Zandra Rhodes CBE RDI

Zandra Rhodes CBE RDI was installed as Chancellor of The University for the Creative Arts at Banqueting House in May 2010.

Born in Kent in the forties, Zandra was introduced to the world of fashion by her mother who was a fitter in a Paris fashion house and a teacher at Medway College of Art. Zandra studied at Medway and the Royal College of Art in London. Her major area of study was textile design.

Her early textile fashion designs were considered too outrageous by the traditional British manufacturers. In 1969, she established her own retail outlet in the fashionable Fulham Road in West London. Zandra's lifestyle has proved to be as dramatic, glamorous and extroverted as her designs. With her bright green hair (later changed to a spectacular pink and sometimes a radiant red), theatrical makeup and art jewellery, she has stamped her identity on the international world of fashion.

Zandra designed for the late Diana, Princess of Wales and continues to design for royalty and the rich and famous around the world. She has a loyal cult following in the USA too. Over the years she has had many academic and professional honours bestowed upon her and was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen in 1997.

She has made San Diego her home and it was the San Diego Opera that commissioned her to design the costumes for her first opera, The Magic Flute, in 2001. Zandra is the founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London which opened in May 2003.