This evening dress by British fashion designer Zhandra Rhodes, c.1970, was imaged and archived as part of the Drexel Digital Museum project. The evening dress is included in the holdings of the Fox Historic Costume Collection, Drexel University. It is constructed from silk georgette, silk screened with one of Rhodes signature prints. It is embellished with ribbon applique, rhinestones, pearls and seed pearl beading.
Between 1966-69, Rhodes and a fellow student, Sylvia Ayton, opened a boutique together called the Fulham Road Clothes Shop. Ayton designed the clothing and Rhodes supplied the textile designs from which they were made. She produced her first collection showing loose, romantic garments. In 1969, Rhodes and Ayton went their separate ways, with Rhodes establishing her own retail outlet in the fashionable Fulham Road. Rhodes was one of the new wave of British designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s. Her designs are considered clear, creative statements, dramatic but graceful, bold but feminine. Rhodes’ inspiration has been from organic material and nature. Her unconventional and colourful prints were often inspired by travel; chevron stripes from the Ukraine and the symbols of the North American Indian, Japanese flowers, calligraphy and shells.He r approach to the construction of garments can be seen in her use of reversed exposed seams and in her use of jewelled safety pins and tears during the punk era. She made her biggest splash in 1977 with the establishment take on punk which she called Conceptual Chic. She used kilts and safety pins – pre Versace – to form a sort of embroidery, mixed with loosely drawn figures screen-printed on silk jersey, or on the newly developed Ultrasuede fabric.
Rhodes is the founder of the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, which was opened in May 2003 by Princess Michael of Kent. In November 2009, Rhodes was appointed Chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts, one of the UK’s newest universities, and only the second to focus specifically on art and design. On 26 March 2013, Rhodes launched a Digital Study Collection of 500 of her iconic garments from her private archive, as well as drawings and behind-the-scenes interviews and tutorials in her studio.The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection was developed through a project led by the University for the Creative Arts and funded by Jisc. https://www.zandrarhodes.ucreative.ac.uk