Bianca Spender: ‘This keeps my mum’s story going’

Designer Bianca Spender has opened up about the legacy of her late mother Carla Zampatti and the real cost of cheap, wear-once fashion.

Stellar: Hiring outfits is a popular trend among generation Z and millennials who want to keep up with the latest “it” items on Instagram. As a designer, what do you make of that?

Bianca Spender: I think that, like everything, it depends how it’s implemented. Tuxedos used to be rented. We’ve got a lot of shared cars. There are lots of propositions around [fashion] rental that can be really thoughtful and careful and sustainable, and it’s about making sure that we really build and hold on to those values, as opposed to turning it into something [disposable].

That could be in the care that you take with the garment; and if you own the garment, thinking, is this really an investment for the future? Because there is a challenge [when it comes to fashion items] that are very hot [and people thinking]: if we don’t have to invest $1000 into that, I can just rent it.

But then that piece of clothing is gone [and after a time] no-one wants to rent it. So I think it is sometimes [that we] might not be investing in the longevity of objects. And it’s why fashion has its challenges around sustainability, because it’s an industry where the product evolves so constantly and at such a pace.

And I think that if we’re seeing on the rental market lots of great basic pieces that have longevity built into the garments – in the way that my mum [Australian designer Carla Zampatti] wore something and then I’d wear it from her – that’s a great version of a rental economy.

But if it’s leaning into some of the ways that we use fashion in a more disposable [way], it can develop into another dimension in which we create excess.

Bianca Spender: “Sustainability really needs to be at the forefront of our mind in fashion.” Picture: Daniel Nadel for Stellar.

S: On that note, you’re nominated for one of the industry’s highest honours, the Sustainable Innovation of the Year at the 2022 Australian Fashion Laureate, alongside brands Kitx, Sarah & Sebastian and M.J. Bale. What does this category mean to you?

BS: It’s really exciting. I think that sustainability really needs to be at the forefront of our mind in fashion.

We’re all about creativity – and using that creativity. And that, in its spirit, to focus on sustainability is building the industry for the future.

What we need to do is think carefully and really connect to the environment… People are really thinking differently and understanding that what they buy makes a difference. The consumer is leading in this space.

S: As a designer, how do you incorporate sustainability into your eponymous brand?

BS: I need to start at the beginning of the design process. I’m always manufacturing 100 per cent in Australia.

The biggest impact of the sustainability of fashion was in the fabric. Dead stock, or remnant fabric, is fabric that is being overproduced. Lots [of dead stock] will then not be used.

[Innovators] have thought, “OK, we need to start a kind of second-hand market for fabric.”

It’s the idea of not making a virgin yarn; you’re repurposing it and saving it from being used as landfill or being burned, turning it into something else [instead].

So you look at all of the fabrics and you start to create a story and connect all of those different fabrics so that in the end, the result looks like you purposely mixed them all in that way. lt requires a very different design process.

S: In what way?

BS: There will be splicing in garments where if there’s only a very small amount of the fabric, we will use it with another fabric to tie it in.

There are techniques [in which we will] make colour builds. There’s also a lot of quality control that we use for the fabrics.

Bianca Spender’s runway show at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week in May. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

S: Is there something in your wardrobe that has been passed down from your late mother, who was an icon of the Australian fashion scene?

BS: Mum had a swimming costume she did in the ’70s that I loved. And I was a baby in the ’70s, right? So I didn’t wear it but then she actually decided to put it back into production. And then I wore it.

It was such a wonderful thing because it’s a design that really stands the test of time. And I suppose those ideas are fundamental to sustainability.

I don’t know if you have this story, but there’s always a cuddly jumper your mother has. My mother had this amazing cuddly mohair jumper that I adored, and you’re careful with those pieces because you’re invested in having them in your wardrobe for a long time.

I remember my mum in the ’70s was all about [the colour] chocolate brown. And she had this big blanket – it was one piece of fabric that has, you know, that braiding around all of the edges. And as a little girl, I’d hide under it.

S: Your mother’s career is being honoured with the exhibition Zampatti Powerhouse, which opens at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum this week. How involved was your family in its curation?

BS: It has been a really deep collaboration and a really special one.

The conversations around the exhibition started when she was alive and [it was] something she was very passionate about. She was always really interested in the now.

I had all these photos of mum in the ’70s, when it was all in black and white, and I was like, “I wonder what that dress was like?”And now I’ve seen them come to life. It has just been so meaningful.

Bianca Spender features in this Sunday’s Stellar. Picture: John Russo

Mum had this incredible energy and she wanted to see women thrive and grow. [The Carla Zampatti Award for Excellence in Leadership at the Australian Fashion Laureate] is really celebrating that.

Leadership means having a vision, and being a leader now means more than being an individually successful person. As someone who was so close to her, having her spirit still alive in these things is a huge gift to us.

S: What is her fashion legacy?

BS: She was one of the first designers who had her own company for 56 years. She ran it independently, never went bankrupt. She did so many things supporting women and multiculturalism and creativity.

[The award] keeps her story going – it’s about the underdog, the battler. She would be really excited and hopefully that can inspire future generations.

The Australian Fashion Laureate is being held at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Australia this Tuesday. For the full list of nominees, visit australianfashionlaureate.com.

Originally published as Bianca Spender: ‘This keeps my mum’s story going’