Michael Cheika opens up about surprise success in the fashion industry

After making headlines for his appointment as head coach of Lebanon, the rugby star reveals the new role that is taking him from the sporting field to the runway.

You know those nail-biting sports games when one mistake is the difference between winning and losing? To former Wallabies boss Michael Cheika, those aren’t “coach killer” moments. He relishes them.

“I like the idea of turning those situations around. If I’m in the coach’s box, I’m very comfortable when it’s difficult,” he tells Stellar. “I know it sounds perverse, but I feel quite at home in uncomfortable situations.”

As a professional coach and the man who led Australia to the Rugby World Cup final in 2015 – only to resign four years later after a heartbreaking quarter-final loss at the same tournament – Cheika boasts a litany of uncomfortable moments in sport.

“I’m a big believer that you’ve got to be able to jump across the spectrum. To be able to have champagne with the Queen and have a beer after a hard day’s work.” (Picture: Hugh Stewart)

But away from the field, he’s also spent plenty of time stepping outside his comfort zone – and into a successful career in the fashion industry. While he can’t explain the genesis of this trait, the 53-year-old says it probably stems from his parents, Joseph and Therese. His father migrated to Australia from Lebanon in 1950, at the age of 20 and without a cent to his name.

His ascent from working in a sewing machine company to owning a business and eventually receiving a prestigious honour for his work from the Queen is the stuff of family legend.

“My old man left home and could never go back. He never saw his parents again. But he had to flourish inside a situation like that,” explains Cheika, who is now a UNICEF Australia ambassador for Lebanon. “And he helped all of us flourish as well.”

Growing up alongside his older brother and sister in the Sydney beachside suburb of Coogee, Cheika loved sport as much as he loved learning languages. Instead of going to university, he looked to the game of rugby as his teacher, and playing it took him around the world.

On his return home, he needed a job to pay the bills (rugby was yet to become a professional sport), and his ability to speak French and Italian (he also speaks Arabic and is learning Spanish) landed him the role of business manager to designer Collette Dinnigan.

The brutish, 190cm athlete – now bearing scars from gruesome rugby injuries – soon found himself sipping champagne backstage at Paris Fashion Week.

“I have a real thing about being competitive so when I’d lose a game, I’d go through a mourning period for a day.” (Picture: William West, AFP)

“I copped plenty of grief from the boys when I’d play on a Saturday. They would question my integrity saying, ‘How can you work in fashion and play rugby? What’s wrong with you?’” he says, smiling. “But I enjoy that contradiction, that paradox.”

Still, Cheika is quick to point out that he’s no fashionista. “In a creative business like fashion you have to know what your place is. And mine wasn’t in styling, that’s for sure.”

Cheika’s time with Dinnigan, who he describes as a “great operator”, encouraged him to start his own distribution company, Live Fashion, which imported PDC Jeans, made famous by Victoria Beckham.

All the while his passion for rugby saw him go from player to coach, a job he’s since held in Italy, France, Ireland and Australia.

He’s also the only coach to have won major provincial rugby trophies in both the northern and southern hemispheres – further evidence of his ability to straddle two worlds.

“I’m a big believer that you’ve got to be able to jump across the spectrum,” he tells Stellar. “To be able to have champagne with the Queen and have a beer after a hard day’s work on the building site. I like the idea of going across all the different classes and not changing and being the same person.”

Being comfortable with discomfort also culminated in him asking out his now-wife, Stephanie, after meeting her at Sydney airport, where she worked for Emirates, in 2006.

“In a creative business like fashion you have to know what your place is. And mine wasn’t in styling, that’s for sure.” (Picture: Christian Gilles)

The couple, who had a long-distance relationship for their first year together, now have three sons and a daughter, Symon, 11, twins Lucia and Mattias, 10, and Carlos, 7, who all inherited Cheika’s love of languages. He credits the formation of his little team with easing the pain and frustration that comes from being a rugby coach.

“I have a real thing about being competitive so when I’d lose a game, I’d go through a mourning period for a day. But after you’ve had kids, it’s hard to do that. You come back from a game not smiling and they make you smile.”

Cheika is putting all that life experience into his new podcast Michael Cheika: On The Record, for which he’ll talk to people from the worlds of sport, fashion and film, and discuss how to thrive despite challenges.

Regardless of how his tenure ended – he resigned as Wallabies coach last year after a failed World Cup campaign and problems with the game’s management – he says it’s been the privilege of his life to coach for his country.

“There were struggles with management at different times, yes, but that’s coaching,” he says. “So many good things happened – we won a rugby championship, went to a World Cup grand final, had a few great wins over what’s probably the best team that will ever play international rugby: New Zealand.”

Michael Cheika features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

It was recently announced that Cheika will switch codes and go back to his Lebanese roots as head coach for the country’s league team.

But in the meantime, he’s still having a big impact on his old code, with his role of consultant coach to the Argentinian side pivotal in their recent shock win against the All Blacks in the Tri Nations tournament in Sydney – a first for the Argentinians, who will face the Wallabies again this Saturday.

“The highlight for me was [the Argentinians’] interaction with the crowd after the match. This was elation in its purest form. It was beautiful to watch and something you don’t see in elite sport very often. I was grateful to be part of the experience.

“You ride the ups and downs all the way with these things. The fact that you’re getting to do your passion, and do it on such a big stage, and you’re given the trust to do that is an absolute honour.”

Michael Cheika: On The Record is available today, on all major podcast platforms.

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Originally published as Michael Cheika opens up about surprise success in the fashion industry