Dame Zandra Rhodes is one of Britain’s most celebrated fashion and textile designers, renowned for her fearless use of colour, hand-drawn prints and exuberant personal style.

Annie visited Zandra at her extraordinary pink penthouse apartment in London to film this exclusive conversation exploring creativity, interiors, fashion and a shared lifelong passion for colour. Launching her fashion label more than fifty years ago, Rhodes became one of the defining figures of the London fashion scene in the late 1960s and 1970s, earning the nickname ‘The Princess of Punk’.

Originally trained as a printed textile designer, she transformed the relationship between print and garment shape, creating dramatic, artistic collections that blurred the boundaries between fashion, art and performance.

Fashion as Art

Over the course of her extraordinary career, Rhodes has dressed everyone from Freddie Mercury and Diana Ross to Princess Diana and Princess Anne. With her instantly recognisable pink hair, theatrical jewellery and bold personal style, she became a creative icon in her own right, helping redefine fashion as a form of artistic expression. Her designs challenged brought a new sense of freedom, individuality and theatricality to fashion.

Zandra moved to New York in the early 1970s where legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland championed her work, helping launch her onto the international stage. From there, her vivid prints and imaginative designs were embraced by anyone who wanted to embrace creativity, glamour and self-expression.

A Shared Love of Colour

Like Annie Sloan, Zandra Rhodes believes passionately in the transformative power of colour. Both artists have built their careers around encouraging people to embrace creativity, trust their instincts and surround themselves with beauty and personality rather than following trends.

When Annie and Zandra met to film together, their conversation ranged across art school, textiles, interiors and the creative energy of 1960s London. They discussed how fashion became Zandra’s language of self-expression and the instinctive way she combines colours.

Interiors, Travel and Creative Living

The discussion also explored Rhodes’ love of interiors and decorative arts.  Zandra showed Annie around her extraordinary London “Pink Penthouse in bustling Bermondsey – filled with colour, pattern, personal collections and artistic treasures. It’s a joyfully maximalist space because, like Annie, Zandra believes your home is a deeply personal space that should tell stories, hold memories and reflect the person who lives there!

Travel, particularly Zandra’s longstanding connection with India and Rajasthan, has also played a significant role in shaping her creative vision. The colours, craftsmanship and textiles she encountered there became an enduring influence on her work and her approach to decoration and design.

Championing Creativity

Now more than five decades into her career, Zandra continues to champion creativity and education through the Fashion and Textile Museum, which she founded in London in 2003, and through the Zandra Rhodes Foundation, established in 2020 to preserve and share her archive of garments, textiles, drawings and designs with future generations of artists, designers and students.

In their conversation, Annie and Zandra also reflect on work ethic, ageing and the enduring creative power of women – subjects both have embodied throughout their remarkable careers. Energetic, original and unapologetically artistic, they remain inspiring examples of lives shaped by creativity and colour.

Watch the video below to hear Annie Sloan and Zandra Rhodes in conversation about colour, creativity, fashion, interiors and a life lived artistically.