A New Muse for London: Zandra Rhodes

A New Muse for London

Dubbed The Princess of Pinkness, fashion visionary Zandra Rhodes is famous for her flamboyant use of color, and London’s Fashion and Textile Museum stays true to her spirit.

Rhodes appointed prize-winning Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta to design a modernist building on the site of a former warehouse in Bermondsey Street, just a short walk from Tate Modern. It was Legorreta’s first European project, but as Rhodes points out: “There was no need to hold a pointless architectural competition. I immediately felt that here was an architect who created grandeur, but who could also create a museum that would not dominate or overwhelm its contents. The job in hand was to convince him.”

Convince him she did, and the Fashion and Textile Museum’s stunning pink and orange exterior injects a bright flame of color into the Dickensian backstreets.

(Museum report for International Textiles)