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Today I'm going on a style journey with the original
Princess of Punk, the truly extraordinary, iconic and zany
Dame Xandra Rhodes. It's wonderful.
To be here. Thank you.
Oh well, thank you for coming all this way.
I was trying to work out when we very first met and I reckon it
was back in the very late 80s when we were all, gosh, I, I, it
was sort of almost before I'd started my brand.
We were all showing our collections at the Ritz for the
London Collections and I think I had about four pieces.
And you were there with your exquisite collection.
Oh well, we had lots of adventures of the Ritz.
It was rather wonderful, really. It it was very British, wasn't
it? And early days, which is also
fabulous, thinking about London Fashion Week in that way.
Yes, and now it really has become this juggernaut, and
we're talking 40 years in and all the rest of it, but I do.
Think it's amazing thinking of 4040 years ago?
Yes, yes. So despite your being in your
mid 80s, you don't seem to be slowing down.
You seem to be speeding up. I mean, what are the projects
that you are most excited about at the moment?
I've had a wonderful time doing the prints for this Spanish
collection called Celia B which I'm wearing the yellow dress
with all the flowers on it today.
Gorgeous. And gorgeous.
So that is really mainly mail order and that was fabulous to
do. And how did that come about?
Did you just get approached her out of the blue?
I think we'd met Celia and it seems such a lovely project
because she always put beautiful prints on her dresses and it
seemed a wonderful vehicle to do the printed dresses.
And they're so happy because I think the wonderful thing about
Prince is they make you feel very happy.
Yeah, they're a feast for the eye, aren't they?
And well, they don't sell the marks easily, which is also a
very. That's a good point.
That's a really, really good point.
You have dressed everyone from the late Princess of Wales to
Freddie Mercury to Diana Ross to Mark Bolan, which I was just
thrilled to hear. Is there a story that you may
not have talked about before or not much before?
Because I love your story of Freddie Mercury trying on that
bridal top and swirling around in it, But I've found myself
wondering when I was doing my research.
Mark Boland. Now that's quite an interesting
one. Mark Boland, Really and truly, I
don't know if you ever knew the exotic Cholita Secunda.
Yes. Well, Cholita was really then
the go between, so she came to me and she said, oh, these would
be right for Marc Bolan and she zipped them off.
And so it was only later, when I've just seen videos on the
screen of him in a very lovely green jersey, that I did that
because I never did the fittings for those.
But, but quite often you don't necessarily meet the person that
you're dressing. Has there been one person that
you didn't know was buying Sandra Rhodes and you saw a
video or saw them on television wearing Sandra?
Well, it's only since, you know the, you know, now when all
these photographs appear under Getty Images, yes, that suddenly
you say, oh, oh, I didn't know that Jackie Kennedy had my one
sided dress. Do you know what I mean?
Oh my. I didn't.
Fit her and I think it was her sisters that had got it in New
York at Henri Bendel and there are wonderful pictures of her
wearing the one sided dress that I never fitted her though.
But do you still have the sample of the one sided dress?
I still own most of the original samples of all my dresses.
No, I read this. I mean 6000 odd pieces.
We've got around 6000 pieces, yes, that's extraordinary.
Gradually sorting them out and deciding what homes they should
go to, you know, should they have memorable homes.
We want to check the say the Victoria and Albert Museum has
got one of the special pieces and everything like that before
I decide what I'm going to do with the rest of.
Them and are they all beautifully archived and with
you know, Jackie O wore this in 1970 or.
Well, I might say she could wear a version of it.
Yes they're, Yes they're. Catalogued we've we've sort of
like they're packed into boxes. According to what?
What every 10 years? So I've got things from
219721984. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah. And do you ever go into those
boxes so you haven't fully sorted them yet?
They're fully sorted, but they're not.
But now they're being sorted. Like we're putting some into a,
a Kerry Taylor auction and then I'm working out which ones I
think should go to specific homes if they haven't been, you
know, specified. God, how?
Wonderful. Do you ever pull something
out-of-the-box or a rail and think, oh, I might give that
another go? I look at it and I think I must
treasure this because it might, I might not have the, I
couldn't. Some of them I could never
reprint again. Do you know what I mean?
Because the screens might have been destroyed and they were
hand printed in my studio in the day.
Now some of the screens have been donated to different
museums across the world, like the NGV in in Melbourne and the
Powerhouse in Sydney, so I'm making sure that different
places and different key museums have got things that relate to
the designs. Oh, how wonderful.
Because now, now we're in a very digitally printed world.
Do you still print on screen or or do you use digital?
Nowadays things go to tend to be digital, but I mean, I've, I've
still got all my printworks and my silk screens, but we haven't
been printing since COVID. Yeah, when COVID happened, I was
still producing dresses and I made deliveries and then
deliveries to people like Liberty and everything like
that. And then when COVID happened,
there was small print as to why people could return them again.
So I ended up with an awful lot of dresses, but that didn't
matter because I was, I gradually disposed of them, as
it were. Yeah, so, but I'm not printing
at this stage. Maybe I might do print lessons
again, but it's been so busy I haven't had a chance to do that.
Yeah. And and there's no way that
someone could come to you and say, Sandra, would you please,
please, please do me this dress or that dress.
I might just have yardage because I do hold some treasured
yardage of these things, but and and I can make things
occasionally. You famously dressed the late
Princess Wales and the Princess Royal.
Have you dressed any of this generation of Royals?
No, I haven't dressed this generation of Royals.
Is there one in particular that you would?
Love. I think it would be lovely to
dress Kate. She always looks very elegant.
It would be fun to do something for her.
What would you do for her? I think probably a very nice
sort of, probably a sort of late afternoon dress because she does
look good in her day things rather than being dressed to the
teeth, but definitely with a lovely.
Print on it. Lovely.
Now your book My life in fashion and 50 objects iconic.
You have two specific dresses in here. 1 was a dress that you so
it's a sketch of a dress that you designed that the Princess
Princess Royal wore. Can you tell me a tiny bit about
that? That's a very interesting story
in the fact that English Vogue rang me up and said we're
dressing a very famous lady, send in some grand dresses, and
I thought it was Elizabeth Taylor.
Anyway, I sent this white, white sort of ball gown with all this
lovely Annette embroidery of seashells and and then a month
later I found out that it was it was Princess Anne in it and
pictures gorgeous. And everyone thought then that I
would do the wedding dress. But I didn't end up doing the
wedding dress. And were you ever approached to
produce sketches for the wedding dress?
I did sketches for Princess Diana, but that was when I
designed the amazing gold collection, which was gold with
the crinolines, but of course I didn't get the dress, but I I
enjoyed doing those designs. Now, you mentioned Elizabeth
Taylor there. What did you do for her?
I'd never, I'd never dressed her.
She I bumped into her at a wedding once and she said I'd
love you to make me something. But by that time she then after
that she she passed away. But she did have some lovely
dresses of mine that I saw pictures of and looked gorgeous,
which was a very lovely frilly one in rainbow colours.
And then this other dress in your book Iconic is the one that
the late Princess of Wales had. Well, yes, the she had five of
my dresses and three of them were sold in that huge sale.
And the pink one off shoulder one, which I've drawn there is
the one that was put up in the sale in New York.
But she announced she was pregnant when she was in Japan
with that off shoulder pink dress.
Gosh, how magical. How magical.
You created your extraordinary fashion and textile museum in
Bermondsey. Now you showcase different
designers from around the world in different eras.
Is that not correct? Yes, we've just this second
closed our Bieber exhibit that had record figures and one
realises what a wonderful icon Barbara Houloniki and Bieber is
because it was crowded the whole time.
We've had one of my exhibitions probably every four or five
years. We might do a special Sandra
Rose exhibit, but we we sort of vary between the different
exhibits that we have. If there was one designer from
any era from around the world that you could do an exhibition
for, who would that be? Oh.
Gosh, that's difficult. I mean, one of the designers
that never is remembered with enough credit is someone like
Bill Gibb, you know what I mean? And so, you know, 1 looks, one
in Scotland, they're now trying to treasure all the different
things he did and the aspects and the clothes he did, mixing
the knitwear and the tweeds and everything like that.
So I think he's due for another exhibit.
I totally agree. That would be that would be
wonderful. Now today we're going on a
personal style journey. Oh dear, don't say.
That. So I want to start with, how did
you decide what you were going to put on this morning?
I felt well it was sunny but a bit cold so I did have to wear a
sort of long sleeve sweater under my new yellow yellow
frock. But I mean, I always think you
should dress up for radio, TV or wherever because I think as a
designer, you're always representing yourself.
And I've always said when you meet designers and they're not
wearing the things they've designed, you think, what do
they believe in them enough if they're not wearing them?
You know, so I, I, I wear something, I wear all the things
that I've designed for. Wonderful.
Now, you grew up in Kent and I believe that your mother was a
seamstress at the House of Worth, is that correct?
My mother was a patent maker in the House of Worth and she
worked there for probably 2 years, so it would have been in
the mid mid 30s before the war started to to break out.
Amazing. And then she came back to
Chatham in Kent, where I came from.
And did she teach you how to patent cut?
Or how to sew Indeed. No, I never thought that I'd be
going into sewing. She was this exotic creature
that taught in the art college that I eventually went to, but I
was always painting and drawing. But we were allowed to see her
doing wedding fittings and and things like that, which was very
exciting for us. We were told we had to sit
quietly and not fight with each other with my sister Beverly.
Do you? What was her style like?
What was her personal style like?
Well, that was the whole point. She was actually very, very
exotic. And she had, she had her hair in
a wonderful French pleat, and then she'd pinned the front up
to a big curl, so that probably made her look taller than she
was. And then she'd spray it silver.
And then there's one experience that I mentioned in the book,
because it it comes back to me so vividly as when we were going
to London for the day and it was like 5:00 in the morning and
we're getting ready to get the bus to the train station.
And she sprayed her hair with the silver Hairspray.
And then she'd always then spray it with setting lotion.
And instead of using the setting lotion, she used fly spray.
Ow. But we didn't know that.
And all the way down to the station she kept saying my head
dusting, my head dusting. And then we realised that she'd
sprayed with the fly spray. And so we went into a chemist
and she went, you may think I'm stupid, but but the chemist said
you're not going to be able to do anything.
You're either going to have to go home and wash it all off or
you'll have to live with that. So we lived with it while we
went up to London. Suffer for beauty.
Do you remember the first moment that clothes you put something
on and it had an impact on you? You, you felt differently.
Gosh, Sharon, I felt differently.
I mean, well, I used to, she used used to have wonderful
dress shows. And of course, as children at,
at the age of like me, 10 and my sister, probably 7:00, we'd have
clothes made for us so we could model down, down the, the
little, you know, because there was a children's section.
So I, I had a lovely dress with flowers at the sleeves and, and
I think it was probably a loose pinafore type dress.
And I love dressing up. But then I'd go and see my
grandmother on Sunday mornings and I'd have to run through the
park because the children would all make fun of me because of
what I look like. But I'd still wear it, and I
still liked it. And it still made you feel and.
It still made me feel good. Did you wear a school uniform?
I had a school uniform, never I, and I was very unrebellious,
boring. Did you customise it?
No. I didn't mind at all.
I just wore the old tie and I thought of that as something you
wear and it didn't matter what happened to it.
Whereas if I was dressed up, I'd have to bother about my clothes,
wears when I was at school. Didn't matter if you spilt
things on it or anything like that.
What was your light bulb moment in terms of fashion?
I mean, you were known as the Princess of Punk originally when
you burst onto the fashion scene.
Well a bit later that was because when I burst onto the
the fashion scene, I was first with Sylvia Ayton and we had the
Fulham Roe clothes shop and I was doing pop up prints that no
one had like lipsticks and missed a little men on them and
things like that. So ahead of its time.
Which didn't particularly sell well.
So it was sort of, I suppose, a, a cult shop and it was in the
wrong place in the Fulham Rd. So that closed.
And then I even remember doing an interview with when I was
doing a teaching job and they said, well, what are you going
to do now that your life's failed?
And and you, you say, well, I'm going to, I suppose underneath I
thought I'm just going to pick up the pieces and start again.
Wow, So you had your Sylvia Ayrton time and then you went on
to where? Well, Sylvia got offered a job
at Wally Shops where she became head designer till they till
they she retired. And but I was left thinking I've
got to teach two days a week and and I'd met these mad Ukrainian
models and they said, Sandra, you're going to make a fortune.
Come to America, where find someone that will back you.
So I thought, well, America doesn't know that I'm really a
textile designer. And so I got friends to show me
how to make things. And I made exotic caftans and
the yellow coat that you always think of and everything.
And I, I cut them out, got a machinist, she made them.
And then I did all the finishing with the beads and everything
and took them to America. And was that when you felt like
you really sort of created the Sandra Rhodes style, a sort of
the I, the iconic I? Suppose it was the beginning of
my iconic style, but I had the the headscarf and my red curls
drawn on my face. But my hair was still brown
then, and I wore high Beaver boots, and I had a letter of
introduction from English Vogue to Deanna Vreeland in New York,
and so I went with the clothes over my arm.
And where did you wear to go and meet Diana?
My white Beaver boots, my flowing chiffon headscarf.
A flowing chiffon dress with white silk sort of blue song
pants in that. Tucked into your boots.
Tucked. Into the boots.
Oh, how chic. And and so then I went and my
eyes would have been fully made-up with full false
eyelashes. And I went in with my clothes
and she completely raved about them.
And she was amazing herself with this wonderful dyed black hair
and and shaded red at the edge with Rouge.
And she said, oh, they're wonderful.
They're marvellous. I'm going to put them on Natalie
Wood and we're going to photograph them.
And then she picked up the phone and phoned Henry Bendel and said
they had to carry them. And so they were the windows.
It shot windows in New York City in the sort of like late 60s,
and so suddenly I had wonderful people, all Baby Jane Holtzer
and things, all coming to my funny little workroom in in in
London. But how wonderful because
sometimes I I think with fashion, if you take yourself or
your collection to a new market, there are no preconceptions.
I think that's what it must have been by chance.
I love that. How did you come up with the
whole beading on the edges? That lovely.
I always think of it as almost sort of like a almost a tassel
of a bead suspended from your hands.
Probably because I was so involved in the handwork and I
wasn't doing the machining. But it gradually grew doing all
those different bits like feathers on the end that was
influenced by going to the museum for the American Indian
in New York and suddenly doing designs with feathers and
everything. So it's quite wonderful and, and
quite sometimes I'm open mouthed at the fact that it, it sort of
caught on in such an amazing way.
Well, because it was good, perhaps.
Or different for that time because basically I was a print
designer finding a vehicle for my prints.
But I, I think of you as sort of really the original sort of
queen of boho, albeit very glam boho, but there's something
slightly boho about. Your approach very early on.
Design and and your prints, actually your original prints
were sort of, you know, delicate and there was a sort of.
And I used to print them all too.
We'd be printing them all in our little print room.
Probably without rubber gloves. The hands?
Oh no. Rubber gloves.
Oh no, no, I mean my something short of desirable if you look
closely on me. I often talk about clothes being
our armour that we message through them.
Is that something that you're conscious of?
Doing I think probably, I mean all of us have various suits of
armour that we can can hide behind.
I hide behind both the make up and I always feel very much as a
designer. You're representing yourself, so
I'm wearing everything I design. And the makeup and the hair.
When did that start to evolve? How old were you when you
started to really create this? Sort of very.
Iconic. I would say probably from the
very late 60s and after that experimenting some of the
experiments for something to be desired and some you know, some
were cross references with going into Andy Warhol's factory.
And then, you know, one of the girls had two dots and I ended
up with two fluorescent green dots in in for instead of
eyebrows and and different looks that one's had.
And sometimes I think all those were strange, but I enjoyed
doing it those. Must have been extraordinary
times. When I look back, they're
extraordinary, you know, But I didn't think about it at the
time. I was going along with the flow
of something amazing. You've just recently released
this lovely book, Iconic, and it's Sandra Rhodes, My Life and
Fashion in 50 Objects. If I were to ask you, which was
the most iconic piece that you've ever worn?
What I do find strange is one goes back to the beginning of of
your career because I still adore my yellow felt coat which
had all the the beads and everything on it.
I've had other ones but that was sort of like not hippie but
early statement pieces. An extraordinary piece, yes.
Where is that coat now? Oh well, there's one in there.
Was one shown at the in the Met last year.
Amazing. Definitely one up in Scotland.
In Edinburgh. I've got one.
I have almost one of all my favorite old pieces that I still
keep. Unfortunately, the ones that I
keep aren't always good to look at too closely because I would
have worn them. They've been lived and loved.
I love that.
If you weren't wearing top to toe Zandra, who do you think you
would wear? I'd.
Probably go for antique pieces. Do you know what I mean?
Because I mean, I, I do have a wonderful isaymiaki, but you
know, those, those wonderful fitted bodices, I wouldn't be
able to squeeze my body into them now.
But it's a signed one that he gave me as a gift one time that
I did wear with pleated skirts and it looked rather, rather
wonderful. Extraordinary.
Where do you get your style inspiration from?
Often it's it's. Me experimenting with the prints
that I'm going to do and trying trying to think what way would I
like the prints to now look and then the print leads me into
something new. And where do you get your print
inspiration from? I.
Carry a sketchbook and if I go on a trip anywhere, whether it's
the countryside in in London or I might be on a trip in, I don't
know. Let's say if I've lucky enough
to be in Italy, I would probably Draw Something, whether it's in
a church, whether it's a tree, and that would be something that
I'll link onto, you know, whether to do some designs with.
And do you do you refer back to very old sketchbooks at all?
Yes. Now when I run out of ideas or
when we're thinking we need to do a new theme, I probably will
flick through a pile I've got. Probably.
Oh, probably about 70 books. Have you got one on you now?
And no, I haven't got one with you.
No, I was so excited to come. No, but I mean I refer back and
we might find a a tree or a drawing of a Lily or a drawing
of a flower. That will lead you to an idea
that you could follow up on. Do you have a a a Co creative
for someone that you bounce ideas off?
For an ideal holiday trip, I would go away with someone like
Andrew Logan whose jewelry I wear, and we'd go on a creative
trip. Like we went on a trip to
Morocco and we'd be up at 5:00 in the morning drawing the
sunrise over a desert or looking at looking at carvings or going
to museums. So the ideas would come from all
the places like that. The fashion world has changed so
seismically over the decades that you've been creating.
What do you think is the best bit of that?
Here in UK we have to think very carefully because I think that
due to probably when both you and I started, the world was our
oyster. And I think because the whole of
Europe had opened up. I think it, it was a wonderful
opening up and being able to exchange ideas and take things
abroad. And we were having buyers from
Europe and America coming in and buying our clothes.
And that has all changed now because the gates have come down
and we're now forced to be again a tiny island with not many
possibilities. I find it a very difficult
situation. It doesn't affect you or I in
the same way, but it affects our youth.
Yeah, Yes, it does. It does.
And you have these mega brands and I'd love to understand your
view on these mega brands that are now charging thousands and
thousands of pounds for a handbag for.
Example it's quite appalling really, I think.
And I, I've got a feeling what might happen because we're now
back to being a small ion Leyland.
We might find a really whole wave of different kind of
originality and the fact that we should be doing more of with the
situation, not wasting so much in the world.
It should be that you do some make do amend and we find that
we put new with old and we come up with hot, totally new styles
that we're not using up the facilities of the world anymore.
I, yes, I, I would hope so. And it feels like we are heading
in that direction. And as Brits, we're very
creative and very entrepreneur. The British are very creative
and very entrepreneurial and I think we're going to have to
rely on that to see what happens to us.
I I agree. Do you have a style icon or are
you the icon? Well, that's very grand.
If I start to think that I think my head would go too big.
I mean, I have to rely on my initiative to come up and hope
that I go and I I can come up with different things.
I mean, I think most of my close friends are fairly iconic in
themselves or represent things. You know, I went to a wonderful
opening of a of a new museum in if Modern Art in London last
night, and I was thinking that Dougie Fields of artists that
I've collected for years should be in there.
So I think that we're creative. So we have to hope that there's
going to be a vehicle for spreading our work around the
world now. How would you want someone to
describe your style DNA in three words?
Colourful, original, maximalist. Love that, love that.
What would you say is the sexiest look on a woman?
I think this it's sex comes from an allure of the personality
rather than what you show, I think.
So it could be someone's eyes are quite marvellous.
I mean, I sometimes wonder how short skirts are now which I
wouldn't dare to wear anything without trousers, but that's
that puts me into my age group anyway.
But but yes, I I agree with you about the allure.
Would you say that your style has changed through the decades?
Well, if it if, if my style didn't change with the decades,
I think that that would be very worrying too, because you'd be
then probably, you know, putting yourself into a spot.
I suppose the fact that I've still got pink hair is maybe you
could say that's run-of-the-mill.
You know what I mean? And that hasn't changed.
But the cut changes I mean, because you've all.
Cuts it. Oh, I've got a lovely Swedish
hairdresser who worked on my, He did my Linus who worked on my
the wigs for my Blenheim show and did the wigs and, and so I
mean, he's been now cutting my hair and making me feel OK, so
that makes a difference. So what does stay at home chill
out Zandra wear? Trousers and a zandra roads
pleated printed top but very casual or sometimes even a
dungarees suit if I'm doing the plants on the balcony.
And trousers are from where? The funnily enough, the pleated
trousers are by a wonderful girl, Kitty Joseph, that used to
work in my studio before COVID. And so the trousers are so easy.
They're washable and they go through it.
They you know, so it's very easy.
And is that a sort of fairly constant look for you, the
pleated trousers under one of your tops or?
Dresses under one of my tops or dresses, yes.
Would you say you've had a worst fashion moment?
It's try. It's often when I think the
worst fashion moments were when fashions were either a bit
shorter or whatever and you look at yourself and you think that
was a really fatal look. I've never heard it talked about
a fatal look, but can you, could you describe that, that look?
I mean, I've, I've, I've never had lovely long, long legs and
you know, when things were once short, I mean now having
discovered I can wear things as tunics and then wear flowing
trousers, it's, it makes it much easier.
Let's talk about planning. Do you plan your wardrobe at
all? I don't really plan my little
wardrobe at all. I don't think.
I, I, I, I work out what the weather's like, then it might
be. What's my newest project?
And then obviously I'm a firm believer as a designer that if
you design something, you're designing something that you
would represent and therefore you don't say, sorry, I don't
wear that. I might not wear a particular
colour way, but you still wear it because you're telling other
people this is what you believe in and if you believe in it,
they should. Be in it.
Yes, exactly. Let's talk about travel for a
moment. Are you particularly aware of
what your airport or your travel look is going to be?
Well vaguely, if I'm travelling on a long trip I'll I'll have
packed the night before and then I'll decide what I'm wearing,
which again is usually the pleated trousers and a printed
sound rose top with a suitable vest if it's likely to get cold,
and maybe an easy jacket that doesn't crease up too much but
usually is a bright colour. Are you a good Packer or a bad
Packer? I think I'm a good Packer.
I pack very neatly, very neatly. What luggage do you use?
Oh, a bright colour, so it comes from any old shop.
But if it's a nice bright colour and efficient wheels.
Efficient wheels and always a strap.
Never travel without a strap because once when I was
travelling in China my luggage came down the chute and it just
fallen open and then I had to travel with tied with string.
What, if anything, do you feel you've got an excessive amount
of in your wardrobe? It used to be shoes, because
you'd think I'd need this high heeled shoe for this and I need
this, you know, special shoe for that had a lovely pair of
irresistible moored frissons, you know, and Oh my.
God I used to love. And they were wearable.
They weren't too high. But now unfortunately I can only
wear flat shoes, so usually it would be a choice of different
kinds of sneakers that I wear. I'm fascinated to know in terms
of percentages, how does your wardrobe breakdown in terms of
colour? Pink.
Yellow. Do you ever wear black?
No. I was once given the task of
wearing black for a week, I think it was a Daily Mail and I
found that so difficult. It made me feel very depressed
and people are under the illusion that if you wear black
it doesn't show the dirt, but it shows dirt just the same as if
it was white or another colour. Now, what is your approach to
sustainable fashion? The world has got to think
clearly that you cannot change your wardrobe with every season.
I think we have to think constructively that we can mix
and add. So it doesn't mean that you're
always going. I mean, I wouldn't like people
say, oh, here she comes again, She's wearing the same thing.
But you can put enough variety into it that you can wear
something old or something new, something borrowed, whatever you
know. And you can you can get your
look to change with the seasons, but not necessarily always buy
new. I don't think there are enough
facilities in the world now to just change a wardrobe all the
time. I mean, there's not enough
resources, that's it. You'd use up the resources I
think. What do you do with your clothes
when you've had enough of them? I tend to do what I did with the
rest of my collection, put them in a box and then suddenly,
which is quite nice, you get a box out that you haven't worn
for 20 years. And you see a raincoat like I
got out of pub and I thought, oh, I could still wear that
purple raincoat with my new black beret from Stephen Jones
with the Eiffel Tower on it. And it looked perfect.
And it was an old raincoat, so that, you know, you just see,
look, I think look with the initiative.
What would you say is the oldest piece in your wardrobe?
I've still got some pieces from the Fulham Rd. clothes shop,
which would mean they're from about 1965.
And do you still wear them? Oh no, I would their size and
also size is smaller, so oh, I wouldn't.
Oh no, if I'm wearing it, it's got to be loose.
I don't like to say that I'm a 14, but I they have to be loose
enough for me to. Wear comfort is king.
Comfort is king. Yes, disguise comfort.
No, no comfort makes you feel good.
Let's spin on to some quick fire questions.
What fashion advice would you give your 20 year old self?
Fashion changes all the time. I think you just have to look
it's look at it and say what do I feel good in really?
Which fashion trend or era would you most like to see make a
comeback? Well, I'm quite enjoying Boho,
which gives me all the stuff that I I did the flowy, flowy
shift on tops and things that I still think will be that keep
coming up in eBay and everything.
What fashion or beauty trend would you consign to Room 101
tattoos? Your last impulse buy?
Can't think if I had an impulse buy.
I'm so boring. Don't worry.
We'll move on. Grooming or well-being
treatment. You couldn't give up.
Having my hair cut beautifully. High end or High Street?
It's always nice looking at high end.
Doesn't mean you're buy it but you look at high end.
Trend or style? Style, colour or monochrome?
Colour? Plain or.
Pattern pattern. Hoarder or editor?
Hoarder. Charity shop or resale Charity
shop. Shapewear or lingerie?
I used to love lingerie. I think I'm too old for that
bikini or one piece or one piece.
And finally, at the end of the day, what do you or don't you
wear in bed? Pyjamas.
And your makeup. Oh, and my makeup?
Wonderful. Yes.
Sandra, thank you so much. What a lovely conversation with
an icon. An absolute icon.
It's been wonderful being here with you.
Thank you. Thank you.