and I always found I was a very boring child and I always found that my schoolwork took up all the time and then I didn't have time for the extra things. I did have one funny experience when I got a tiny bit older. They didn't have enough pianos to go round so they had these cardboard things that looked like piano keyboards that we carried around that looked like we were playing the piano.

Zandra Rhodes4:42

But I as I say, I didn't learn past chopsticks.

Presenter4:46

You start your day very early, don't you?

Zandra Rhodes4:48

Yes, I try and be in my studio by seven thirty every morning.

Presenter4:52

and end it very late.

Zandra Rhodes4:54

I never manage to walk out of the factory until about um seven thirty, eight o'clock, and if I'm not particularly doing anything else I then sort of have something to eat and go back and work.

Speaker 25:05

Mm-hmm.

Zandra Rhodes5:06

I just find that to fit in designing into the day which gets more and more administrative, I haven't yet learnt to delegate all the different jobs.

Presenter5:16

Yeah.

Presenter5:18

So really you're doing three jobs. You're designing clothes, you're designing fabrics, and you're supervising the making of various

Zandra Rhodes5:28

I'm doing less and less supervision of making.

Presenter5:29

That's

Presenter5:31

Do you take Saturdays and Sundays off?

Zandra Rhodes5:33

No, I go into work for Saturdays and Sundays. If I'm here in London, I mean I'm more and more out of the country. I'd say about half a year.

Presenter5:35

It's a seven-day week.

Presenter5:42

Your second record, what's that?

Zandra Rhodes5:44

My second record is Sparky's Magic Piano. Again, it reminds me of my childhood and maybe it's because I can't play the piano and that wonderful I suppose really my first experience of the American voice, which I get very used to as I'm there about every three weeks now, but hearing this wonderful voice and and the mother not believing that he can play the piano.

Zandra Rhodes6:05

It would take me into sort of imaginary heights when I'm there.

Presenter6:09

Right. And we start with the piano talking for the first time.

Zandra Rhodes6:12

That's it, yes, when it surprises him.

Speaker 26:17

Oh, smart.

Speaker 26:20

Who's that? Who's calling me? It is I, your piano.

Speaker 26:28

My piano?

Speaker 26:30

But you're talking. Yes, I can talk and I can blame myself.

Speaker 26:39

You you can play yourself.

Presenter6:43

Sparkier's Magic Piano

Presenter6:45

Everybody's dream of They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but I started to play by magic.

Presenter6:51

Now let's go back to the beginning, Xandra. You were born in Kent.

Zandra Rhodes6:54

Yes, in Chatham, Kent.

Presenter6:56

Were you bright as a youngster? Did you do well at school?

Zandra Rhodes6:59

I am a firm believer that it's more hard work than it is brightness. I mean, I'm sure there were a lot of other people at school that were far brighter. I was just as I said, I I think I was a very boring child and I was always working.

Speaker 27:12

Linda

Zandra Rhodes7:13

And I wouldn't quite say I was a creep, but I would have been very annoyed if I hadn't been top.

Speaker 27:13

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes7:19

And so I spent my time working at school, and I love school.

Presenter7:19

Uh

Presenter7:23

Did you have brothers and sisters?

Zandra Rhodes7:24

One sister who's three years younger than I am.

Presenter7:27

Now your mother taught dressmaking, didn't she?

Zandra Rhodes7:29

My mother taught dressmaking at the local art college, and that was Medway College of Art.

Presenter7:34

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes7:35

And she was a very exotic lady. She looked like Helena Rubinstein and very great presence. I mean, I say she's really.

Zandra Rhodes7:43

The huge influence on my life, and um, I was very much in awe of her. I mean, it wasn't like some people talk about their mother as their best friend.

Presenter7:47

Man, it looks like

Presenter7:51

Andu went to Medway College of Art, where she was teaching.

Zandra Rhodes7:54

Yes. But I tried to pretend I didn't know her. I didn't want anyone to know that um I was related to the uh senior lecturer there because I wanted people to treat me just as one of them and I wanted to study on an equal basis and I thought no one knew. In fact, they all knew behind the scenes, but I thought they didn't.

Presenter8:15

And he moved on to the Royal College of Art. Was that a scholarship?

Zandra Rhodes8:18

Yes.

Presenter8:18

And at that time it was fabrics that interested you most.

Zandra Rhodes8:22

I was a textile designer, yes, and I was designing. At those times, I was very Victorian with my hair divided down the middle and sort of like.

Presenter8:22

I was a tech

Zandra Rhodes8:30

Jet lockets and a funny old mauve overall with ratty mauve lace at the bottom of it. I look very arty.

Zandra Rhodes8:38

And um

Zandra Rhodes8:39

I did furnishing fabrics, like great big sort of abstract paintings and things.

Presenter8:44

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes8:45

and my hands were always covered with dye.

Presenter8:47

Now what took you from the fabrics to the clothes?

Zandra Rhodes8:49

Somewhere around my second year at the Royal College, I started to become interested in the fact that fabrics become distorted when they're worn and smaller patterns and people hadn't been designing dress fabrics for a long while. It hadn't been a fashionable thing to do. You know, they'd just been a spate of roses and things. And it seemed like a wonderful thing to get involved with. So I started to design for dress textiles. And then I used to go to the fashion school and I met with Janie Ironside and she arranged for various fashion students to make up my clothes and they were used in the dress shows.

Presenter9:25

And you started a shop to sell them.

Zandra Rhodes9:27

Oh no, that came a lot later. A lot later. Um well first of all I left college about seventeen years ago.

Presenter9:29

Lot later.

Zandra Rhodes9:34

And at college, they introduced me to Poochie. He was my idol at that time, doing those wonderful prints. He just looked at my work and dismissed it and said I should design in black and white.

Presenter9:44

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes9:46

Then they took me to Manchester, being that I was supposedly the star pupil of that year, and Manchester just laughed and said that they couldn't possibly use any of the print designs I had. They'd never seen anything like it. They were sort of pop art things in those days.

Speaker 29:59

There's a

Zandra Rhodes10:00

Then I went directly to designers. I went to two fantastic designers called Fole and Tuffin, who have been a big influence on the Saint Laurent Empire, but of course struggled over here.

Zandra Rhodes10:11

and have now since they don't design anymore.

Zandra Rhodes10:14

and I did some prints for them, and they were making up things that I didn't I used more and more it was bargaining. I'd started to do prints with light bulbs and things like that on, and in the end they said, Well, where use your light bulb print if you do us two series of black and white polka dots and the compromises were heavy going.

Presenter10:30

Yeah.

Presenter10:32

How many

Zandra Rhodes10:33

So I came to the conclusion that I'd have to start designing dresses, so um I still didn't know how I was going to do that.

Zandra Rhodes10:41

And then while I was teaching, I met a girl called Sylvia Ayton, and we went into partnership for a short while that then ended up with a shop called the Fulham Row Clothes Shop.

Speaker 210:51

Uh

Presenter10:52

Mm-hmm.

Zandra Rhodes10:52

And that's when I started to be involved more directly with the public.

Presenter10:57

I think it's time we had your third record. What's that to be?

Zandra Rhodes11:00

Record number three is really to remind me of my days at college and

Zandra Rhodes11:05

I suppose a wonderful love affair, and it's called Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles.

Speaker 211:19

Let me take you down cause I'm going to strawberry field

Speaker 211:30

Nothing is real.

Speaker 211:34

Nothing to get hung up on

Speaker 211:38

Strawberry Feels Forever

Presenter11:42

Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles.

Presenter11:45

Your first visit to America was very important for you, wasn't it?

Zandra Rhodes11:49

Oh, yes. Um

Zandra Rhodes11:51

Well, my mother had died, and I got left a thousand pounds, and I thought, that's it, I'm not going to teach anymore. And the Fulham Road clothes shop had collapsed, and I was landed. I was the only one not offered a job, so I was landed there to try and work out how to pay back the debt gradually anyway. And I thought, well, everyone's always said I'm far too extreme, and I've always tried to tone myself down and make myself acceptable. I think I'm going to do exactly what I believe in. Then, if I fall flat on my face, maybe I'll either commit suicide or teach. So, two amazing Ukrainian model girls from America said to me, If you go to America, you'll make your fortune. And they said to me, You know, we know someone that will back you. You ring up and ring up America. I mean, the idea of even getting through to America, and I think you couldn't dial through in those days. That was something like what, 12 years ago, 68, 69. And so, I rang up this guy in America and I said, I've got a collection, will you back me? And he said, Bring it over. So, I said, All right, I hadn't got a collection, hadn't done anything.

Zandra Rhodes12:53

So I got two wonderful friends, a guy called Leslie Poole and someone else who'd been at college with me and they gave me a few basic lessons on pattern making and I hired a machinist and I put together a collection of dresses in two months going sort of in at five in the morning and working on the collection and a great friend of mine Janet Streetporter used to come round and fit the dresses in the evening for me.

Zandra Rhodes13:16

and um I took the collection to America.

Presenter13:18

How many dresses in the collection?

Zandra Rhodes13:20

The collection had about twelve things, maybe fifteen things in it.

Zandra Rhodes13:25

I went to English Vogue and got a letter of introduction to the High Priestess of Fashion, Dean of Reland, and Woman's Wear Daily had done an interview with me.

Zandra Rhodes13:35

And I just met an American called Richard Holley, who later designed my shop, who insisted that I should go to America and stay in his apartment there.

Zandra Rhodes13:45

And I mean, I just went to America and my letters of introduction all worked. You know, they opened the doors and Woman's Wear ran a double page spread on me and Dean of Reland raved about the dresses that I waved in front of her.

Speaker 213:52

Uh

Zandra Rhodes13:59

And I met an interior designer, Angelo Dongia, who said, Well, if you look as extraordinary as that, your designs must be too and he bought a collection of prints for the interiors. And um I suppose it all happened from there. I didn't get any backing, but I came back and fulfilled the orders and started to um

Zandra Rhodes14:19

I suppose make a name for myself.

Presenter14:21

It all happened. That was 1969. Yes, within a couple of months' hard work.

Zandra Rhodes14:21

That was nineteen sixty-nine.

Zandra Rhodes14:26

I think really it was probably just a culmination of different ideas, but maybe just when they're put together without too much compromising.

Zandra Rhodes14:34

But I still think there was an awful lot of luck in it.

Presenter14:36

That was your your first collection. Now, how many collections a year do you present? Two, is it? Spring and autumn?

Zandra Rhodes14:42

Um now I have to put out a spring collection which is shown in October of every year and uh

Zandra Rhodes14:50

Autumn winter collection which is shown in the spring, you know, in advance of that.

Speaker 214:54

Uh

Presenter14:54

Yes.

Zandra Rhodes14:55

Um I find that a terrible strain, always having to try and think of something new.

Presenter14:59

Anard is, I believe, um

Presenter15:01

A showing has to be a theatrical production, not just a few girls on a catwalk.

Zandra Rhodes15:06

In nineteen seventy two I did my first spectacular, and probably before a lot of the world's designers did, I did it at the Roundhouse.

Zandra Rhodes15:14

And I think that having been labelled as doing that sort of thing, people tend to expect it of you. So you get stuck with it, yes.

Presenter15:21

You're stuck with it.

Presenter15:24

Now each designer has his or her inspiration for each collection, but there does seem a certain amount of agreement among the top designers on basics, on the length of the skirt, whether ladies should have a bust or not next season. Is is there collusion?

Zandra Rhodes15:42

No, there's no I I think um there is such a thing as a feeling in the air, just like electricity was invented on either side of the Atlantic at about a parallel time. I think you can grasp things. I don't think there's any of the power left like when Dior said skirts would be long. I mean, I can make a certain statement. The thing about nowadays is people are free To pick and choose.

Speaker 216:05

Mm-hmm.

Zandra Rhodes16:05

What tends to happen is that I suppose I like to consider that here in England I'm producing say the equivalent of the Rolls-Royce of dresses so that just the same as someone will pick a Rolls-Royce or a Mercedes, people would decide they're going to pick a Zandra Rhodes as opposed to someone else's dress. And it's in America and Australia now, they're sort of like status symbols so that people would be recognised as wearing that particular kind of dress.

Presenter16:34

So you're the the trendsetter, so really you can't be hurt if you get it wrong.

Zandra Rhodes16:39

I wouldn't like to say that I was that powerful.

Zandra Rhodes16:43

I mean, I I just have to hope that enough inspiration comes along and you give yourself enough time. to think about it. You know, I like to try, if I can, to go on a trip and to draw and absorb what I see and buy and then come back to England and interpret the drawings and put those into the print so a theme will come along for me. I have a rule when I go away that I have to draw something every day.

Zandra Rhodes17:10

So for example, when I went round China or when I've been round Australia,

Zandra Rhodes17:15

I think, what have I seen today that I can draw?

Presenter17:17

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes17:17

You've got to pick up something and I have to come back with a sketchbook full of ideas, even if none of them are any use.

Presenter17:24

We've got to record number four. Watch that.

Zandra Rhodes17:26

Well, this links in very well with what we've just been talking about because

Zandra Rhodes17:30

I went to Australia the first time and kept seeing this wonderful postcard of this amazing lump that I was then told was Ayers Rock.

Zandra Rhodes17:39

So I then went back in nineteen seventy three and spent time drawing in the middle of the desert in Australia.

Zandra Rhodes17:46

And then I came back and did my show based on Ayers Rock, and we projected this wonderful rock from a slide, and then a girl had to walk through the image of the rock, and for this we used this record by The Pink Floyd.

Presenter17:59

And what's the track?

Zandra Rhodes18:00

It's called Us and Them and it's from The Dark Side of the Moon by The Pink Floyd.

Speaker 218:13

And then do

Speaker 218:22

And after all.

Speaker 218:25

We're only ordinary men.

Presenter18:36

Ass on them by The Pink Floyd.

Presenter18:39

You mentioned punk just now, Sandra. You pioneered punk fashion, didn't you?

Zandra Rhodes18:44

Well, I christened it conceptual chic of all things, which was really because I have a collection of amazing friends that always sit and talk to me when I'm going through the throes of breeding all these children called designs, and one of them's called Dougie Fields, an English painter.

Presenter18:49

Which was really

Zandra Rhodes19:02

And he he's very conceptual and so it was his influence that that helped me towards this. And it's really because I think that there are less and less resources in the world. And why should we always sew everything? Why can't it be pinned? And why can't a pin be as beautiful as a bead? I mean, it's all it it can be quite a theory of the mind, if you know what I mean.

Presenter19:25

We were not taking a chance in uh

Presenter19:27

Well, dyeing your hair pink and going to work in this rather outre exaggerated fashion.

Zandra Rhodes19:34

Well, my hair was already pink before I started to get to know any society people.

Presenter19:40

Uh

Zandra Rhodes19:40

I would add that, say, in America, I think people want me to be quite an exotic designer who's dressing them.

Zandra Rhodes19:47

Um was I taking a risk?

Zandra Rhodes19:50

I think my job is like a tightrope walker anyway. I mean I'm terrified that I'll never come up with another idea. That happens to me almost every day of my life. But if I on the other hand play it so safe, it's like rehashing a record again and again and again. No one's going to be interested either. So I have to take risks and sometimes I fall flat on my face. Sometimes people say, well, that was a valiant effort, even if you didn't win. So I know that historically

Presenter20:15

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes20:18

I will probably

Zandra Rhodes20:20

I suppose go down in history for maybe that as amongst some of the other pioneering things that I've done.

Presenter20:26

Now you said that some of these were fairly roughly put together. Could you charge top prices for these?

Zandra Rhodes20:32

I don't know that I actually said they were roughly put together.

Presenter20:34

Well, I I was paraphrasing your phrase.

Zandra Rhodes20:35

Paraphrasing your thread. If for example they were tears and safety pins, the safety pins were all beaded and took a long time to bead and the tears were all edged with wonderful machining. It's very difficult to cut a piece of fabric to look like a tear.

Presenter20:40

Yeah.

Presenter20:44

Okay,

Speaker 220:44

Technology.

Speaker 220:48

I want a piece of fabric to look like.

Presenter20:49

Uh

Zandra Rhodes20:51

But since then it's influenced a whole series of prints, so some of the wonderful crinolines that appear in my shop in Mayfair now, for example, have little beads on the end, and they're influenced by tears, but people who are buying them don't know that. They just think it's a pretty dress with an uneven edge.

Presenter21:08

Going back to to price, what is top price nowadays for a party dress?

Zandra Rhodes21:13

Well, uh when you're talking about, say, acrinoline that that takes, say, two weeks to make, you're talking in terms of something that is around, say, three thousand five hundred pounds, which is a lot of money.

Presenter21:25

It is a lot of money.

Zandra Rhodes21:25

And it's very terrifying to even say it out loud on the radio. But I would challenge someone.

Zandra Rhodes21:34

To make the same thing, and it will probably take them even longer. So, if they accounted for their time in doing it.

Zandra Rhodes21:41

They're not expensive, but that doesn't mean that I think idly about price.

Speaker 221:46

Yeah.

Zandra Rhodes21:46

I I I find it

Zandra Rhodes21:48

A terrifying thing in this day and age where one's thinking about these things, and I just thank God that I'm really lucky to be able to design.

Presenter21:58

What about the standards of haute couture? The workmanship is still there, the the beautiful stitching, the

Presenter22:06

is traditional in the Paris houses.

Zandra Rhodes22:08

I think that the work that comes out of my house, which is not a Paris house, I might add, but a lovely London house

Zandra Rhodes22:16

is, I feel, some of the best in the world, and I would challenge that someone could put a dress on inside out.

Zandra Rhodes22:24

And people would still know that it was a beautifully made dress, and we get dresses brought back to my shop in in London.

Zandra Rhodes22:32

And I do revamps on dresses that people bought in nineteen sixty nine that they still wear. So if you analyse that they buy a dress now and they're going to go on wearing it and hand it down, then they're buying an heirloom, and I feel that I'm creating works of art for people to wear.

Presenter22:49

Record number five we got to.

Zandra Rhodes22:51

As I explained right at the beginning when I was very honored that you asked me to do this, I think of records because of my shows. And this record says chiffon dresses to me because we used it for lots and lots of shows where all the chiffon dresses came floating on and in one show they had chiffon tied over their heads like masks and they threw flowers out into the audience and twirled around very majestically. And it's called Bacchianas Brasilieros by Villa Lobos.

Presenter24:21

The Villa Lobos Bacchianos Brasileieras number five for soprano and eight cellos and the singing lady with Maddie Mesplay.

Presenter24:31

Now, having set up as an internationally known and celebrated haute couture practitioner, I suppose at at that point you can cash in on the lower price market as well on the name.

Zandra Rhodes24:45

That's a difficult one. I think you could say that I play for that type of high stakes. And with the image that I've built up and with the help I might add of two fabulous partners, I mean I do get approached to do different things. I have done things like jeans and T-shirts and I would like to be able to produce less expensive things for the rest of the

Presenter25:00

So we have done

Presenter25:05

Yeah.

Presenter25:07

Well you do the pressure parted, do you not, for

Zandra Rhodes25:07

The bridge I thought.

Zandra Rhodes25:09

I do mainly lines for America and Japan. I mean, I've done bath mats in Japan and I've done bed linen in America.

Speaker 225:17

I

Zandra Rhodes25:20

And I've done a range of um lingerie in America and in fact I go to the Met sometimes in New York and there's ladies with the night dresses that I made that they wear as evening dresses. And I'm now doing a range of a sort of like uh sweat come sportswear for my own shop here in London now.

Presenter25:40

You have shops in the United States as well, is that right?

Zandra Rhodes25:43

Yes, I've now got a shop inside Henry Bendel and a shop in Houston in in Sackowicz and I have one in Japan now in Seibu.

Presenter25:50

Now in

Zandra Rhodes25:51

They're they're different ones with my name up, but they belong to the shops usually.

Presenter25:56

Now you were summoned to India recently. I mean this is um a symbol of the

Presenter26:02

Esteem in which your designing is held worldwide. Now what did India, the Indian fashion trade, think you could do for them, and what could you do for them?

Zandra Rhodes26:10

On a governmental level, Mrs Thatcher had got together with Mrs Gandhi, I believe, and they planned the Festival of India to be going ahead. And lower down in the echelons, they invited me, as the first designer since Pierre Cardin, who went in the sixties, to go round India, look at the resources and decide what I'd like to design for. Obviously with the idea of one, my name behind a lot of the Indian products would work and I could use the things in my collection and I could be inspired. I mean I got shown round printing factories and embroidery works. I mean it was it was an incredible adventure.

Zandra Rhodes26:47

To go around and see all those things and do all those things there.

Presenter26:51

And China what about China as a potential market?

Zandra Rhodes26:54

China I went to for a wonderful holiday, did lots of drawing. I went with a group of Americans as the first sort of group of Americans that went in after Carter had opened the whole thing up, and um I ended up sort of buying my chiffon and organza direct from China.

Zandra Rhodes27:13

I suddenly thought, Oh, what a good idea I'll see what I can buy while I'm here, you know, so that I could buy bulk fabric.

Zandra Rhodes27:19

from there because we do sell all those dresses in those sort of fabrics.

Presenter27:25

Now you're in the genes market. How can you make jeans individual?

Zandra Rhodes27:28

Whenever I get approached to do designs, I look at the product with the people that work with me.

Zandra Rhodes27:36

And I say, can I add anything to this particular product? If I can't, I don't do anything at all.

Zandra Rhodes27:43

And if I can, like for example, one of my symbols is a lily, and so I worked out how the lily could be embroidered in a very sort of with a special machine. And another thing, people associate beads with me, so we did diamante on the pockets. So whenever I get approached, I try and sum up what I can do to individualize the product. If I can't add to the product, we turn it down because I think that that's then cheating the public. On the other hand,

Zandra Rhodes28:12

I want to get to more of the public because like to admit how expensive the dresses are is as much pain because I can't reach as many people as I'd like to reach. I mean, I'm writing a book about my work at the moment, so at least people could do their own Sandra Roses.

Presenter28:27

You're a very busy lady, Zandra. Let's have record number six.

Zandra Rhodes28:31

Well, record number six is Ravel's Bolero, and I I first used it in New York to launch the range of lingerie that I did in New York, and then after that we did a show in London where we timed a whole show just to sort of be a very quick show and end as it sort of crescendoed to its end. And I think that if I was on the desert island I'd actually play that very loud and I'd career round the um

Zandra Rhodes28:58

island sort of singing and dancing by myself to it.

Presenter30:02

The closing passage of Ravel's Bolero, Jean Martinot and the Paris Orchestra.

Presenter30:08

Would you like to forecast, Sandra, where fashion is going, what's going to happen next?

Zandra Rhodes30:13

I don't know that I'd like to do that at all. That's a very catchy question. I can only talk about it always on a personal level in that we're getting more into doing sort of late afternoon wear and more dresses that can be worn by someone who's already got quite a few of my chiffon dresses in stock would also have other things that they can wear. And I'm now doing a range of cashmere sweaters and things like that. But it's very difficult. Like I had to do a lecture the other week on how I forecast colour and I was saying that I phone up Vogue and say what colour are you forecasting for next season? and hope I like the sound of it and then I sort of work on a few more. And it's always ri really

Zandra Rhodes30:54

One hates to say how hit and miss it is. You try and take a calculated risk and you do lots and lots of sketches and you I'm knee deep in paper, all this and you try and um put the hours of work in and think, Well, it's always paid off before. Some idea's going to come up. I'm going to know when I see it. But sometimes you don't know at all and you have to say, Well,

Zandra Rhodes31:13

I'll try that one, you know.

Presenter31:15

Are you tempted to move into the men's market?

Zandra Rhodes31:19

I have various boyfriends that have asked me either to design ties or shirts. With the right invitation, if someone thought that it's something I could add to, I know I could design for it. It's as if enough men would like me to design for them.

Presenter31:32

That's going to be very interesting.

Presenter31:35

Record number seven.

Zandra Rhodes31:37

Well record number seven I thought would be a nice lively one and really again takes me back to thinking of my sister and myself at home when we were younger, um just playing listening to this on the radio really, the rich Maharaja of Magadha which I'm sure a lot of people haven't heard of and really dates me.

Speaker 232:05

There's a rich Maharaja of Magador Who had ten thousand camels and maybe more. He had rubies and pearls and the loveliest girls. But he didn't know how to

Speaker 232:25

The wrong one

Presenter32:28

The Rich Maharaj of Mogador by the Squadronaires.

Presenter32:32

Now you are a very enterprising and self reliant person. How good would you be at looking after yourself?

Presenter32:38

On a desert island

Zandra Rhodes32:39

The thing I find so intriguing about thinking about this desert island is the one form of torture to me is to be alone. To me that is the ultimate form of torture. And I think I would go to seed. I think I would deteriorate because I'd have to find self-motivation if there was no one else there. I've always found competition helps.

Presenter32:58

Snow winner.

Zandra Rhodes33:02

from either friends who are talking about what they're doing, or as I'd have to be doing it for myself. Maybe I'd become terribly lazy. It's difficult to tell exactly how I'd react.

Presenter33:11

We two try to escape.

Zandra Rhodes33:13

I think I'd try to escape. Again, like I said, when I'm with someone I dare to do anything. When I'm by myself, I start getting scared. But then, I mean, the chips would be down and you'd be on your own and you'd really find out how you could live up to it.

Presenter33:24

Right.

Zandra Rhodes33:24

Right.

Presenter33:26

What's your last record?

Zandra Rhodes33:27

My last record is from Handel's Messiah, and I don't think it's because it's religious. I don't know if I'd turn religious on the desert island, but I think it would sort of feel you're in touch with something that will keep you going and give you hope.

Speaker 233:43

Yeah.

Speaker 233:48

I saw this game

Speaker 233:53

Son is giving

Speaker 233:55

Welcome to Matsum Chinese Welcome to

Speaker 234:09

Uh

Speaker 234:10

Yeah.

Speaker 234:23

My son is gay, my son is gay.

Speaker 234:27

Shall be upon the soul.

Speaker 234:39

And the same

Presenter34:43

Unto us a child is born from Handel's Messiah, a recording conducted by Colin Davis. If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've chosen, which would it be?

Zandra Rhodes34:53

I think it will be Ravel's Bolero because I think it's wonderful to be able to sort of gradually hum along to those sort of things. And I think you as I said, I'd career round the island and it would cheer me up.

Presenter35:04

Right. And you're allowed to take one luxury, any one object that would give you pleasure to have.

Zandra Rhodes35:10

I think really it would probably have to be my sketch book and lots of pens and pencils so that I could go on designing in the thought that it would be useful somewhere along the line. Right. I'd have the time, which I'm always complaining I haven't got.

Presenter35:26

And one book you already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Zandra Rhodes35:30

I take a complete misses Beaton.

Presenter35:33

This is Beaton, right?

Zandra Rhodes35:34

Um because I'd have to be able to find out how how how I think I could cook a lot of the things that would come along and try and uh work out what I could substitute and I wouldn't forget the things.

Presenter35:44

All right, a good modern edition of Mrs. Beaton.

Presenter35:47

And thank you, Xandra Rhodes, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Zandra Rhodes35:52

Thank you for asking me.

Presenter35:53

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 336:19

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.