Fashion designer Zandra Rhodes has said she is creating her own ceremonial robes for her inauguration as a university chancellor. The flamboyant mother is due to be installed as chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), based in Kent and Surrey, next month. Rhodes said the designs were being kept a secret but revealed they would incorporate a “dramatic color scheme.”

Rhodes studied at Medway College of Art, one of the Kent and Surrey colleges that formed UCA last year. The designer, whose clients included Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, will be UCA’s first chancellor. She added: “My years at Medway were my formative years and shaped me into what I am today.”