Bianca Spender opens up about the loss of her mother Carla Zampatti

When Bianca Spender’s mother Carla Zampatti died after a fall three years ago and her father John Spender 18 months later it was a period of immense grief, but she is finally ready to talk about loss.

Bianca Spender and her mum Carla Zampatti were always polar opposites.

In the way they worked, in the way they created, in the way they operated. Mother daughter relationships can often be like that, she laughs – but the famed fashion powerhouse has had to do a lot of healing in the three years since the death of her iconic mother.

Zampatti was a revered part of the international fashion landscape for more than 55 years before tragically passing away on April 3, 2021, from injuries she sustained falling on a staircase at the opening night of La Traviata at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair seven days earlier. It was a shock that left the 78-year-old’s family – daughters Bianca, Allegra (Member for Wentworth) and son Alex Schuman (CEO of his mother’s legacy brand) reeling.

And craving comfort in each other.

Australian fashion designer Bianca Spender working on her latest creation in her office in Darling Point today. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We were very lucky that we’ve always been close,” Spender says.

“Working in the business together, growing up with working parents, we would be home alone a lot together – but experiencing such a sudden loss – and such a public figure – was definitely something that brought us all together. We knew that continuing the legacy was very important to us all and that was something that needed all of our intelligence, and our experience, and all our different nuances and layers to make it happen.”

Italian born Zampatti came to Australia with her family in the 1950s, as so many immigrants did – but coming with her was a work ethic that trickled down to her children, and subsequently grandchildren.

Bianca Spender with her late mother Carla Zampatti. Picture: Instagram

“I think we were very lucky though, having a parent as a public figure that was so respected and so appreciated by women, and immigrants,” Spender says.

“Someone says to me, ‘Your mum’s still talking to me, she’s telling me, ‘Come on, just do it.’ Or ‘I had this, you know, wonderful day that I met your mum and she gave me some incredible advice’, and there have been all of these amazing stories of when they wore mum, or when their mum wore mum, and all of these attachments and stories – so we’ve been very lucky to really have her memory continue, not just in our hearts, but in many.’’

Spender says it has been hard to come to terms with the loss, and to talk about it.

“I think that grief and loss – we’re not very comfortable with those conversations,’’ she says.

“I don’t think I knew how to talk about grief before I lost parents.

“I didn’t know whether it was better to say something, or to not, because maybe people didn’t want to get drawn into that space.

Siblings Allegra Spender, Alex Schuman and Bianca Spender attend the opening night of the Zampatti Powerhouse exhibition at Powerhouse Museum. Picture: Brittany Long/Getty Images

“But those first few years are incredibly rich,” she continues, softly.

“They’re beautiful, they’re unpredictable – you’re incredibly vulnerable, and you also learn to be strong in your vulnerability and see that all of the grief – is just a sign of love.

“It’s got so many layers to it.’’

Just 18 months after her mum passed away, her father, former Liberal politician John Spender, did too.

Spender and Zampatti married in 1975 and divorced in 2010. The father of Spender and her sister Allegra was 86 when he died.

“You know, I still see people who I might not have seen since mum passed, and they’re like, ‘I’m sorry about your mum’ – and my partner might say, ‘Her dad passed away as well’ – and they’re like, ‘Oh, what?’,” she says.

“So there was something quite touching about how many people knew and how much people reached out … it was really beautiful.”

Bianca Spender said she was touched by all those who reached out to her following the death of her mother and father. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Spender is revived energetically by nature, as well as inspired on a work front, whether that’s by an ocean swim, bushwalk or weekend soccer game with sons Dominic, 15, and Florian, 12.

With every step she’s also supported by life partner Sam McGuinness, who she met at a Sydney gig back in 2005 and helped her through the birth of their first son and the birth of her business, all in one go.

Last year, the Bianca Spender brand celebrated 15 years in business at Australian Fashion Week. The year before, she opened the show. This year though – this year was different. This year was about her mum.

“It was a big moment because it was the Carla Zampatti show this year, so it was the first show after mum’s passing, so that was a really special moment,” she says.

“Mum always built her business to have a legacy, and it was very important to get to the stage where we were at that level to present to the industry, to the world, the next stage in that journey.

“So that was a very big moment, as part of Fashion Week.’’

She says the show also gave her time to reflect on her own fashion career.

“ I did my first show in Fashion Week when I had a one-year-old child,’’ she says.

“So I have a 15-year-old son and a 16-year-old business, and that means I got pregnant when I started my business,” she laughs.

Bianca Spender's 2022 Australian Fashion Week show.

“Having that moment to reflect that journey, and all of those different fashion weeks from my first show, where I got to just create this real magical dream landscape, you bring all the elements of music and lighting that you make into this immersive world – and just thinking about last year, celebrating 15 years, and the year before, opening Fashion Week.

“It’s about all of those years that you put in to that journey.”

Spender calls herself “the disrupter” of the family – and intrinsically opposite to her famous mum in almost all ways. But that was often the beauty of their relationship, if she thinks about it.

“We were very different in how we work,” she explains of her mother.

“I’m very into detail, and she is very dynamic, very fast.

“She’s the hare, I’m the tortoise.

“She can love something and then hate it – but I am very constant – if I love something, I love it from the very beginning to the very end.’’

It was perhaps that difference that has been one of the reasons the two brands have flourished independently of each other.

The transition to her own brand, which Spender has lovingly nurtured for 16 years now, was organic at first, as consumers started to tell which were her pieces – and wanted more.

“They could tell – they’d say, ‘These are all Bianca’s’, and it was really interesting,” Spender continues.

Bianca Spender with her sons Florian Spender-McGuinness, Dominic Spender-McGuinness and partner Sam McGuinness. Picture: Wendell Teodoro/Getty Images

“And they were saying we want more, but it didn’t fit in the store.

“It really had its own world and it had its own style then, and it needed to have its own space to really express that, which really wasn’t as constructed a plan as that.

“I had my own unique style.

“I’d been working in the design room with mum and I had a natural hand at cutting fabric and sewing things – so I said, ‘Okay, I’ll do short courses and we’ll see how it goes.’ And I loved it.”

After that, she worked overseas for four years. She needed to find her own way.

“I needed to really … see who I was in a world that no one knew mum,” she reasons.

“But when I came back, mum had tried these designers and it hadn’t worked, so it was a good base to try me working – but we always had a real deal, that if it sells I stay and if it doesn’t, I leave.

“So I really was designing under the Carla Zampatti brand, but I always had a different edge. And I always had a different thing and everyone would be like, ‘That’s one of yours’,” she whispers.

“I had this very tight brief working for Carla Zampatti, where there was a very definite sense of what of my designs would work in the Carla Zampatti context – it was very, very tight.

Carla Zampatti at work in 1974.

Bianca Spender at work in 2024. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“And then little by little by little by little, I was allowed to support a bit more Bianca.

“So it was a good time where we’d always been quite distinctly different than you know, with families that always can cause some disruption – and I definitely was the disrupter in the house,” she laughs.

“Differences are important – they’re actually a strength of this partnership.”

Spender says there is often a natural comparison between mothers and daughters in society. “It’s just a context that women walk into – and men as well, between fathers and sons – and I suppose having a mother that was so impressive, and successful and respected was very intimidating, and definitely one of the reasons why I never thought I’d be in fashion, and one of the reasons why I came to it late and also worked overseas,” she says.

“So it is a journey finding your own space.”

That she’s done. And it’s something she’s proud of. She loves making women feel good every day, being able to wear pieces of art and express exactly who they are in what were once pieces of fabric she hand-draped over figures to see how they should fall.

Carla Zampatti and Bianca Spender in 2018. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

So much so that Spender is being honoured by the prestigious 88-year-old Black and White Committee at their 38th annual Women of Achievement Luncheon, an event that celebrates the remarkable accomplishments of women across various fields.

Over the decades, the committee has raised much needed awareness and funds for children who are blind or have low vision through the services of Vision Australia.

“I’m deeply touched by it, actually,” she says.

“If I’m really honest, looking at the other people who are recognised, sometimes I feel – I know I love clothing, and it changes how I feel – but I’m not saving lives.

“I still feel touched that the work that I do means something to other women – enough to have relevance to be recognised in a context where there are so many incredible women who have done such people things … but I suppose I’m just trying to help women have a voice, so they feel held and uplifted and supported on that daily basis.

“People have often said why clothing … and it’s the only thing you take into the world.

“You can have a beautiful artwork or beautiful objects – you can see a beautiful dance or theatre or music – but you can’t take it with you to work.

“My hands literally hand drape a lot of the garments … I know it sounds silly, but the way that I’m always standing there with a roll of fabric and wondering how you want to drape it around the body, how it wants to feel, where it wants to fall on to the body, where it wants to give, how it wants to move – and that is seen as something worth recognising … I’m just deeply humbled.”

The Black and White Committee’s Women of Achievement Lunch will be held on June 4 in Sydney. blackandwhite.org.au