Dame Zandra Lindsey Rhodes DBE RDI (born 19 September 1940), is an English fashion and textile designer.

Rhodes has designed garments for Diana, Princess of Wales, and numerous celebrities such as rock stars Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan.

[2] A Rhodes dress featured on a commemorative UK postage stamp issued by Royal Mail in 2012 celebrating Great British Fashion.

[4] Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and textile designer Emilio Pucci were a few of Zandra Rhodes' early influences.

[1] Rhodes' early textile fashion designs were considered outrageous by the traditional British manufacturers, which made it hard to find work.

Marit Allen, editor of American Vogue at the time featured pieces of Rhodes’s collection in an issue.

[9] Receiving recognition by Marit Allen persuaded high end retailers like Henri Bendel, Fortnum and Mason, Neiman Marcus, and Saks to purchase her collection.

With her hair a vivid shade of bright green (later changed to pink, and sometimes red or other colours), her face painted with theatrical makeup and audacious art jewellery swinging from her neck, ears and arms, she stamped her identity on the international world of fashion.

Her unconventional and colourful prints were often inspired by travel; chevron stripes from Ukraine and the symbols of the North American Indian, Japanese flowers, calligraphy and shells.

[8] Her approach to the construction of garments can be seen in her use of reversed exposed seams and in her use of jewelled safety pins and tears during the punk era.

[11][12] She created dresses with holes and beaded safety pins – 10 years before Versace – to form a sort of embroidery, mixed with loosely drawn figures screen-printed on silk jersey, or on the newly developed Ultra suede fabric.

In 2004 she designed the set and costumes for the San Diego Opera performance of Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles.

Contained in the museum is a library and lecture room that will help immerse people into the ways fashion has impacted society throughout the years.

An official installation ceremony was held in June 2010 in the Banquet House, Whitehall, accompanied by a fashion show.

[citation needed] On 26 March 2013, Rhodes launched a Digital Study collection of 500 of her iconic garments from her private archive, as well as drawings and behind-the-scenes interviews and tutorials in her studio.

[22] The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study collection was developed through a project led by the University for the Creative Arts and funded by Jisc.

[26] Rhodes describes former president of Warner Brothers Salah Hassanein (1921–2019) as having been her long-standing partner, and the greatest love of her life, until his death in 2019.