mirror.co.uk FRIDAY 30.08.2019 DAILY MIRROR^35
DM1STND ZANDRA ON MASTERCHEF
of my life was being made a Dame. I’ve
met the Queen on five occasions.
“She does a wonderful job. Would you
like to see lines of people all the time?”
The launch party guest list for the
national treasure promises to be all
those dinner party guests – a glittering
roll call of who’s who in showbiz.
But the timing of the exhibition is also
a handy way for the designer to bury
herself in work now that her love affair
in the States has come to a sad end.
She says: “There’s a lot of grief now –
and clearing up! My sister Beverley has
been with me in California packing up
the house because it’s huge, it has to be
sold and I’ll be bringing my stuff here.”
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@mcnally_siobhanwith her boyfriend and started again.
Although newspapers linked the couple
as far back as 1975, she says, “I met him
in New York at a charity dinner and we
were together for more than 25 years.”
Sadly his death means that apart from
her sister, Beverley, who is three years
younger, and nieces and nephews who
don’t keep in touch, Zandra is alone.
However, she has no regrets about not
starting a family of her own, saying: “I
love my career and I don’t think I’m
going to miss not having children.”
Rightly proud of being awarded a CBE
in 1997 and then a damehood in 2014,
the designer, who turns 80 next year, will
be marking her life in fashion when Prin-
cess Michael of Kent opens the exhibi-
tion, 50 Years of Fabulous, in the Fashion
and Textile Museum, Bermondsey, next
month. She says: “The proudest momentsays, “Diana once asked
me, ‘Are you still cycling?’
and I wondered how she
knew. Then I realised it
was because I had
pretended not to see her
and Sarah when I was cycling in the
pouring rain on the Bayswater Road.”
Her affection for the royals continues
to this day, particularly the Duchess of
Cambridge. She says: “Kate’s done very
well. I’d love to dress her.”
But her greatest admiration is
reserved for the Queen, and interest-
ingly, also the Duchess of Cornwall.
“Charles’s wife Camilla is amazing,” she
says. “She doesn’t put a foot wrong.”
In the 1990s minimalism struck and
Zandra was forced to close her London
shop, Bayswater workspace and factory
in Olympia. Upping sticks, she moved inand Zandra remembers
her embarrassment when
the notoriously spiky star
stepped on a stray pin.
It was the Royal connec-
tion that made Zandra a
household name in the 80s, when
Princess Di, Fergie and Princess Anne
were all spotted wearing her dresses.
She says: “Diana was very nice and
seemed very shy. She would pay a
surprise visit with her friend Sarah and
try a dress on in my shop.
“I would be slaving away in the factory,
but I would be called in and asked to
make up the real one with her measure-
ments or make it in another colour.
Then I would go to the Palace to fit it.”
She also reveals an embarrassing
moment when she was caught trying to
avoid being seen by the royals. Zandrae – four floors above the hipster
ets of Bermondsey, she says: “I like
oey Essex very much – he has a
wonderful confidence about him
and is very open and funny.
“But meeting footballer Neil
Ruddock made me realise just
how old I am. He’s 51 – but I actu-
ally went to the World Cup in 1966- and Neil wasn’t even born!”
At the height of her fame in the
70s, the Princess of Punk
Zandra was dressing
stars like Queen’s
Freddie Mercury,
Bianca Jagger and
Jackie Onassis.
Hollywood
actress Lauren
Bacall also visited
her Bayswater attic,
yfriend
ecently
as 98 &
n the US
hadn’t
much
h other
He wanted
to be buried
in a military
cemetery,
we got half
an hour for
his funeralHONKY HAT Zandra
with pal Elton JohnDAMEHOOD
Zandra with
the QueenIRON LADIES With
Camilla and top, ex-PM
Margaret ThatcherLAUGHS Princess Diana used to visit Zandra’s London shopy Essex, Oti Mabuse & Andy Grant Picture: PHIL HARRIS