IN MY EXPERIENCE…
Dame Zandra Rhodes
The ground-breaking fashion designer talks about dressing the Royal Family, later-life romance and how a yoga class saved her life
by PAM FRANCIS
Grand designs Freddie Mercury in a Zandra Rhodes outfit (below); Princess Anne wearing her engagement dress (below left); and the designer with Princess Diana (below right)
You grew up in Chatham, Kent. What are your first childhood memories?
My mother holding me up to the stars watching the doodlebugs buzzing everywhere. I was born in 1940 in the middle of a World War II air raid. When she was in labour, Mummy had to walk two miles to the hospital with my father with bombs going off – there were no taxis.
What kind of a child were you?
Very boring. I’d sit at home drawing and watching my mother on her sewing machine. She was very exotic. I loved dressing up in clothes she made me. Children would throw stones at me because I didn’t look like anyone else.