Dame Zandra Rhodes

Dame Zandra Rhodes, the iconic British fashion and textiles designer, is our guest today. In this brilliant conversation, recorded at Zandra's beautiful penthouse apartment in Bermondsey, Zandra tells Gyles about her childhood, which was hugely influenced by her "exotic" and extremely stylish mother, who was always well dressed and was ambitious for her daughter. She talks about her father, who was a lorry driver who adored his wife but whose childhood was marred by tragedy. Zandra talks about her early love of dressing up, and about her memories of the war, and of going out blackberrying in the Kent countryside. She talks about starting out, about her fierce work ethic and the people who gave her breaks early on in the Swinging Sixties. Zandra tells Gyles about meeting Diana Vreeland in New York, about dressing Princess Diana and Freddy Mercury. This is a charming hour with one of the most distinctive visionaries of British style. Our huge thanks to Zandra for having us at her place that day, and for her warmth, talent and wonderful stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Hello. Put the rest of the world on hold. Forget all the horror. Forget the bad news. Forget everything and just welcome for an hour or so to the world of Rosebud. It's wonderful that you're here. Thanks for being here. I'm Giles Brandreth and here's another very special episode. Cue the music.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Hello, this is Gyles Brandreth and it's time for another episode of Rosebud. I'm talking to somebody I've known quite a while. I admire her hugely. She is, I think we can say this fairly reasonably, it's a word I hate using because it's so overused, but I think she is an iconic figure. When I tell you that she is a fashion designer and she has pink hair, you'll know, oh, it's going to be Zandra Rhodes. And it is. It's Dame Zandra Rhodes. She has just celebrated her 86th birthday, but well, to me, she feels younger than springtime. She's known everybody, dressed everybody, I mean, literally, everybody from Diana, Princess of Wales to Freddy Mercury.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  And she's somebody whose own story is remarkable, unusual. Her beginnings, her life in the 50s, 60s, 70s. The names she's got to drop are amazing. I went to meet her at her incredible penthouse flat, which is above the Fashion and Textile Museum in London that she founded back in 2003. Her home is extraordinary. Her taste is both outrageous and yet it works. So for an episode that's full of ambition, vision, determination and pink hair, I give you Dame Zandra Rhodes on Rosebud. Cue the music.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  Zandra, before we begin, we're in this wonderful room. What is this room? Where are we?

• 4:19Speaker 03

  This is my rainbow penthouse, which is on the top of the Fashion and Textile Museum here, near, um, near the Shard in Bermondsey.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  In London?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  In London.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Have you always been a London person?

• 4:34Speaker 03

  I've been, uh, I moved to London when I got into the Royal College in 1960 and I've lived in London ever since.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  No, I just, you could have been in New York or Rio or Paris.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Yes, I could have been, but I'm here in London.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  And you live here as well?

• 4:51Speaker 03

  I, this is actually my penthouse, which I use for having dinners around the round table or for meetings like we are now. And then two floors below is my studio and my print room.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  My company, which I'm still in every day.

• 5:07Speaker 02

  Well, and I love having your company now. And this is Rosebud and we always begin with the same initial question. And that is, let me see if I've got the right person. Zandra Lindsay Rhodes?

• 5:19Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Born 19th September, 1940?

• 5:23Speaker 03

  That's it, yes.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  Zandra, is that the baptismal name, the original name?

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Yes, my mother was going to call me Zandra with an X. And my grandmother said, well, no one will know how to pronounce it. So that's how I got to be Zandra.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  And where did you get the name from?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  I don't know. Maybe it was Alexander the Great, it could be. But it was definitely a wonderful, unusual name. And when I was at school, it was always embarrassing because the teacher would make you stand up alphabetically and say your name. And I'd go, Zandra Rhodes. And she'd already written Sandra and then you'd say with a Z and she'd have to either rub it out because they didn't have white out in those days.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  You know the Latin tag, nomens est omen?

• 6:06Speaker 03

  No, I don't.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  The name is all. The name is everything.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Oh, well, I like that. I remember that.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  But, but also often people like you who are unusual have been blessed with having an unusual name. So were you from the get-go conscious, I'm Zandra, that's special?

• 6:23Speaker 03

  I suppose it, yeah, I suppose subconsciously. I mean, it was pointed out once I stood up at school and then they always got it wrong, you know, when they did the register at the beginning of the year.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  And the Lindsay?

• 6:37Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know where she chose that from, but.

• 6:41Speaker 02

  You had a name all your life. You have no idea, you're not, not some auntie, a granny?

• 6:46Speaker 03

  No, I didn't have, no.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  A family name?

• 6:48Speaker 03

  My grandmother was called, um, actually, what was my grandmother's name? It was Beatrice, which was wonderful. I'm trying to think what my grandmother's name was. It wasn't Beatrice. No, it shows you what my memory is like now, doesn't it?

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Well, this bodes a bit, it's a bit worrying given we're going on a trip down memory lane.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  But let me take you back to your first memory because our first question is always, precisely, what is your first memory in your head? Not from a picture you've seen, but in your mind's eye.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  I think being in a pram when it had been raining and smashing on the water that was, that would gather in the plastic bit.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  And where would this pram have been?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  We lived in Chatham, Kent. And in fact, um, I, I was born during an air raid and my mother had, when my father had to go down the hill to the hospital and she lost one of her shoes on the way. And it was pouring with rain and there were probably doodlebugs going over the top.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  So she raced down with your father, they raced down together to the hospital?

• 7:56Speaker 03

  To the hospital.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Doodlebugs over, shoe being lost?

• 7:59Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Uh, oh, we've got to get there, the rain is sleeting down.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  She gets in.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Very glamorous, isn't it?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, gets in and you are born.

• 8:07Speaker 03

  I was born, that's it.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  Are you the firstborn of their children?

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, I'm the firstborn.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Two of us.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Who are your parents? Give me your mother first.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Um, Beatrice Ellen Twig.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  That was her original name, Twig with two G's. And my father was Albert James Rhodes.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Very good. Good names, strong names.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  Strong, yes.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  What was your mother like?

• 8:33Speaker 03

  Extremely exotic and as a child, I used to feel, um, you know, when she came to a school open day, I thought she was probably far younger than all the other mothers. She'd have high-heeled green lizard shoes on and beautiful makeup with red lips and her hair cut in a swirl that she sprayed silver and looked very exotic. And I say, please, mommy, don't come in looking so different from all the other mothers.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  But she did.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  But she did and she looked wonderful.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  And how did she meet your father and who was he?

• 9:07Speaker 03

  She met my father when, um, in ballroom dancing. And he was very handsome. He looked like Errol Flynn. And they were at one point Kent champions. And of course, my mother could make wonderful dresses, ball gowns with lots of sequins, which in those days she would have sewn on all by herself. So she was, she was a very exotic, wonderful woman. I think that my father just fell in love with her like that.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  But he was good-looking. So if he looked like Errol Flynn, did he behave like Errol Flynn?

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Um, well, they had a very strange relationship in the sense that probably, apart from the fact he looked and he danced well, of course.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  My mother, when he proposed to my mother, my grandfather wouldn't let her marry then, because he thought she was sort of below, because he was, in fact, he was a lorry driver.

• 10:08Speaker 02

  And her father felt that wasn't good enough.

• 10:10Speaker 03

  Her father felt that wasn't right, and she didn't, and she didn't marry till after he died.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh. So they were wanting to be married in the nineteen thirties?

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Um, they would have probably, yes, wanting to be married in the nineteen thirties. And I'm not sure of the actual date, but they probably got married in late thirties.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Well, you were born in September nineteen forty, they could well be married a year before. That's often what happened. So I see them on the dance floor, she with her sequined skirt, him looking extremely dashing. Did he have the Errol Flynn moustache?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Yes, he had an Errol Flynn moustache. So he did look very handsome.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Ah, and did he do war service?

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, he was in Egypt during the war, just as an ordinary soldier, yes.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  Well, don't dismiss him as an ordinary soldier. We're jolly grateful that he was there doing his thing for us. So what were they like together? What was their marriage like, do you think, from where you were?

• 11:07Speaker 03

  Oh, they were totally unsuitable, really and truly. But it was that period of the war, of the, in that period of time, when people would have stayed together anyway.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  So in fact, your grandfather was probably right to say, don't do this.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  But on the other hand, it's formed me. So I think one just has to look at it in that context.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  And when you say they weren't right for each other, why weren't they right for each other?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  Well, my mother was an extremely exotic woman that he, he in a way looked up to. And then she could, she could do all these exotic things, which whilst he felt proud of her, he wasn't really able to step out of that level in a way. If you want to picture it really, our family was a bit like Elf Garnet in the, in the comedy shows.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yes, I remember that.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Where he's talking with his mouth full and then, children, children are horrible snobs. I think they are anyway, and I think probably I was, you know, you. My father would look all right if they were going to something, but we came from a home where people didn't, they weren't invited back to dinner like we would these days.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  So your mother felt that she was a cut above? Well, she was different.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  She was different. I don't mean she felt she was a cut above, but she was obviously the money earner. Not a lot, but she taught in the art college and she sat and made wedding dresses at home, which if my sister and I were good, we could sit and watch her do the fitting if we didn't quarrel with each other.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  And he continued, I mean, he looked very elegant on the dance floor, but by day, he was a lorry driver.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yes, and he'd cycle to the dockyard and he'd be there all day. And then he was always, it was very funny because, you know, in a way, I can see how he really had his balls cut off, as you'd say, because, you know, I'd come home, my mother would be teaching and he'd come home from work and I'd walk back to home with my girlfriend Gillian. And I say, can Gillian come to tea? And she'd go, no, she can't, she came last week. You know, and we could answer and say, well, mommy pays for it, which is very.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  You did dance like that, did you?

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Yes, I've got the backhander for saying that, but.

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Well, maybe you deserved it.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  So what's your best memory of him, of your dad? Did you call him dad?

• 13:42Speaker 03

  Daddy.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Daddy.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Called him daddy. Oh, well, I mean, we used to have nice drives into the country and then we, and he also loved cycling. He'd go cycling and doing hill climbs and things and belonged to a cycling club. So we'd go out, we'd go out in our little Morris eight or whatever and see him driving, doing that in the, in the hill, and then we'd be collecting blackberries. So it was very nice, sort of countryside, semi-country side in Chatham in those days.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Can you remember an intimate, personal conversation with him ever?

• 14:20Speaker 03

  No, no. I mean, when I think about it now, particularly having done a book where I've been questioned about it, because I think I shut it out all my life, whereas my sister, who's three years younger and has four children, they had a grandfather. So they would go and, you know what I mean, they'd go and see him because of the children. Whereas I went to college and wasn't really associated that much. And my, and, and then my mother died before she knew about what had happened with my career.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  So she, you, you lost your father in a sense.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Yes, I only vaguely see him, yes, probably because I didn't have children. So there was no.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  No reason.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  No reason for a link.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  You were getting on with your career.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  And he wasn't a very communicative or emotionally aware person?

• 15:17Speaker 03

  No, when he remarried a bit later, having met his very nice, sweet wife.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  And about four years after my mother died, he went back to ballroom dancing classes. And they'd come to my dress shows, so they saw my dress shows.

• 15:35Speaker 02

  So what age was your mother when she died?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Nineteen, nineteen sixty-nine was my first trip to America. So my mother would have died in nineteen sixty-eight and left me five hundred pounds.

• 15:47Speaker 02

  And you were only twenty-eight then?

• 15:49Speaker 03

  I would have been twenty-eight, yes.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  By the time she died, did you feel you knew her well?

• 15:55Speaker 03

  Oh, I knew my mother very well, yes. And I, I'd go, try and go down there with, because it was during the last two years of her life, because she was a chain smoker. And she then got myself down with my sister and said, do it in front of us and said, I, I've, I've got lung cancer and I've been given six months to live and I want you to make this the most wonderful six months of my life. So it was quite wonderful.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  And you really did, you did your best to do that, did you, you and your sister?

• 16:26Speaker 03

  I think we did our best, yes. And my sister, towards the end of her life, she moved to my sister and her husbands in Amersham, where they looked after her. And my father would just come and visit because it was, she was really in bed the whole time.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  And did she remain an exotic personality throughout her life?

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Yes, she was always exotic. I mean, she, you know, she, she, she always wore makeup and always looked lovely, yes.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  So really, the essence of what you are, you got from her, do you think?

• 16:56Speaker 03

  Oh, completely, yeah. I'm probably the result of my mother's ambition. But I don't mean I felt that, you know, once when I said to my mother, if I'd have wanted to leave school at sixteen, what, you know, you'd have let me. She said, no, I wouldn't. But she guided me. I think she guided me towards going to the art college where she taught for Saturday morning art classes. Unlike my sister, who worked in different factories, because she wanted to. I was never made to work. I, in the holidays, I'd go out sketching every day. I didn't, she never said, you should go out and earn any money.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  You were born at the beginning of the Second World War, nineteen forty, you know, Britain's darkest hour. Do you have any recollections really of the war?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Only being held up to the sky and being told they were doodle bugs going over to London.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  And, and the.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Did it frighten you?

• 18:00Speaker 03

  I don't think you know fear as a child as such. And then there was an air raid shelter in the garden and I can remember drawing chalk butterflies on it in the garden. But that's all I really remember. I don't remember, and, oh, and I can remember sitting on the front gate and we were on the main A two road by a bus stop and, and all the tanks going by as they were coming back from. The, um, you know, from the coast. Cause Chatham's only, what, twenty miles from Dover.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Do you remember the end of the war, the sense of?

• 18:37Speaker 03

  I remember I'm sitting on my father's shoulders, going down for VE day with all the crowds out. I can remember that bit.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  And when your sister came along, did that please you? Did you get on with her?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Not, I've really only become really close to my sister in the last ten years, more than anything, but she, she married her childhood sweetheart at the age of, I think she must have been about nineteen before she then came up to col-, they both came up to college and he studied to be a doctor and she was studying at a teaching college.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  And that worked out?

• 19:17Speaker 03

  Oh, it's perfect. They're wonderful and they put up with me.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  And as a little girl, what the games you played? I assume you're.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Hopscotch, chalking on the ground and although my father once caught us playing in the street and we weren't allowed to do that, which was good, but we played in the garden and sort of knocked balls around and probably, it was semi, it was wonderful semi-country. We had a very steep garden and there was a bit of wild land with stinging nettles and wild flowers. So I was brought up on the fabulous, um, Flower Fairy books by Mary Cicely Barker, which are wonderful and I still love those.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Beautiful illustrations.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Did you have dolls?

• 20:00Speaker 03

  I had a doll in, um, I had a doll Jacqueline who I've still got. She looks a bit threadbare now, but I suppose I like making clothes for her, but I actually didn't really play with dolls. I think I was always really more painting and drawing.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  Even from a small age?

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Even from a small age.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Can you remember the first time of feeling good in what you were wearing? Was there a party frock or?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Oh, well, my sister and I were, were always the child stars of the dress show, cause my mother taught at the local art college. So they'd make these very pretty dresses, little off-shoulder scallop dresses that the students would make. And we'd model in the dress show and then have them afterwards with little bonnets and everything. And I used to dress up to go to my grandmother's in them, but when I went through the park, the kids would throw stones at me. And I'd be running through the park so they didn't see me.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  Mocking you?

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Probably, yes.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Teasing you?

• 20:58Speaker 03

  But it didn't stop me from wearing the dress.

• 21:01Speaker 02

  And why did you feel special in it? What? I mean, I can see your mother was a seamstress. She made clothes. She loved doing the ballroom dresses. But what made you feel special?

• 21:14Speaker 03

  I suppose I liked dressing up. Maybe it was my mother made me feel special too.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  What is special about dressing up? Why do people like it? And why do some people find it difficult?

• 21:25Speaker 03

  I think you're, you're presenting yourself to the world like I knew I was gonna do this interview and I dress up for the interview. I wouldn't want you to see that I'm in a crappy old pair of trousers and things we paint all over them.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  And have you found over the years, dressing people, that you have made a difference to their lives as well as making their lives more colourful and making them look interesting and?

• 21:51Speaker 03

  Oh, I suppose it does. I mean, I've got a wonderful press cutting that someone sent me that one of the main people, shoplifters, um, when she died, Harrod's sent a wreath specially and she got buried in one of my dresses that she'd shoplifted.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  But this is hilarious. Harrod's their regular shoplifter. They sent a wreath to the shoplifter's funeral.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  Well, she wasn't gonna shoplift anyway, was she?

• 22:15Speaker 02

  She wasn't gonna anymore. This was their last gesture and she chose to be buried. Have you had other interesting people have chose to be buried in you?

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Oh, one of my favourites, she didn't actually wear my dress for it, but I had a wonderful customer called Mickey Easterling, who lived in New Orleans. And when she got married, it was on CNN and she had herself totally embalmed, sitting cross-legged on a chair with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne, surrounded by flowers and the whole world, it was on CNN, but were walking by to see her.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  That's the way to go.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  I mean, it, I think, you know, if you go, you've got to go, you might as well celebrate it.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Have you got plans yourself or what?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Haven't thought about that yet. I better get to, get on with that too.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  So here you are as a little girl, enjoying dressing up, being happy. You have a happy childhood?

• 23:11Speaker 03

  I'd say it was, oh yes, I'd say it was a very happy time.

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Were you conscious of the tension between your parents? As a little girl?

• 23:17Speaker 03

  I think it was mainly hidden from us. As such, I was a bit more conscious when I was a bit older, but just the fact that you had this funny, funny man, you couldn't really bring people back home easily and everything.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  They were mismatched.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  They were mismatched, but because of the, and we didn't realise, once we went on a very long holiday where she in fact left him, but he kept coming around, you know what I mean? So, but that was all semi-hidden from us.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  He wasn't a ledgers man, and though he looked like a.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  No, no, no. He, he obviously really cared for my mother.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  This exotic lady, wasn't, oh.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  But he'd had a horrible childhood. Ah, yes, that was the whole point. He, um, his father was, uh, was in, in the army and went to war and his mother took in, um, boarders. And she had an affair with one boarder. And then, then another one and the first one cut her head off. It was a big scandal and in somewhere small, like Chatham, it was in all the newspapers.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  I'm not surprised. Could have been newspapers around the world. Forgive me. Who is this in relation to your father?

• 24:33Speaker 03

  This is my father's mother.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Your father's mother?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Got murdered.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Got murdered and was decapitated?

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  By a former lover who murdered her?

• 24:43Speaker 03

  Yes, or someone in the same house.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  But this is a truly traumatic.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  And this was in the newspaper and he revealed this to my mother and my mother felt compelled, knowing the secret, that she should marry, you know what I mean, marry him.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Because he had shared this terrible secret. She felt an obligation.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Yes, so it was told to me secretly by my mother. Much later, I probably would have been in my small te-, you know, very young teenager.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Did it make you have a bit more sympathetic to your father?

• 25:17Speaker 03

  A little, but I mean, I, I feel much softer towards my father now, do you know what I mean? When it's probably too late, but I suppose regrets go through the skies somehow.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  When this terrible thing happened to your grandmother, the decapitated lady, the murdered lady, was your grandmother? How old was your father then?

• 25:38Speaker 03

  I'm not quite sure. I think he was really, had been a boy and then had grown up with it. But my mother had heard of the scandal. You know what I mean? Cause it was in Chatham, it was a big, really big scandal.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  We have to forgive everything.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  You, that's what I mean, but at the time, I didn't know till I was a teenager, do you know what I mean?

• 26:01Speaker 02

  And he had this poor man inside him all his life. Wow. So you go to school. What's the first school you remember?

• 26:09Speaker 03

  I, oh, I could be taken in the snow on a toboggan down to a nursery school. I can vaguely be remember pull, being pulled by toboggan.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  So you're taken on the toboggan down to the school and what, do you have any recollection of that school?

• 26:23Speaker 03

  No, not of that one. Then I went to a sort of little school and then I failed my eleven plus, which, cause I was slow. Um, and then went to the secondary modern, which I hated. And then I worked very hard and passed the thirteen plus.

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Did you make your appearance exotic even then, having your mother?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  No, no, I was extremely, I didn't mind wearing school uniform. Mark you, I wore the same tie for the whole of my time, just slid up and down. I don't think it ever went to a dry cleaners or anything. So I wore the same tie and thing in uni, and I didn't mind wearing uniform. I'd say, like the other girls who wanted, I said, well, I'm at school. I don't care. I'm not trying to impress everyone else.

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• 29:52Speaker 02

  So age 13, you go to this new school.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  I go to the new school.

• 29:55Speaker 02

  And who is, who is the teacher there that makes the difference to you? Is there one?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  I suppose the art teachers would make most of the difference. But I also liked, there was a teacher called Miss Ryan who taught history, loved history. I liked the English and, but a wonderful teacher called Miss Peacock, who, who wore socks over her Lyle stockings. And, you know, she'd go, we've got reproduction today.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  When Miss Peacock taught you the facts of life in reproduction?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Were you shocked, interested, excited, appalled?

• 30:36Speaker 03

  We didn't get further than frogs with big thumbs. The rest of the time, we were dealing with photosynthesis.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  Who, who did teach you the facts of life? The birds and the bees?

• 30:47Speaker 03

  I think they just come gradually. I don't, I never had a lesson from my parents or anything. My mother was wonderful. She, I'd say, when I had my first boyfriend, what, how old would I have been? About 16.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  And I, they were, I was going to a country club with the parents. And I said to my mother, is that all right? She said, I can, if I, if you, if you can't do anything in front of me, you know it's wrong.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And who was this 16-year-old boy? Was he, was he at the same school? Was it a current school?

• 31:16Speaker 03

  No, no, he went, oh, the other thing was that being the fact that one was conscious that my mother had, my mother married so-called below her. I wouldn't have wasted time if it was a boy working in the, in the garage around the corner. I, I'd go out with boys from the local public school.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Or people that have passed their examinations.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Well, you admitted earlier, you might have been a bit of a snob. And clearly you were. And was this boy good-looking? What did he have to offer? The first boyfriend?

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Yes, he was quite good-looking and he played the, played the organ at the public school.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, you picked, picked a good one there.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Have you overall been good with men? Or because of your father, has it been difficult to form?

• 32:16Speaker 03

  No, no, I hadn't realized it was, it was difficult to form relationships. So I had very nice boyfriends.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Did you ever get, you didn't get married though, did you? You had a long-term partner?

• 32:27Speaker 03

  Never, never got, never got married. I, I've had several long-term relationships.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's good. Can I, I mean, can I ask why you didn't get married? Did you consciously? I mean, I'm only asking that because of your parents.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  There was once someone who I was in love with. A bit later in life, let me see, how old would I have been? I probably would have been then in my early 30s. And then he revealed he was gay. But it was actually, it did me a good turn really, because at the time, I, I went out my way to buy my first house and thinking I could have children there. But it never happened, but I wouldn't have got together a house. So everything happens with a good reason.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  But when you've had long-term relationships?

• 33:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Have they been like in your head, like marriages? Or have you felt, actually, I have my life, I have my work, I have my home, all of which I built myself. And while I'm loving having this long-term relationship with you, we are not married and therefore that does give me a freedom and an independence.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  I didn't think of it that way. Most of the time, I wouldn't consider going out with someone unless I admired their work. Have to, I have to have, admire what they do with their lives.

• 33:54Speaker 03

  I don't mean I have to be part of it, you know? My first long-term real relationship was with a guy called Alex. And we set up business together and he's, he's a brilliant interpreter of ancient fabrics for Rothschilds and things. He's a top in what he does.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  So I had to admire what they do for, for their lives.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  So fancying them is not enough. We need something more than that.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  They have to have other things going for them.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Because your last long-term partner was very much involved in the business again, wasn't he?

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Oh, well, he was a self-made. He started from nothing in, in Egypt, landed in, on Ellis Island in 1943.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  In New York.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  In New York. And they said, well, if you, you either go back to Egypt or you become an American citizen on the spot. He became an American citizen and then was sent to Germany for three years. And then he came back and started as an usher in a cinema and he ended up as a president.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Of the cinemas?

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, he was the president of Warner Brothers at the end, but he was president of several other cinemas.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  But it's pretty good going. What a story. Of course you admire him.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  And he was a workaholic. Oh, fabulous.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  And that was quite useful because you're a workaholic.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  He didn't, oh, he'd just say, do you mind if I'm working? And I'd go, I just, when we'd say, we'll go out to dinner tonight. This is when I first, when we first met each other. So I'd, I might be at work and I'd take my change of clothes. And then he'd phone up and say, I'm terribly sorry, I'm still in board meeting. So I'd just get back to work again till I could go there.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  And how long were with him?

• 35:48Speaker 03

  About 21 years.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  Oh, a long time. What was his name?

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Salah Hassanin.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Good name.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  And it was a shortening because he was really Salah Hadeen.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  Oh, very good.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Hasedine, yes.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  Well done. Well, and he died not that long ago.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  He died 2019. And then I lived partly at that time in California with him and partly here. But he never, it was really him who conceived the idea of how I could achieve having the museum. So, I mean, I owe him an awful lot.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. But you like a high flyer who's an achiever, who's a workaholic, because you are all those things.

• 36:33Speaker 03

  But I can admire what they do.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  So we're getting a flavor of who you're becoming. But you have, you're still at school. And what are you in your head thinking you're going to do with your life as a teenager?

• 36:44Speaker 03

  Um, I gradually, I loved drawing and I thought, um, when I decided to go to art college rather than be a teacher, and I, believe me, I couldn't bear teaching when I actually did it, but I, I went to, um, art college and I thought I'd be, um, an illustrator, you know, book illustrator, and then I went to art college and in my first year, they give you different things, like you can do pottery and you can do a bit of sculpture and a bit of this, and I fell in love with doing printed textiles with the most fantastic teacher Barbara Brown, and I fell in love with that and I did that, specialised in

• 37:26Speaker 03

  that for my original, in my original art college in Medway, Kent, Chatham, Kent, and then got a scholarship to the Royal College of Art.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  But this means that you are in at the beginning of the swinging sixties.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Yes, swinging sixties.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  This is the London of that.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Mary Court, yes, short skirts and, um, false eyelashes and everything.

• 37:47Speaker 02

  And were you getting into all that in your, in terms of your appearance as a teenager?

• 37:50Speaker 03

  I did when I went out, you know, my mother could make me exotic flowing blouses and I could look lovely, but when I was at work, I was still in the old jeans and painted shifts covered in paint and always had my hands, hands covered in dye and everything.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  It didn't pass you by, but it passed me by, I was there in the swinging sixties, and even though I lived in Baker Street, near where the Beatles had their apple shop.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  Oh, right, yes.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  And I went down Carnaby Street and I knew all these things were happening, I can't pretend I, I really got involved, and a lot of people didn't, but did you, and describe to us, particularly to people who weren't there, what it meant, because it became a huge international thing, the idea of the swinging sixties, people made movies, um.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  I was aware of the movies and having, when I went out, the Beatles were ju- just right at the beginning, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were really starting to make their name and we'd go down, we'd go to someone's flat and, and do the twist and everything like that, but I wasn't in with the in crowd.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  So I was really just a workaholic at college, um, and then when I left college, I, together with Alex, we set up a, um, a stu- a funny old studio, um, in Royal, by Royal Oak Tube Station, and set up a little print room and a design room, and that's where I sort of started to, um, print and do designs for other people.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Can you remember the first amount of money you received, the first cheque that came your way, how much it was for and what you'd done?

• 39:33Speaker 03

  What I remember was, when I, I, at the end of college, I got a little scholarship, I think it was about three hundred pounds for travelling with, but I managed to get my prints accepted by two fabulous girls in Carnaby Street called Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin, and so I was doing prints for them, so instead of going on the, on the trip, I, I did that for my, I managed to get my work in, in there, so that was really my first footsteps into, into the business.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  And how do you break out, how, how does?

• 40:13Speaker 03

  How did it happen?

• 40:14Speaker 02

  How did it happen?

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Um, well, first of all, I did the prints for Sally and Marion and I insisted my name going in the publicity, so if it showed a picture of their trouser suit with stars all over it, it would say print by Sandra Rose, so my name sort of was creeping there.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Because you were conscious of your own worth.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Well, I suppose so.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Speaking of which, the House of Worth was part of.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Where my mother.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  She'd been a seamstress there.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  No, she was a pattern maker.

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Pattern maker.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  And she was a brilliant woman, the thing she said was, when she went for the job in Paris, even though she didn't know what she had to do, she'd say, now I'm not sure if my method will be right, will you show me your method of how you want it done so that I don't do it wrong, and she kept the job, so she must have been all right.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Oh, she was a shrewd cookie. I mean, in a sense, you've got what you are, where you are because of her.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  I'm the result of my mother's ambition, yes.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And you were fulfilling it for her, so here you are, we're into the sixties, things are beginning to happen, and we have a breakout, don't we, the names are beginning to get known, what is this breakout?

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, um, through, um, I, I had a little partnership with Sylvia Ayton, it was Sylvia Ayton, Sandra Rose, and we made lovely dri- flowing trousers and trendy people would come along, and Vanessa Redgrave had been introduced to me, and she put some money in and we had our first shop, but it only lasted a year, but it was opened, you know, we had a wonderful pop concert with pop artists singing at the.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 41:55Speaker 03

  For the opening, so it was quite trendy.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  When is this?

• 41:57Speaker 03

  This would be at the same time as Ozzy was really big too, and this was.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Ozzy?

• 42:02Speaker 03

  Ozzy Clark.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  In the, um, we, we weren't in the King's Road, we were in the Fulham Road, so it was the less trendy, so the shop only stayed open for a year, but we had Joan Cocker opening it.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Well, the, also, Vanessa Redgrave then, she'd done Blow Up, remember that film?

• 42:21Speaker 03

  She'd done Blow Up, yes.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Which was a seminal nineteen sixties film.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Exactly, yes.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Which she appeared topless, you wouldn't recall that, but I do.

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't recall that bit.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Isn't that interesting, I remember it and you don't, but her sister Lyn appeared in a film called Georgie Girl, which was very much a swinging sixties film, and you're beginning to know these people, how on earth did you meet Vanessa?

• 42:39Speaker 03

  Um, I met her through a lovely girl called Alex Green, who was also at the Royal College, who had been photographer on the set.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Oh, Blow Up.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  And she wanted to do, um, also interested in the shop, so it was really because of all those things coming together.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  And did you feel that you were part of this group, or still an outsider?

• 43:00Speaker 03

  I was probably an outsider since I was extremely boring and working, you know, most of the time was working, and I taught two days a week to make the money to live, and I hated teaching, so I'd go.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Why did you hate teaching, were you no good at it?

• 43:17Speaker 03

  No, everyone I taught said I was good.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  I bet you were good too.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  But, I mean, really, I wanted to do my own work.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was it.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  And, um, so I'd go to work at five o'clock in the morning and set the work for my machinist, and then I'd go teaching and then come back in the evening, you know.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  And how distinctive were these prints that you were making?

• 43:37Speaker 03

  Oh, the pri- I mean, the prints really were very, very dramatic, and I've still got pictures of them, because we've been putting, trying to put a book together of all those things.

• 43:46Speaker 02

  So you were getting, you were getting more dramatic, you were exotic, uh, you were on the fringes of swinging London, and then we have the breakout, the shop is called what?

• 43:57Speaker 03

  The shop then was called the Fulham Road Clothes Shop, but that got publicity but then closed.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  And Sylvia Ayton, who I was working with, she got a job at Wallis Shops and she was, she was their top designer for the rest of her life there, and I was then without a job, but I had a studio, and my mother had ju- had died and left me five hundred pounds, and I'd met these mad Ukrainian-American girls who loved wearing my chiffon kaftans and floating down the King's Road, and they said to me, Sandra, you're gonna make your fortune, you've got to go to America, there'll be someone there to back you. I had one other American friend called Richard Holly, who later became the top decorator

• 44:47Speaker 03

  in Houston, and he said, I'm going over to America, come with me, and you can stay in my flat that's over there, and I then was work, had publicity in English Vogue through a wonderful woman called, uh, Merritt Allen, and Merritt organised for me to have a letter of introduction to Deanna Vreeland in New York.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Hmm, and who was she then, she was the?

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Deanna Vreeland was the editor of American Vogue.

• 45:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  So I used to, I used to have red lipstick curls drawn on my face, heavy eye makeup, my hair was still brown, and I used to wear all these flowing scarves and white, high white Bieber boots with chiffon trousers tucked in and flowing chiffon tops, and I had my letter of introduction and I went to New York, she saw me, and she raved about the clothes, and she, she was so amazing, all I can remember is this wonderful hook nose

• 45:59Speaker 03

  and this face which was all shaded red around the edge, and, and she said, they're wonderful, we were photographed them on Natalie Wood.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  And she called in Natalie Wood, I mean, I didn't know what, whether, whether I was walking on the ground, and, um, so she photographed the clothes and immediately picked up the phone and phoned the top boutique in Fifty Seventh Street, um, Henry Bendel, and they ordered the clothes, and she phoned two other top society women, Mika Ertegun and whose husband ran Atlantic Records, and, uh, Chesley Rayner, and they floated around in my kaftans which they ordered, and then I ca- I, I didn't find anyone to back me, but I came back to

• 46:52Speaker 03

  London and in my little workroom, made the clothes and delivered them, and that was the start of my business.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  And when did you become famous?

• 47:03Speaker 03

  I suppose it creeps up on you gradually when suddenly Britt Eklund came round for a dress and David Bailey ordered me to do a dress to take to Beloma Picasso in Paris. And so it's all little tiny things somewhere around the same time, which was also very interesting. I was chosen, a whole lot of my prints were used for a huge campaign in Australia where I became a household name because it was tied in with Women's Weekly. And so I did, and that was the first time that I learnt to do TV interviews and all sorts of complicated things like that.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  And is it, because some of what you do is extreme, there's a sort of punk element, sort of crazy over the top.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  Well, that was a bit later.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  That's, that we're talking about the seventies.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  But you need to be extreme in order, because only a few people are going to wear the extreme clothes. How does one make money?

• 48:04Speaker 03

  I don't think, you see, I don't think a lot of my things are extreme. I think people think they're extreme because they look, ah, pink hair, heavy makeup, how I might wear them. But remember, the people that order them might order a printed dress and it was in, but it would be printed in black and grey and an edge with white pearls instead of being in turquoise and red.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  So that it would be toned down and in a different way. It's just I don't usually wear black.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  I mentioned punk because you're associated with that. And that was you excited by it or getting on the bandwagon? How does that sort of thing happen?

• 48:45Speaker 03

  I had a wonderful friend, Dougie Field, whose paintings you see on the wall of the Headless Ladies.

• 48:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  And over there with the, with the landscape.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  And he was a close friend and everything was happening in London at nightclubs and I'd been doing my prints, looking very exotic and I'd got a shop in London by, in, off of Bond Street by that time. And every half season, we had to think of concepts and we thought, oh, why don't I do a punk collection? So I had an amazing lady, Anne Knight, who used to run Harrods and then became my manager in my shop. And we just, she said, well, if you're going to do these very extreme things, which by the way, were, were really influenced more by Dali and Scaparelli, where Scaparelli

• 49:40Speaker 03

  used the print with the tears. And I thought, instead of the print, I'll do holes and put beaded safety pins on it and everything. So she said, well, if you're going to do that, we should really make a statement with the Zander Road shop. So instead of, the chiffon dresses were moved to the basement for that month or week. And we put in the punk dresses and it opened with a splash and a whole week went by and we didn't sell a thing.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  The chiffon dresses had to go back. They might have made all that publicity and they're collector's items now, but they, they weren't seller's items.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  You know, the public weren't ready on my level to do them.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  It helps, of course, when you have famous people wearing your clothes. I know this because I began designing knitwear, jumpers in the 1980s with a man called George Hosler.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Who was the head of design at Leicester Polytechnic.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Fabulous, yes.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Now, in Monford. And a great guy. And we had a couple that were bought by Diana, later Diana Princess of Wales.

• 50:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  And her wearing those jumpers of mine.

• 50:56Speaker 03

  Made all the difference.

• 50:57Speaker 02

  They still sell. I mean, that, one of the jumpers I did for her is still one of the highest selling.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  Isn't that nice?

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Exactly. Luxury sweaters in the world because of Diana. Now, you had quite a few. I mean, you did things for Diana, did you?

• 51:14Speaker 03

  She had six of my dresses.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Ordered by her by chance? Did she come to the shop or how did it happen?

• 51:20Speaker 03

  She came by chance before she married Prince Charles. She came in with, actually with Sarah Ferguson.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 51:30Speaker 03

  And they were, they, she bought a dress for Sarah, but then much later, when she got married, and when she announced she was pregnant, it was my little pink dress with pearls all around the edge that, that she announced her pregnancy when she was in Japan.

• 51:45Speaker 02

  Hmm. And was she a nice customer?

• 51:48Speaker 03

  She was very shy and quite wonderful. She'd come into the shop. I wasn't in the shop, I was in the workroom, but then I'd go to the palace and fit her.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  And she was easy, wasn't she?

• 52:01Speaker 03

  She was very, very shy and lovely, actually.

• 52:04Speaker 02

  And who others have helped you in the sense of, did you stuff Freddy Mercury?

• 52:10Speaker 03

  I did a top for Freddy Mercury in 73, before they really were a huge band. And he and Brian phoned up and I said, Brian May.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 52:22Speaker 03

  And I said, well, you'll have to come in the evening because I hadn't got a changing room or anything in those days. I was in my rickety old three-storey building. And when I put the phone down, I'd made the appointment, I had to ask the girls what they played because I mean, believe it or not, you have pink hair, but that doesn't mean you know what they're doing.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  And I also created jumpers for Elton John.

• 52:50Speaker 03

  Oh, one, that's a good one as well.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  It's a good one. But I'm saying these names because I know what the difference it made to my little jumper business.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:59Speaker 02

  So what it must have done to you was considerable.

• 53:01Speaker 03

  Oh, well, the Freddy Mercury is the one that they always remember with the pleated cape. And it was wonderful. He came up to my rickety old studio and I said, try this on and then go in front of the mirror and see how you are. And he sort of, it was a wedding top in fact, but he sort of like, he brought it to life with how he communicated to himself in front of the mirror, which was wonderful.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Have you ever had a bad experience with a gland? You've had something?

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Yes, Xia Jia Gabor.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 53:32Speaker 03

  She was, it was towards the end of her life and she was making a film with Ned Shering.

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 53:38Speaker 03

  And I was so, it was the first film star I'd ever dressed and I went along with my things and we'd put them on and she want this done and that done and everything. And then she was like a little kitten when he was in the room. And then when he went out of the room, she'd go, I hate this dress. I hate this dress. Well, anyway, years later, I meet her at a cocktail party in Los Angeles and I said, oh, did you give all the dresses to your daughter? She said, oh, no darling, I loved them.

• 54:07Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  But she didn't say she loved them at that time.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 54:25Speaker 00

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• 55:09Speaker 00

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• 55:23Speaker 01

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• 56:06Speaker 01

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• 56:18Speaker 04

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• 56:56Speaker 02

  And are you good, were you good at handling the clients? Yes. And what do people look?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  A customer is always right.

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:03Speaker 03

  You don't, do you know what I mean? You, you, you know, you don't say, you know, you have to go with the flow. But you have to make sure that you're also going to be proud of what they've got on. I wouldn't let them buy something and it looked terrible.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  What's the trick of looking good?

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Half the time, I think it's confidence.

• 57:26Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Confidence, extra jewellery, feeling good for a girl, makeup. You wouldn't see me without my makeup.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  When did the pink hair come in?

• 57:36Speaker 03

  1980.

• 57:37Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  I went to China on a visit.

• 57:42Speaker 02

  You were 40.

• 57:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I'm being about there, yes.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Maybe he was that, and 40 can do something about this.

• 57:47Speaker 03

  And I went to, to China and everything, it was wonderful. What a privilege to go to China. They were only in army uniform and navy. Oh, no one wore makeup.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  These were the days of Chairman Mao, of course.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  The most jewellery would be a wedding ring and the tiniest bracelet. Tiniest wristwatch. And everyone stared. We were in, it was in a, there was one woman librarian on this trip as well. There were only a little coachload of about 20 of us. And she said, I don't know how you bear it. Because of course, we'd get out the, the bus and the people in the street would just stop and stare as you walked along. Because you might as well have been a gorilla. You know, they, it was, it was the most wonderful experience when I look back. But I came back and said, red China and dyed my hair pink.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  And you've kept it there.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  And I've kept it pink.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  It's part of the trademark. It's part of the, the brand that is Zandra Rhodes. How have you sustained it? Born 1940, 2026 is a long time and you're still at it. It's still here. The workshops downstairs, you're still working. Is that how you've sustained it?

• 58:58Speaker 03

  I like working and I like, if I go on holiday, I go on holiday with, if, for example, with a wonderful friend, Andrew Logan, who makes the jewellery that I wear. And we, we go, we do a drawing a day. So we decide what we're going to draw. After we've drawn, we do, probably go to the museum, sightseeing and shopping.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  Thank God.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  So that's our idea of a holiday.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, he dresses pretty eccentrically too, doesn't he?

• 59:26Speaker 03

  Exactly. Something's in my.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  He's got a little skull cap on his head and a sort of.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  He has a skull cap and everything.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  It's marvellous. What a double act you are. But what's interesting about your design work, which I've been looking through, is that curiously, it hasn't dated. Some of the stuff from the 60s and 70s looks quite dated now, but you've managed to keep yourself.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  I think it's, I'm very lucky and really I'm a sort of artist working. So they don't totally follow the pattern of everything. But like everything in fashion, things go up and down and one minute you're in and one minute you're not. And with our lives, I think it's a case of, you know, you survive by ducking and diving.

• 1:00:08Speaker 02

  When I say to you, regret, do you have a regret of any kind in your head?

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  No, I don't think I do.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  No professional regrets?

• 1:00:17Speaker 03

  No, I, I'm, I'm, I mean, I, I had a shop and that closed and I work slightly more hand to mouth. But I'm, I'm very lucky. I'm in a building that, that, you know, I own everything and, and so I've been able to now keep going and pick and choose my jobs.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Personal regrets?

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  No, I don't think so because I ended up with a partner that was wonderful, Sala. And I think things just happen for a reason. If you go around regretting, you can't get on with the rest of your life.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Now, you've had a brush with death. We thought you were going to die and you didn't.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Right at the beginning of Covid. In fact, Andrew Logan gave a yoga class in here and, and London was about to shut down. And he's, we were all lying on the floor, class of about 10 of us. And we're breathing deeply and my stomach was full and I hadn't eaten all day. And this was six o'clock in the evening. Why, I would think then, my stomach's full. What, what would make me think, I wasn't in pain, that I phoned up my doctor, wonderful doctor, Michael Harding. And I said, he arranged for me to have an X-ray and then called a meeting and he found out a specialist.

• 1:01:40Speaker 03

  And they said, oh, you've got, you've got a 13 centimetre growth in your bile duct.

• 1:01:47Speaker 02

  Good grief.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  It's the one that goes towards your liver. I've forgotten. It's got a carcia langus, really amazing name.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  I forget the name.

• 1:01:55Speaker 03

  And, and it's quite one that people don't discover in time. But they obviously, they then had a meeting and my sister came to the meeting and her husband. And the doctor, Dr Khan said, well, we think you've probably got six months. Now, this was at the beginning of Covid. I said, well, don't tell anyone or no one will give me any work. And I, I then called a meeting and made sure I had my will and put the Zandra Rhodes Foundation in place.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Hold on. Were you distressed? Did you go home and cry? How did you cope with the news?

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  I don't understand why, none of it, all it made me say was I've got to pull my life together and make sure everything's in order so that everything I've built goes somewhere and doesn't destroy itself.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  So on the day when you heard the news, I imagine you hugged your sister or she hugged you?

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  Well, my sister was in tears.

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 03

  My sister was in tears and I was saying, don't cry. You know, and, and my doctor, Dr Harding, said, he was on the phone in a visual thing. And he said, well, there's one question you haven't asked, Sandra. And I said, well, I can't think of it. And he said, well, you, you haven't asked if you'll lose your hair. And I said, oh, I'll wear a wig. I've got plenty of wigs hanging around this place, so I just wear a wig. So I can't understand why. And I did have two or three friends that were dying of cancer and have since died, who I could speak to when I was having treatment.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  But this is seven years ago and when you were given six months to live.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  This is seven years ago. And then I, I only told a few close friends and pulled all of that. And then since then, the Zandra Rhodes Foundation, which is run by a wonderful guy called Piers Atkinson, we've been putting, I'd, I found that I had squirreled away over 8,000 garments in this building and various bits and everything. So I've had to work out where it's going. We pick key museums and everything across the world. So apart from my work, it gives me something to do.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  But it's marvellous too because you're told you're dying and it doesn't distress you because you know that all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity, to quote Hamlet. And so you accept it and it's all right because you've got, in a sense, your children, which is your work, here.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Yes. And a wonderful sister who, you know, has been, now phones me up every day on, what's the one?

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  Zoom.

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  When you look at each other, FaceTime.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  FaceTime.

• 1:04:45Speaker 03

  And I always go, why do you always use FaceTime? And she said, because you're a liar and you wouldn't tell me if you weren't well.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  And you, you probably wouldn't because you're just getting on with it.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  So, you know.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Well, how's it changed you, having, thinking I'm going to die? You had the busyness of getting on with sorting everything out, the foundation, all these 8,000 outfits that I'm going to leave, I'm going to put my house in order, that's good, I made my will, I'm going to leave something to Andrew, I'm going to look after my sister, it's all sorted. Did you think of your parents dying? What, what, what was in your head?

• 1:05:21Speaker 03

  I just thought of the things I had to do.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  And I keep going by working.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  And what is?

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  I don't know what I'd do if I wasn't working. I mean, I've got lots of friends, but I mean, you, you know, can you imagine not working? You're phoning someone up and they're busy working and you, you're just going around. I mean.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  What's your state of health now?

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  Oh, I can't, I get out of breath and can't walk perfect that, that marvelously, but I'm still here.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well done you. What do you do to relax, to unwind? Do you drink? Do you play music?

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  No, no, I have, I try and have a dinner party for at least 10 every weekend. And I go out to, I mean, this week's been very busy. I've been out, I've been out every night this week.

• 1:06:11Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a bit much.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  It's a bit tough, yes.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, very good. A moment of joy from your life, particularly your early life, if you can say a moment of joy, what comes instantly into your head?

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  A moment of joy? I mean, seeing the sunshine and looking at, at my, at my terrace with all the plants coming up, I love.

• 1:06:33Speaker 02

  That's a moment of joy, yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 03

  I think that's, yes. Love the garden, love visiting gardens. The Isabella Plantation in, in, in the Richmond Park.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  That's wonderful.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  You know, so I mean, things, and being, being with friends, very important.

• 1:06:52Speaker 02

  And now a moment of sadness.

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  A moment of sadness.

• 1:06:57Speaker 02

  It probably is, maybe when your mother died eventually.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  That was, I mean, that was awful, seeing her, you know, seeing her go. Because she was a chain smoker and she had, you know, she was racked with lung cancer.

• 1:07:16Speaker 02

  Have you had pets in your life?

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  No, I wouldn't be able to, I can only just look after myself. Pets don't come along.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  And do you look after yourself? Are you quite good at that? I mean, do you make yourself breakfast, lunch and tea?

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  Well, before I was diagnosed, they then said, said to me after that, that I should always have three meals a day because I think probably I'd just go without and eat just in the evening. But I had proper, I have a wee bit of breakfast and everything boring like that.

• 1:07:47Speaker 02

  You've been a working machine.

• 1:07:49Speaker 03

  That's it, I've been a working machine.

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  All these years.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  But I have a telephone.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  A pink haired working.

• 1:07:54Speaker 03

  And friends, so.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  What more do you need?

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  And you've got work to go on with. What has life taught you? This is the last question. What, what has life taught Zandra Rhodes?

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  That work will get you everywhere.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  It's got you here, and it's got me here too. If it wasn't for the work you've done, the pink hair you've got, I wouldn't be here. I'm glad you're famous, because I think you're fabulous.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Oh, well, so are you, but I've had lovely, I have lovely things I get invited to. I've seen you at lots of fabulous things.

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  We are very lucky, you and I, we get invited to things.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  We get invited, and I think, well, we dress up for the occasion, you in your woolly.

• 1:08:33Speaker 02

  And you know what we do? We turn up, we go, don't we?

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Speaker 02

  Like, you turned up today, and you looked at the business.

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  You turned up in your nice woolly with the rose.

• 1:08:42Speaker 02

  Well, at least I could do, we're sort of coordinated.

• 1:08:45Speaker 03

  You know, but I mean, but I, you know, I mean, I like, I definitely like people. I mean, I'm lucky, I can bury myself in work, so.

• 1:08:54Speaker 02

  But will you be sad to go? Will you feel, I haven't done that, when the last moment comes? Because you must have rehearsed this, thinking you were going to do it six and a half years ago.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  I don't, oh, no, because I, maybe I didn't believe it. I don't mean that, because I didn't think, what am I going to do in six months? I spoke to friends who were dying,

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  but I didn't think about it. Maybe it wasn't really there, and maybe someone, maybe God or someone said, you're not going to really die, so you, you make the best of it, make sure your work's remembered, make sure you, you fill in all, and you don't waste any time.

• 1:09:32Speaker 02

  Well, my time with you has not been a waste of time, I love you.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  Oh, good, thanks.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  I think you're brilliant, Sandra Rhodes, I'm very excited to know you. Well, now go down and maybe swap clothes or something downstairs, dress up as each other.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  Thank you for coming, it's been wonderful.

• 1:09:45Speaker 02

  It's been wonderful being with you, Sandra, thank you.

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:09:53Speaker 02

  Thank you, Sandra Rhodes, eighty-six, looking good, sounding good, being extraordinary. It's wonderful to be unique, isn't it? That's what I think Rosebud is about, meeting unique people, and discovering that some aspects of them makes them just like us, but they also, most of them, seem to have that little bit extra. And Sandra Rhodes has certainly got more than a little bit extra. She is, well, she's unique, iconic. Oh, I feel so lucky, meeting people like her. And I feel so lucky that Rosebud has such an amazing following across the world. Here's a letter that comes, it begins, hello, from the heat and wildfires of Texas. So somebody's written to us from Texas.

• 1:10:35Speaker 02

  He's called Robert Gordon, and he says, I'm an expat, and listen to all that Rosebud has to offer. Imagine my surprise when Harriet, that's Harriet Jane, our producer, mentioned the small Devon village of Crapston. I was born in a place called Dousland, which is quite amusing when I hear Texans try to pronounce it. Dousland. I had the joy of growing up with Dartmoor as my playground, cycling around Barator Reservoir, and exploring the moors, something I don't think I fully appreciated at the time. Born in nineteen fifty-eight, one of my earliest memories is of my mother putting me on the dining room table to change my nappy. From there, I could reach the Johnson and Johnson baby powder, and inevitably knock it over.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  I also remember glancing up at the old wireless on the mantel, above the Rayburn, and hearing Mrs. Dale's Diary. Funny how a passing mention of a tiny Devon village can bring all that flooding back. Oh, and some of that comes flooding back to me. I certainly remember the Johnson and Johnson when I was changing the nappies with our children. And in those days, they were real, terribly nappies, that after you take them off, you put them in a bucket, filled with something called nappysan, which was supposed to clean them. And also, we used safety pins, and you had to put the nappy on a particular way, so that your hand went against the baby's tummy, and you never stuck the pin into the baby. I remember all of that rather well.

• 1:12:04Speaker 02

  And I also remember, in fact, she's mentioned in my diaries, I don't know if that episode has gone out yet, meeting Johnquell Anthony, the lady who for many years wrote the scripts for Mrs. Dale's Diary. Well, there you are. Funny how a passing letter coming into Rosebud brings back all sorts of other memories flooding back. Oh, and he ends up, Robert, thank you both, that's me and Harriet, for the splendid and thoroughly entertaining adventure that is Rosebud, and for all the memories, stories, and unexpected little journeys it brings with it. Warm regards, Robert. Well, my thanks to Robert, to everybody else who listens, and to everybody who writes to us. Our address is simply [email protected].

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  And as your day proceeds, what about thinking about your very first memory? Just think about it, what was it? I met somebody the other day, who is now regularly at dinner parties, well, I say dinner parties, they actually said, when we have friends over for supper in the kitchen, they always begin by actually saying, what is your very first memory? And they begin the meal by, and the guy said to me, we now have the same friends back, and we change our first memories. So, the idea of this is to really think about what your very, very first memory was. My thanks, anyway, to Sandra Rhodes for sharing her memories with us today,

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  and my real thanks to you for listening, and of course, to Harriet Jane, our producer, and to Alec Cadell, who edits these special episodes for us. Until next time, this is Gyles Brandreth saying, see you soon. But actually, I do see you. If you watch us on YouTube, which some people do, they see us. All the big episodes are now on YouTube, and from next year, everything we do is going to be on YouTube, which is why I am on a diet. Yeah, yeah, anyway. Follow us also on Instagram, and you can catch up with us on Facebook, Rosebud Reflections is where you find us there. And if you want to join our club, we call it the Rosebud Family, we'd love to have you there, we do an extra episode for you every Sunday afternoon.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  And to join that, you simply go to patreon.com forward slash Rosebud. But never mind all that, we just love having you with us, every Tuesday, every Friday, in the world of Rosebud. Cue the music.

• 1:15:12Speaker 02

  That was another episode of Rosebud, produced by Harriet Jane for Plain Jane Media, presented by me, Gyles Brandreth, edited by Alec Cadell, and recorded at Grosvenor House in Mayfair, London.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  United Kingdom, Western Europe, the world. Oh, when I was a little boy, I loved saying all of that.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  This is Hannah Burner from Giggly Squad. O-Pill is the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the US. Let's be real, getting a birth control prescription is not always easy, and it's so much admin. In fact, about a third of women face barriers to access prescription birth control. Between scheduling appointments, missing work, class, or just trying to exist, it's a lot. But now O-Pill is putting birth control in our control. O-Pill's a daily birth control that's FDA-approved, full prescription strength, and estrogen-free, and ninety-eight percent effective when used as directed. Grab it online, or at most major retailers, no prescription or doctor's appointment needed. So if you're thinking about birth control, check out O-Pill to see if it's right for you.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Use code GIGGLY for twenty-five percent off your first month of O-Pill at O-P-I-L-L dot com. That's code GIGGLY at O-P-I-L-L dot com. Birth control in your control, we love to see it.

• 1:16:33Speaker 04

  Confidence, it's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly one hundred and sixty years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future, or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

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