Zandra Rhodes: Clothes shopping doesnt interest me in the slightest

By Sarah Ewing Published: 12:56PM GMT 01 Mar 2010

Zandra Rhodes says her skirt pick up is piece of her pension. "The pick up would be value a happening if it were put up for auction" Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY HOW DID YOUR CHILDHOOD INFLUENCE YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS MONEY AND BUSINESS?

My father was a truck motorist and my mom was a fitter for a Paris conform residence and techer at Medway College of Art. She was an extraordinary change and such a gifted woman. She instilled such a certain work ethic in me and she taught me to hold in myself and what I was doing.

I lerned in printed weave pattern and primarily in the Sixties, no one would buy the fabric since the patterns were deliberate as well extreme, so I had to think how to win people around. I thought if I done dresses to show how these textiles would look, afterwards people would hold in them. I was educated in slicing and design, so the shapes had an newness to them that they competence not have had with grave instruction. I"ve never attempted to fit in and being strange meant I stood out.

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It"s usually when people motionless after in the Sixties that they longed for to be some-more brave that I became popular. The moral? Always take your own trail in life, not indispensably since you instruct to be different, but since you should do what you instruct to do.

WERE YOU EVER STRAPPED FOR CASH IN YOUR EARLY DAYS?

Yes, utterly often, but luckily everybody else I knew was in the same boat, so we weren"t perplexing to surpass each other. We managed and we didn"t dwell on what we didn"t have. I was never one for frequenting nightclubs or you do costly things.

ARE YOU A SAVER OR A SPENDER?

I"m flattering center of the road, but I"d probably rather save or smash in to my income behind in to the business. I"m not in to magnificent splashes of cash, similar to costly restaurants. I"d rather have my friends around for cooking parties and have my signature soup, poached salmon, and bread and butter pudding, or I"ll wire my friends in to camping. Ironically, I usually emporium when I"m on holiday, but never for conform garments offered doesn"t seductiveness me in the slightest. My income debility is art, in all sculptures or pottery by Kate Malone.

WHAT"S BEEN YOUR WORST BUSINESS DECISION?

Probably permitting my emporium on Fulham Road to be sealed in the late Eighties. I had a feud with my monetary partners. I"d been unequivocally bustling expanding the code in the United States and lost steer of the day-to-day goings on. It was such a contrition since people still wistfully speak about the emporium and instruct it was still around. It gave my tag prominence and accessibility to the open and intensity buyers. Christian Lacroix once wrote about how he used to love window-shopping there. I"d cruise carrying a flagship store again if the right resources and the right backers came along.

WHAT"S BEEN YOUR BEST DECISION?

That I"ve saved one of each strange Sixties designs. Of next to significance is when I sole my prosaic in Notting Hill to buy an huge decayed five-storey room in Bermondsey in 1995 with Salah"s help. London Bridge is utterly a colourful area now, that a lot of people credit my participation for.

The construction houses my workshop, my flat, a emporium and a self-funded muster space that became the Fashion and Textile Museum. The construction was so large that Salah and I were equates to to emanate eight new flats at the behind that helped monetary the muster space, when we suddenly didn"t get lottery funding. I don"t have children, so I longed for to found an establishment that would live on after me. It"s right afar a skills academy for Newham College of Further Education.

WHAT SORT OF TIPPER ARE YOU WHEN YOU DO GO OUT?

I try and work out what 15pc would be, and I"ll in all leave a tip in any case of the service.

HOW DO YOU PREFER TO PAY FOR THINGS CASH, CARD OR CHEQUE?

Credit card, not indispensably since it"s simpler to keep lane of my spending, but I usually don"t similar to to lift around a lot of cash.

DO YOU INVEST IN STOCKS AND SHARES?

Not presently. I did once, when they initial sole British Telecom. You have to unequivocally be on the round and to know what you"re you do to deposit in stocks. Timing your offered right equates to you have to be well review up on the monetary pages. It"s formidable sufficient for me to come up with a new design, most less to obstruct my courtesy to something else similar to stocks.

DO YOU BANK ONLINE?

No, I don"t feel gentle with it. I"m aroused of it being hacked or descending chase to rascal or phishing. The last thing I need is an additional password. I"m distressing with codes. I keep all encrypted in my diary.

DO YOU HAVE A FINANCIAL ADVISER?

I have a illusory London-based accountant who helps me. Because of my lines with Marks & Spencer and Millets, I need an confidant to stay on tip of all the authorised agreements.

DO YOU THINK PENSIONS ARE A GOOD IDEA?

Well, it"s usually the approach the universe functions right afar they"re a required evil. Over and on top of my state pension, my construction and skirt pick up are my pension. The skirt pick up would be value a happening if it were to be put up for auction. I usually need to be equates to to means someone to catalog it all. It is a smashing source of impulse for destiny work, though.

WHAT"S BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY?

One where there"s no approach of contacting me, similar to somewhere in Tibet or the wilds of India or Machu Picchu in South America they"re incredibly sensitive places. Unfortunately Salah is comparison than me and whilst he once would have left on these sorts of holidays, he can"t do that now, so I go with my good crony Andrew Logan, who"s a sculptor and trinket designer. We love going places together where he can do watercolours and I can blueprint it"s a make up operative holiday, but one that I enjoy.

More and some-more you can usually get afar and recharge if you get afar from the bounds that complicated civilised world has trapped up with. If you stay somewhere ritzy, get taxis everywhere or take your internet-enabled mobile, afterwards you"re not indeed experiencing the suggestion of a place.

Zandra Rhodes has teamed up with Britain "s heading outside retailer, Millets, to furnish an moving range of outside pack trimming from tents to T-shirts, rising in March. millets.co.uk