Success by design: how going global put fashion label Zimmermann on the map
Thirty-two years after founding their eponymous label, sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann have reaped the rewards of putting Australia on the international fashion map.
It would be unwise to suggest that the business of flouncing feminine dresses, floral prints and itsy-bitsy bikinis is anything other than awfully serious.
Sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann, co-founders and, respectively, creative director and chief operating officer of arguably Australia’s most successful fashion brand, have made it so.
Making their debut on The List – Australia’s Richest 250 this year, some 32 years and 53 boutiques – from Paddington to Paris – after starting out, the sisters have successfully sold a breezily elegant take on Australian style to the world.
It is enough for their wealth to be estimated at $600m.
Don’t miss your copy of The List: Australia’s Richest 250 on Friday, March 24, exclusively in The Australian and online at rich250.com.au.
The Zimmermann brand, which according to recent reporting turned over a consolidated revenue of almost $400m remains a family business. Nicky runs the creative and design side, Simone handles the logistics as COO, and Nicky’s husband Chris Olliver is chief executive.
“We have never had anyone to follow, so we have always had to forge our own path, and that has been good for us,” Nicky Zimmermann told WISH magazine in a December 2020 interview commemorating the brand’s 30th anniversary. That same year, the Milan-based company Style Capital bought a 70 per cent stake in the business, reported to be worth around $446m at the time.
“We have always relied on our gut decisions, what feels right for us and for our families, because this is a family business,” Zimmermann continued. “We also never strayed from what we wanted to do as a brand, and we haven’t been distracted by this or that, or moved in another direction.”
The label’s feminine aesthetic – prints and ruffles abound – has found favour with everyone from Catherine, Princess of Wales, to Beyoncé. CEO Chris Olliver told the UK-based Financial Times last year that top-line sales have increased by 30 per cent each year for five years. The brand has 21 stores in Australia and one in China, 19 boutiques across America and 12 in Europe, including London, France and Italy, with the most recent door opening in Florence.
In 2022, after years of showing their collections during New York Fashion Week, Zimmermann joined the official Paris Fashion Week schedule. “I think what they understand is our freshness, our sense of fun and optimism,” Nicky Zimmermann told The Australian in 2022, speaking about the European market.
Bridget Veals, David Jones general manager of womenswear, footwear and accessories, says that in the past Australia’s unique take on fashion had not had a presence on the global stage, thanks to plain old geography. In a changed, technologically connected world, this obstacle has proved to be easily surmountable, and also an advantage.
“I think the Australian fashion industry simply lacked visibility due to our distance from the world’s fashion capitals – Paris, New York, London and Milan,” she says. “The seasonal divide now plays into the buy now, wear now mindset of customers, and with our enviable climate we master the art of the trans-seasonal wardrobe.
“Being a little bit further removed from the influences of the major fashion scenes has now given a competitive edge for us to realise true creativity, design and manufacturing skill. We’ve become an incubator for cutting-edge brands with a fresh design perspective who also know and understand our customers.” Veals singles out Zimmermann’s success, saying the brand’s prominence “not only internationally, but as a key player in the luxury sector, deserves high praise”.
Zimmermann isn’t the only female-led fashion business debuting on The List this year. Decjuba, founded in 2008 by Tania Austin, which has now grown to more than 140 stores across Australia and New Zealand, also makes the cut. According to its most recent round of reporting, the business turned over a consolidated revenue of about $180m.
Meanwhile, Mecca Brands, founded in Melbourne by Jo Horgan in 1997, makes a return to The List after debuting in 2022. Later this year, it will open its largest ever store, taking over the former David Jones menswear building in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall.
Sprawling across 3000sq m and over two levels, the Melbourne store is more than 1000sq m bigger than the Sydney flagship on George Street that opened in November 2020. Mecca has said that it will be an “unprecedented” beauty and retail experience.
Another example of the appetite for Australian fashion is the investment by Tattarang, the private investment group of Andrew and Nicola Forrest, in Camilla Franks’ resort wear brand Camilla. (An aside: the brand is a favourite of Jennifer Coolidge’s character in the much-discussed TV series The White Lotus.)
Tattarang director Nicola Forrest said of the investment in January: “We are delighted to back Camilla Franks, an extraordinary entrepreneur leading a cutting-edge fashion brand doing amazing things in the creative space.”
Paul Zahra, CEO of the Australian Retail Association, says following the devastation wreaked on the retail industry during the worst of the pandemic and lockdowns, there has been a reimagining of “omnichannel” retail, some of it led by female-founded companies.
“Many of the best-performing brands this year offered the best of both worlds – an omnichannel shopping experience, leaning heavily on in-store shopping but also complementing it with online, social and other channels,” he says. “The most successful brands have embraced both – using technology to bridge the digital world and the physical world with the purpose of providing a unique interactive experience for the consumer.”
Zahra isn’t surprised to see female-led brands, catering to a female-heavy customer profile, performing well.
“It is estimated that up to 75 per cent of discretionary shopping is done by women, so it’s no surprise that female-led businesses have excelled this year, which is a welcome barometer of societal change,” he says.
The 2023 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 is published on Friday in The Australian and online at richest250.com.au
