Ursula Rodel is one of Switzerland's best-known and most influential fashion pioneers. In a life lived to extremes, she created boundary-pushing work that fused fashion, design and art.

Ursula Rodel grew up near Lake Hallwil in the canton of Aargau where her family ran a hotel. After train­ing at the Swiss Tex­tile College in Wattwil and at the London School of Fashion, Rodel moved to Zurich as a stylist. At a time of change and upheaval, this was where punk attitudes mingled with fashion trends, and where the young fashion designer began her rise to prominence as an internationally sought-after costume designer.

After founding her own fashion label in 1972 – one of the first prêt-à-porter labels in Switzerland – she began attracting the attention of the international film scene. The Swiss designer created the costumes for films by Daniel Schmid and Claude Berri, and ensured that Catherine Deneuve appeared at her finest. Her relationship with the French actress quickly developed from a purely professional association into a close, lifelong friendship. But Rodel never let all her socialising with the international jet set go to her head. Quite the opposite: the fashion designer always stayed true to herself, somehow managing to strike a balance between glamour and unconventionality, between hard work and wild living, and between catering to the ideals of classic style and creating fashion statements for emancipated, professional women.

The National Museum Zurich is travelling back to the 1970s to dive into an era of change and contradictions that became a fertile breeding ground for the fashion avant-garde. Welcome to the wild world of Ursula Rodel, an artist and designer who lived life in the fast lane.

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