Zandra Rhodes - Fashion Designer Encyclopedia

Publications

By RHODES:

Books

The Art of Zandra Rhodes, with Anne Knight, London, 1984; New York, 1985, 1994.

Articles

"A Life in the Day of Zandra Rhodes," with Anne Whitehouse, in the Sunday Times Magazine (London), 24 January 1982.

"My Country, Right or Wrong," in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine (London), 10 May 1987.

On RHODES:

Books

Santa Cruz Art Museum, Zandra Rhodes: A Retrospective with Artworks, Santa Cruz, CA, 1983.

Milbank, Caroline Rennolds, Couture: The Great Fashion Designers, London, 1985.

McCarthy, Fiona, and Patrick Nuttgens, Eye for Industry: Royal Designers for Industry, 1936-1986, [exhibition catalogue], London, 1986.

Loebenthal, Joel, Radical Rags: Fashions of the Sixties, New York, 1990.

Mendes, Valerie, and Claire Wilcox, Modern Fashion in Detail, London, 1991.

Steele, Valerie, Women of Fashion, New York, 1991.

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, New York, 1996.

Crane, Tara Christopher, Elements of an Era: A Postmodern Interpretaton of the Art of Zandra Rhodes, Columbia, Missouri, 1998.

Articles

"Zandra's Fantasies," in Viva (New York), February 1974.

Perschetz, Lois, "On the Rhodes," in WWD, 26 April 1974.

Kavanagh, Julie, "All Rhodes Lead to Zandra," in WWD, 31 December 1975.

Walkley, Christina, "Zandra Rhodes," in Costume (London), 1976.

"British New Style," in Vogue (London), 15 March 1976.

Howell, Georgina, "The Zandra Rhodes Dossier," in Vogue (London), July 1978.

Bakewell, Joan, "Zandra Rhodes: A Profile," in the Illustrated London News, October 1978.

"Schooldays," in Vogue (London), October 1981.

"Zandra Rhodes at Home," in Connoisseur (London), December 1981.

Williams, Antonia, "Zandra, the Non-Stop Rhodes Show," in Vogue (London), August 1982.

Fallon, James, "At Long Last Friends: Dress Designer Zandra Rhodes and Her Sister Beverly," in the Sunday Times Magazine (London), 8 May 1983.

"Zandra Rhodes," in Art and Design (London), February 1985.

Burnie, Joan, "We'll Tak' the High Rhodes," in You magazine of the Mail on Sunday (London), 28 February 1988.

"The Fashion Fatigue of Zandra Rhodes," in Design Week (London), 11 March 1988.

Niesseward, Nonie, "Ware-ability," in Connoisseur, June 1988.

"Zandra Rhodes," in Pins and Needles (London), July 1988.

"The Correspondent Questionnaire: Zandra Rhodes," in the Correspondent Magazine (London), 21 October 1990.

Schaeffer, Claire B., "Zandra Rhodes Couture," in Threads (Newtown, CT), June/July 1990.

O'Kelly, Alan, "The London Home of Zandra Rhodes," in House Beautiful (London), November 1990.

Fallon, James, "Rhodes Shutters London Workroom," in WWD, 14 July 1992.

Loper, Mary Lou, "Overdue Celebration for Nobel Laureate," in the Los Angeles Times, 28 January 1993.

Gendel, Debra, "Cutting Runaway Runway-Model Fees," in the Los Angeles Times, 24 September 1993.

Robinson, Gaile, "Mannequins or Humans?" in the Los Angeles Times, 29 September 1994.

Goodwin, Betty, "Tiaras, Anyone," in Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1994.

Lederer, Edith M., "The Present and Future are Here and Now," in the Los Angeles Times, 16 March 1995.

Williamson, Rusty, "Flight of Fancy: The Colorful Whimsy of Designer Zandra Rhodes Floats into Dallas," in WWD, 9 March 2000.

Gale Group, "Zandra Rhodes," in Biography Resource Center (Farmington Hills, MI), 2001. Herman-Cohen, Valli, "Wolfgang, Meet Zandra," in the Los Angeles

Times, 12 January 2001.

***

Zandra Rhodes is an artist whose medium is printed textiles. Working in a calligraphic style uniquely her own, she designs airy prints from which she produces floating, romantic garments whose cut evolves from the logic and placement of the print itself. Rhodes has no imitators and her work is instantly recognizable.

In a field where novelty is prized, Rhodes' work over the years is remarkable for its consistency. Because the shapes of her garments are fanciful and fantastical, using volume to display the textile to its best advantage, her clothes do not date. Her references are timeless: T-shaped gowns of printed chiffon belted in satin; the full-pleated skirts and long gathered sleeves of Ukrainian festival dress; off-the-shoulder tabards finished with a fringe of dagging; children's smocking reinterpreted in silk jersey. Rhodes' clothes are extravagantly feminine, delicate, and mysterious—created, as one writer observed, for "contemporary Titanias."

Each collection of prints evolves as a thoughtful response to a personal vision. Drawing on traditional historic sources, on images from nature, from popular culture, and from her own past, Rhodes sketches an object over and over, entering into a dialogue with it as the sketches become increasingly abstract and a personal statement emerges. Only at that point are a series of these personal images combined until the right composition presents itself to be translated into the final screen print. The print determines how the garment will be cut. Rhodes was not trained as a draper or cutter, and she has not been bound by the concept of symmetry, conventional seam placement, or internal shaping. Many of her dresses are cut flat or with minimal shaping, sometimes incorporating floating panels that follow the undulations of the patterned textile. She favors large repeats on silk chiffon or silk net, and as the garment falls in on itself against the body, it creates mysterious shapes and soft, misty layers not easily known. Rhodes is without doubt one of the most gifted and original designers of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Rhodes began taking her artistry to much larger material. Pink and orange concrete walls, rotating exhibits, and lavish interiors are part of Rhodes' latest constructive endeavor for the fashion industry. She calls it the Fashion and Textile Museum, her lifelong dream. Located in Bermondsey on the South Bank of the River Thames near London Bridge, Rhodes is building the museum to exhibit local and international fashion and textile designers and to educate students of contemporary fashion and textile design. Rhodes planned to open the museum's doors in 2002.

In January 2001, Rhodes provided the San Diego Opera with her imaginative and brilliant style for the production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. She designed 127 costumes, which, according to Valli Herman-Cohen of the Los Angeles Times, included everything from a rhinoceros with mirrored mosaic paws to a fantastic Queen of the Night cloak. The extraordinary costumes were such a success for Rhodes that she also launched a Magic Flute -themed eveningwear collection.

Even with the success of her collections, Rhodes finds time to venture into other fashion and artistic territories such as furs, interior and exterior design, and even etched and cut-glass windows. Rhodes teamed up with artist David Humphries for her interior and exterior work; together they have fashioned a number of terrazzo designs such as the Global Plaza at Harbourside, Sydney, and the Del Mar House Terrazzo Project. Rhodes' unusual and exceptional designs are just as breathtaking today as they were when she began as a textile designer almost 40 years ago. Highly admired, Rhodes continues to be "the" designer for cutting-edge fashion in a variety of forms.

—Whitney Blausen;

updated by Kimbally Medeiros