Tributes flow for Maggie Tabberer
Tributes are flowing for the Australian fashion icon Maggie Tabberer, who has died aged 87.
National
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Australian fashion has lost its giant.
Maggie Tabberer, the former model, TV host, fashion editor and business woman, has died aged 87.
With her towering frame, distinctive style and eponymous fashion label, ‘Maggie T’ – as she was universally known – was an influencer decades before that was even a job title.
She was a familiar face to Australian TV audiences for decades, appearing on several seasons of Beauty and the Beast, helming her own chat show Maggie (a gig which saw her win the Gold Logie in 1970 and 1971), and later co-hosting the ABC lifestyle program The Home Show in the 1990s with her then partner, Richard Zachariah.
In the 1980s she became the face of The Australian Women’s Weekly and launched her own clothing line, specialising in plus-size garments.
She is survived by two daughters, Amanda and Brooke, the product of her first marriage to car salesman Charles Tabberer, whom she wed when she was just 17.
The marriage was to last seven years, and a second marriage, to Italian restaurateur Ettore Prossimo, lasted 17. Tabberer was later to reveal the heartbreak of losing her son Francesco at just 10 days old to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
In a tribute online, journalist Melissa Hoyer said Australia had lost a “legend”.
The loss of a pure class act.
— Melissa Hoyer (@melissahoyer) December 6, 2024
An extraordinary woman, my icon, my influence, a person with an innate sense of style (& humour) that money can’t buy. Terrible to lose a legend & friend that is #MaggieTabberer. All love to daughters Amanda, Brooke & MT’s grandson Marco. 💔ðŸ™ðŸ» RIP pic.twitter.com/PBoYBYef8o
Sydney restaurateur Rupert Noffs paid tribute to Tabberer as a “trailblazer”.
“Maggie defined Australian style with her elegance, sophistication, and grace, inspiring countless others along the way,” he said.
“She was a huge supporter of the work of my grandpa Ted’s Wayside Chapel, and Noffs Foundation. Her kindness and unwavering generosity touched so many lives.
“There will never be another Maggie T! VALE Maggie.”
Journalist Leila McKinnon shared: “Beautiful Maggie, what a wonderful woman, vale to such a generous spirit, we loved her”.
Fellow model Deborah Hutton — who worked with Maggie and was mentored by her at Australian Women's Weekly, — which she also went on to edit — joined the emotional tributes.
“No words right now … Just tears. My heart goes out to the girls. May you rest in peace, beautiful Maggie,” Hutton said.
Neale Whitaker, who hosted Love it or List it, said: “Very sad news. What an icon Maggie was. Sending love to you and your family.”
Former Studio 10 host Angela Bishop wrote: “Sending much love Amanda and Brooke. Your Mum was an extraordinary woman and will be greatly missed.”
Award-winning journalist and author Caroline Overington wrote: “A wonderful woman. Incredible to work with, glorious inside and out.”
Maggie’s goddaughter and manager Lauren Miller also paid her respects on Instagram.
“Vale Maggie Tabberer. Sharing this news with family, friends and all those that love and admire Maggie. Our families [are] forever bonded by the incredible love and loyalty between Tabberers and Millers.
“Harry and Maggie had one of the most wonderful and enduring business partnerships and friendships. Also my favourite and only god mother. One in a squillion,” she wrote.
Australian journalist Andrew Hornery penned: “Legend. Icon. Champion. There are not enough descriptors to truly encapsulate what she represented over a seven decade career,” he wrote.
Editor of the Australian Women’s Weekly Sophie Tedmanson wrote: “Maggie Tabberer was an Australian fashion icon and trailblazer for women around the world as well as at The Australian Women’s Weekly, where she remains a much-loved family member,” she said.
Born Margaret May Trigar in Adelaide in 1936, the youngest of five children, Tabberer started modelling in her teens.
But after being “discovered” by the renowned fashion photographer Helmut Newton in the late 1950s, her career picked up, necessitating moves, first to Melbourne, and then Sydney.
She was named Model of the Year in 1960 and enjoyed a stint working in fashion PR before landing her first TV gig – as one of four female “Beauties” to Harry’s Dearth’s “Beast” for the Seven Network.
This led on to her first fashion column, for Sydney’s Daily Mirror. Despite admitting in her memoir many years later she was a lousy speller and didn’t know “where the commas go”, the column ran for 16 years.
Kerry Packer convinced her to jump ship to the Women’s Weekly in 1981, where she became the publication’s fashion editor, public face, and frequently its cover star.
Tabberer landed what was hailed as her last Weekly cover in August 2021, radiating old-school glamour at 84 and dishing about her life and loves in an accompanying feature story.
Tabberer’s relationship with Zachariah in the early 1990s also generated plenty of column inches, both for the age difference between the two (nine years), and its spectacular ending.
“The last one fixed me up. I’m not going to make that mistake again,” Tabberer told the Weekly in 2021.
But there would be one last cover for Maggie T.
At the age of 86, she graced the cover of the Weekly’s September 2023 edition, a special issue commemorating the magazine’s 90th anniversary.
In an accompanying interview she revealed it was Newton who convinced her to ditch the name “Margaret” in favour of “Maggie”, and candidly admitted that beginning work on the Women’s Weekly in the 1980s scared her “sh**less”.
The cover shoot showed Tabberer resplendent in soft pink – a departure, the magazine said, from her “famously monochrome” wardrobe.
“Black for the winter, white for the summer,” the magazine quoted her as saying.
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