When you visit Zandra Rhodes you don’t just walk into her flat, you’re invited into her psyche, stepping into the orange cubist block, crossing a sparkling terrazzo lobby and then rising up to a penthouse decorated in deep and dusty shades of pink. In her 83 years, Rhodes has become famous for how she plays with colour in ways that both confront and seduce – to stand here, in the rainbow room and golden afternoon light makes you feel energised, and a little high. She meets me in her living room in a puff-sleeved yellow dress, with her famous fuchsia bob (Pinkissimo by Crazy Color) and a large cup of tea. “Hello!” she calls, 4ft 11in in flower-painted trainers, “Hello, hello!”
It was here in this room, just before the pandemic hit, that her best friend, Andrew Logan, was guiding her in a yoga session when she lay back on her lilac mat and realised her stomach felt unusually full. She went to the doctor, who told her she had a 13cm growth, cancer of the bile duct, and gave her six months to live. She recalls the meeting now with a certain briskness. “It was Covid then, so I realised no one need know, and I decided not to tell anyone,” Why? “Because if people knew I wouldn’t get any more work!”
