In the summer of 2018, I spent two months interning at the House of Zandra Rhodes in London, England. As a screen printing assistant, I was involved in sample development and screen print production for the Spring/Summer 2019 Collection. My tasks included color mixing, swatching, printing, and studio maintenance.
The studio is located right below Zandra's her colorful penthouse home, and directly next to the Fashion Textile Museum, which Zandra founded. She was generous enough to let me stay with her during my time in London. Images of the studio and the penthouse are pictured above.
More Color Matching.
'Sparkle' print on black lame.
This is the screen printing studio at Zandra's atelier in London. I worked here everyday with Claire, the print room manager. The studio holds over 400 screens, and Zandra has about 500 more in storage. The table that we print on is 9 meters, the last of its kind left in London. The sticks on the right side of the image are correlated to each screen; their measurements tell us the length of the repeat of the pattern.
Color Matching in my sketchook. Using the set recipes as reference, I add small amounts of dye to the extenders to slowly match the colors to be used in production.
'Field of Lillies' print on green chiffon.
Chinese Square print for a paper test.
Field of Lillies print on green chiffon.
This image was taken on a weekend visit to Wales that I took with Zandra. We were cleaning a storage warehouse she has there and came across boxes of some old press that she was in. The magazine shown here depicts her as one of the top five designers of 1981, next to Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfield.
Claire unpinning some samples we were conducting for dry cleaning tests.
Zandra and I in Andrew Logan's Museum of Sculpture in Wales.
Zandra in the studio. Photo by me.
