Zandra Rhodes - Queen of Colour

It's hard to pinpoint the first thing you notice about Zandra Rhodes, fashion designer and one-woman ambassador for vividness.

Is it the green kaftan? The gold platforms? Or the earrings as big as her head?

She looks wonderful, though.

The 65-year-old dowager bird of paradise, perched in her multicoloured apartment in Bermondsey, south-east London, would inspire any woman to make rude gestures at the fashion establishment, which is currently telling us all to wear grey tunics and taupe eye shadow.

"I don't understand why people think black is more flattering. All you see is the shape," she says. "If you wear something really bright, people will notice the colour and it doesn't matter if you're a bit fat."

Her argument for pink hair follows the same marvellous logic: "If I'm going to cover my grey hair, it may as well be pink as blonde."

She was a brunette briefly in the late 80s, attempting to tone herself down for a new boyfriend.

"He may have liked it but it made me feel so boring, it wasn't worth it."

The boyfriend - business tycoon Salah Hassanein - must have loved Rhodes' rainbow style, because they are still together. (She commutes from London to their beachside home in California.)

Rhodes is celebrating a triumphant return to the centre of British fashion.

She showed at London Fashion Week last month for the first time in 20 years.

Erin O'Connor starred, while Lily Cole and Minnie Driver cheered from the front row.

There were no size zero freaks but she drew criticism for putting a 14-year-old model on the catwalk.

"As long as it doesn't interfere with her homework and her mum comes to jobs with her - which she does - I don't see what the problem is," says Rhodes.

"Why not give the young girl a chance?"

This week, fans of the Queen of Colour came to Harrods to meet her and get their hands on the blue eyeshadows and orange lipsticks she has created with M.A.C, the cosmetics company.

When Rhodes became famous in the 70s, her followers ranged from the ultra-cool to high society: Jackie Onassis, Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Margaret were all admirers of her technicolour kaftans. "Peter Sellers would come round to buy a quilted dress for Britt Ekland," she recalls.

"I knew Manolo Blanik when he was a student. David Bailey and Penelope Tree threw a party for me but I just fell asleep. I was so tired from working.

"When you live through something, it doesn't seem that exciting."

But shoulder pads and boxy jackets put a dampener on things in the 80s and Rhodes closed her shop in Mayfair.

The recent trend for vintage, however, has prompted a renewed interest in her work.

Celebrity stylists search for Rhodes' gowns for premieres and Tom Ford is a collector.

But Rhodes is very down to earth about it.

"Some pop star wanted something vintage the other day," she says, "but I can't just send out the originals."

Don't, however, call her current popularity a comeback: "I do like people to know that I never gave up designing.

"That's the only thing I get annoyed about. People think that I went away. I do two shows a year in San Diego and more around America.

"I haven't stopped."

Indeed, Rhodes has had a Herculean workload in the past few years.

She set up the country's only Fashion and Textile Museum and designed for Topshop and Harrods.

Over the years her textiles have been copied - some would say ripped off - by younger designers.

"There's no point tying yourself up in knots about it. Sometimes, though, I think it would be nice if they ... " she trails off.

"Escada were very nice last season. They just came straight to me and asked me to do a range for them."

But she doesn't want to be seen as a victim, or even just a survivor.

"Fashion should be enjoyed. I'm lucky that I still do what I enjoy. You can't get jaded."

As she waves me off, smiling through her pink V-shaped fringe, grass-coloured chiffon sleeve aloft, a jaded Zandra Rhodes is impossible to imagine.

- The Independent

Rhodes' collection for M.A.C is available at www.maccosmetics.com