This much I know: Zandra Rhodes

Photograph by Chris Bissell

I grew up in the semi-country – there was still real countryside in Chatham, Kent, when I lived there. We could climb over a fence and into stinging nettles. There were wild flowers and berries for picking – at home we’d make blackberry jam or blackberry and apple pie.

I’m not much of a partier. I drank slightly when I was younger, but it made me fall asleep. I used to doze off everywhere – a friend kept pictures of me snoozing at the dinner table, sometimes with my mouth open. I have far better table manners now.

Meeting Morgan Freeman was overwhelming – the man with the magical voice. I was introduced to him by Helen Mirren a few years ago. I think all I said was: “Hello, God.” He just smiled graciously.

Work and play are more or less the same to me. I’m a boring workaholic who finds it difficult to switch off, even if my pink hair says otherwise. I was lucky to meet a partner [film producer Salah Hassanein] who was also a workaholic, so he didn’t notice I was.

The essence of good fashion is to feel at home in what you wear.

Being arrested for growing cannabis was embarrassing. And it’s long-lasting torture: whenever I renew my visa I have to go to the American embassy for a morning, while they put me through endless questionnaires and produce a police report. I haven’t touched the stuff since 1986, honestly.

You can’t do much about ageing. Facelifts make people look a lot older than they are. I just have to keep my fringe, which goes over some of the wrinkles, and wear lots of jewellery and my own printed clothes to cheer me up.

My temper doesn’t manifest itself as much these days – previously, I would occasionally throw something on the floor in madness. One has to take it out on oneself: it doesn’t reflect well to use your temper on someone else. Better slam a door and disappear.

My friend David Sassoon [the clothes designer] and I spoke every day. He died in April and I miss him terribly. We both loved poetry and would recite it as we walked. He had the most wonderful stories of dressing the royal family that had me in tears.

Thinking about Donald Trump depresses me, followed by Putin and Netanyahu. I won’t, to the press at least, say what I’d do to them. I listen to Radio 4 with shock and worry about what’s happening to the world. It’s difficult to know what one can do.

I'll believe in God when I’m about to kick the bucket, as I’ll have to work out where I’m going. It hasn’t quite got to that yet.

If I wanted to impress someone, I would talk about some of the people I’ve dressed over the years: Donna Summers, Princess Diana, Jackie Kennedy. When Freddie Mercury came to my rickety studio in Notting Hill Gate in 1974 I put this pleated top on him and it was like magic: he transformed from this quiet person into someone else entirely.

At the beginning of Covid, I was told I had six months to live. I had immunotherapy that got rid of the growth that was in my bile duct – and I’m still here.

Iconic: My Life in Fashion in 50 Objects by Dame Zandra Rhodes is published in paperback by Penguin at £10.99. Order your copy from The Observer Shop.

Zandra Rhodes will be at the Chelsea Arts Festival on 18-21 September