Success or bust

Fashion designer Carla Zampatti reveals how a bad early experience made her “indestructible”.

TWAM 28 March 2015

Two huge gilt-framed mirrors do ­double duty in the sitting room of Carla Zampatti’s home in Sydney’s eastern ­suburbs.

Reflecting the Italianate balustrades of the balcony opposite and the lush vegetation beyond, they make a large room seem even bigger. They are also “terribly useful”, the Australian fashion trailblazer says, in the design process. “I stand in front of them and drape different ­fabrics on me to see how they will look on the body, because eventually a design has to make you feel and look beautiful.” Male designers have muses; Zampatti, who maintains a cat-like grace into her 70s, has herself. “I live the life of my customer and therefore understand her needs,” she says. “I use myself as a measure of where women are at the moment.”

From the transformational 1960s, when she founded an eponymous label that has since expanded to more than 30 boutiques across the country as well as being stocked in David Jones, through the power-dressing 1980s and into the hectic new century, the acclaimed designer has lived every stage of women’s evolution. “When I started out, I had all the insecurities and frailties that women did in the ’60s because we weren’t told then how good we were at everything,” she says, smiling serenely. “And now we know.”

Zampatti says she became a ­feminist following her divorce in 1970 from Leo Schuman, with whom she has a son, Alexander. Schuman had invested in her business and when the marriage foundered, Zampatti decided to start over. But the bank wouldn’t give her finance. The suppliers she’d been dealing with wouldn’t extend credit. Eventually, a cousin lent her $5000 and she opened her first boutique in Surry Hills in 1972. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, if I was a woman in the ­suburbs with five children and no ability to earn money and depending on maintenance from my husband, I would hate it’,” she says.

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She has been “fiercely independent” ever since. “That bad experience gave me enormous strength,” she says. “I thought, ‘If I can live through that I can live through anything’. You become sort of indestructible.”

The woman curling one bare foot beneath her as she balances on a low, claw-footed stool opposite seems impossibly sophisticated. But her poise has been hard-won. Self-confidence is a “kind of elusive” quality but one of the most important a woman can claim. “A lot of people should have it but they don’t,” she says. Self-confidence is a “kind of elusive” quality but one of the most important a woman can claim. “A lot of people should have it but they don’t,” she says.

She acknowledges she could never have ­managed to run her own business as well as have a family without help. “I did not want to give up my career during the child-rearing years, but you can’t do it without help,” she says. “I had a live-in nanny right through my children’s early days – it’s not elitism, it’s a necessity.”

Decades of experience in business have led Zampatti to firmly believe that taking time off work to have children necessarily impacts a ­woman’s career. “By all means, at least if you’re working for a big company, take off two or three months, but longer than that it starts interfering with your career,” she says. If a woman does opt to take a longer maternity leave, she must “mentally, somehow, stay linked, stay in touch”. “I think a lot of women lose confidence,” she says.

Zampatti remarried in 1975, to barrister and politician John Spender, and their 35-year ­marriage produced two daughters: Allegra, who is now managing director of Zampatti’s company, and Bianca, a successful designer with her own label. “My girls would occasionally say, ‘Why aren’t you like the other mothers? Why aren’t you ­picking us up?’ ” she says. “In the end it all worked out well – I took them into my office on school holidays from the age of nine or 10 and they did jobs and they got to know how a business works. They understood that if they wanted to achieve their dreams they had to work hard. Now they’re both working in the business.” She makes a mock sad-face. “Poor darlings, they could have been happy housewives…”

Zampatti was born in Lovero, a village in northern Italy. Soon afterwards, in a bid to escape post-war Europe, her father emigrated to Australia, with the family to follow. Zampatti says that, from about the age of two, she was essentially raised by her two older brothers as her mother was kept busy running the family farm. “I was a tomboy,” she says. “I could do anything they could do. Not having anyone say, ‘No, you can’t do that’ really made a big difference to my outlook.” I was a tomboy,” she says. “I could do anything they could do. Not having anyone say, ‘No, you can’t do that’ really made a big difference to my outlook. The family followed her father out to Fremantle, WA, when she was nine, but her free-range childhood had fashioned an adventurous spirit. Zampatti left home in her early 20s and moved to Sydney, where she worked for a blouse manufacturer before striking out on her own.

Her label celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. It’s a remarkable innings in a notoriously capricious retail sector. Last month Zampatti’s David Jones stablemate Josh Goot was briefly placed into voluntary administration, the latest fashion casualty following closures by Lisa Ho, Marnie Skillings and Kirrily Johnston. Her own label endures, Zampatti says, “because each year we deliver. We have built up credibility and trust and have become a strong brand. It’s a bit like Mercedes is a strong brand because when you get in the car and turn the key, it starts.”

A mix of creativity and business savvy, two characteristics she attributes to her Italian ­heritage, have stood Zampatti in good stead. As well as being designer and executive chairman of her company, she has made shrewd investments along the way and now has a successful real estate portfolio. “When you start with zero finance you have to have a business brain or you’d never survive,” says Zampatti, who was made Companion of the Order of Australia in 2009. “I love finding practical solutions. And I believe good design is something which is beautiful and practical.”

It is practical, she finds, to design in the midst of beauty: her home is a temple of serenity, with white walls, white floors and bold works of art. Two floor-to-ceiling frescoes she discovered in a market in Tuscany frame a doorway through which can be glimpsed her pride and joy: a pair of busts (with which she’s pictured on the ­previous page) by sculptor ­Elisabeth Frink. “It is a very peaceful house,” she says. “That is why I do my design, my research, my thinking here and then I go into the office with my team and we discuss it.”

Golden anniversary celebrations have begun. DJs has paid ­tribute with their windows, and the launch of the label’s spring/summer collection on April 8 will take place at the Opera House, where ­Zampatti’s debut collection was shown in the late ’60s while the building was under construction. A coffee table book and a memoir, My Look, My Life, are due later this year.

Zampatti has no plans to retire her sketchbook any time soon, a relief, no doubt, to devotees of her classic designs. Zampatti has no plans to retire her sketchbook any time soon, a relief, no doubt, to devotees of her classic designs. Her high-profile fans include Quentin Bryce, Lisa Wilkinson, Marta Dusseldorp, Delta Goodrem and Princess Mary of Denmark, who recently posed for her official portrait wearing a shell-pink brocade gown Zampatti designed for her. “I think with the 50th anniversary, people are wondering if I will retire but, no, can’t get rid of me yet,” Zampatti laughs. “I love what I do; this is my favourite hobby and it doesn’t make sense to try and find a new hobby at this late stage.”