Just A Minute With: British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - British fashion legend Zandra Rhodes, now making her UK debut as an opera set and costume designer, is feeling sad -- too many of her fellow designers are deserting London for Paris.

It has been a path well worn by the likes of Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen and for Rhodes, it is a case of British fashion leading the world -- but from France!

Q: How do you see the state of British fashion today?

A: "It's terrible that our people seem to have to be in Paris a lot of the time. Maybe if I had gone to Paris, my career might have been a bit different from that point of view.

"I think it is rather sad that we can't make it pay in the same way but the way the world is going, you have got focuses all in different directions.

Q: What do you think was the attraction of your designs for a string of such different celebrities from Princess Diana to Queen frontman Freddie Mercury?

A: "They come to you because they want you to do something that is going to be really wonderful to wear. Everyone is a challenge. You have to hope they feel absolutely marvelous. They were all perfect in their own way.

"When they had the Princess Diana (New York charity) sale, they said my clothes stuck out in a different way -- they didn't look like the others.

"With Freddie, it was lovely for someone to come round and try things on. I do not go round in that world and I am not

really a pop follower but I had already done costumes for T-Rex and Marc Bolan before that time."

Q: What is the attraction of designing sets and costumes for opera -- as you have for the English National Opera (ENO) London production of Aida after also designing "The Magic Flute" and "The Pearl Fishers" for San Diego Opera.

A: "It is just a magical art. Designing for opera is so magical -- the combination of the voices and the music.

"They are the ones going out on stage projecting so you have got to make the hero feel like he is the hero.

"If he is bigger and has got a short neck, you shade his neck so he looks slimmer; you work out the hair, you get the right wig and work all these things out."

"It is so wonderful when you actually see it all happening and they are just so nice, down-to-earth people in between all of that."

(Editing by Paul Casciato)