"Very surreal" is how 20-year-old De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) Journalism student Maryam Patel described the experience of meeting and interviewing legendary British fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes.
Dame Zandra Rhodes and second-year journalism student Maryam Patel at the DMU Museum.
Maryam was one of four DMU students – two studying Journalism and two Digital Media and Content Creation – who joined professional journalists and content creators for a special press visit to the Zandra Rhodes: Archive Unfolded exhibition.
As Dame Zandra led the group around the gallery and the museum, she commented on some of the images, objects and other exhibits on display, offering insights into the people, places, projects and creative processes that have shaped a career spanning more than 60 years.
For Maryam, who hopes to pursue a career in fashion journalism, it was an invaluable experience.
She said: "This is absolutely an amazing opportunity. I feel genuinely so grateful because students at other universities would never be able to experience this. To have something like this just feels very surreal."
"You're meeting other journalists as well who are already in industry. You're meeting, like, a British icon coming to our university, and I think that's a really big privilege."
Maryam originally enrolled on DMU's renowned Fashion Communications course before realising that she wanted to pursue fashion journalism and switching courses.
She and fellow second-year BA Journalism student Ria Choolun will be producing articles based on the experience for the course newspaper, the Leicestershire Press.
Meanwhile, Digital Media and Content Creation students Patty Michalewska and Millie Stirk also got to meet and interview Dame Zandra and plan to use their material in a film they are making about teaching fashion at DMU.
Dame Zandra has spoken about her desire for her archive to be used in teaching and to inspire a new generation of creative talent. She chose to donate a significant part of her collection to DMU after being impressed by its facilities and opportunities for students, and has praised the quality of its fashion teaching, describing its Contour Fashion course as the "best lingerie course in the country, if not the world".
"Students need things that inspire and to reference," she said, "and hopefully my work will be better for research than looking inside the shops."
Her archive is already being used extensively in the teaching of fashion and other design subjects at DMU. The press visit has shown that the ongoing association between Zandra Rhodes and DMU is creating opportunities beyond design and giving students in journalism and digital media valuable experience alongside media professionals.
Zandra Rhodes: Archive Unfolded is free to visit and runs until January 2027, with displays at Leicester Gallery on campus and at the DMU Museum.
Posted on Friday 6 November 2026