Famous Australian women paying tribute to Carla Zampatti
Almost a year after the death of Carla Zampatti, some of the country’s most high-profile women including Melissa Doyle, Georgie Gardener, Dannii Minogue and Delta Goodrem have starred in a special photo shoot.
Stellar
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To mark a year since the passing of Australian fashion trailblazer Carla Zampatti, Stellar gathered some of the country’s most high-profile women – friends and fans who wore the designer’s creations over the years – along with her daughters Allegra and Bianca Spender, to pay tribute to the woman who transformed feminine style and crystallised what it meant to be a working woman in modern Australia.
Television host Melissa Doyle regularly wore Carla Zampatti’s designs during her years hosting the Seven Network breakfast show Sunrise, but her admiration for the designer goes right back to her first days as a working journalist.
“I remember saving madly on my cadet wage to buy my first Carla piece, on sale, from her store in Canberra,” Doyle tells Stellar. “It was a dusty-pink skirt with matching jacket, and I felt so elegant.”
In the years following, Doyle enjoyed a fond relationship with Zampatti, who would cut her red-carpet dresses – including the navy-blue velvet gown she wore for this photo shoot with Stellar – a little longer to accommodate the presenter’s 176cm height.
“Carla had the most generous spirit,” Doyle recalls.
“When she spoke to you, she spoke entirely to you. She would hold your hand or put her hand on your arm and give her total attention, no matter how many other people may have wanted her time. It always felt like a precious conversation with your best girlfriend.”
Like so many, Doyle regards Zampatti as a trailblazer for working women, not just in the way she designed clothes to make them feel strong, but in her implacable manner in dealing with her various roles.
“She started her business in the 1960s and faced myriad challenges and misperceptions. But she also set an example for women: how to work hard, prove the sceptics wrong, be true to yourself and achieve success, all the while being kind, gracious and humble. She really was one of a kind.”
Doyle, 52, says she’ll wear her Zampatti pieces for years to come, not least because of the touch of magic they impart. “She has left an indelible mark on the fashion industry – her style is iconic and timeless.
She knew what her customers wanted and she never let them down: a dash of Carla’s impeccable style and elegance, a little pizzazz and that intangible feeling that comes with wearing something beautiful, that makes you feel strong and elegant.”
She’s one of our most respected and experienced models, having rubbed elbows with A-listers
all over the world. But Jessica Gomes would always make sure to check herself whenever
she met Carla Zampatti.
“It was almost like you were meeting the Queen,” she tells Stellar with a laugh. “Manners were on because she had this aura about her that was very magnetic.”
The former David Jones ambassador says she was regularly dressed by Zampatti, who she calls an “OG” (slang for “original gangster”). “I had profound respect for her,” she says.
“You couldn’t help but look up to her because she was a visionary, and somebody I admired enormously for what she has done for the fashion industry, and the way she paved the way for women.”
Although Gomes has worn countless Zampatti designs throughout her career – and treasures a black tuxedo she has in her wardrobe – she was delighted to slip back into this white tulle dress for her shoot with Stellar.
“I first wore this dress about seven years ago for a David Jones campaign and I love it as much now as I did then.It’s like a princess dress: very, very fairytale and something you could wear for your wedding day. The artistry is just stunning.”
Gomes, 36, treasures photographs of Zampatti fitting her for events – including a fabulous, black cocktail dress for Derby Day in 2016. But it wasn’t just about the timelessness of the pieces or the workmanship.
For Gomes, it was the way Zampatti interacted with everyone she met. “I remember her being so sweet all the time, and really warm and gracious. She’s really paved the way for a lot of young designers. She set the bar high and she’s somebody we can look back on and know her spirit lives on. She changed the Australian fashion industry and she will always be remembered.”
Although designers typically showcase their collections on models, Delta Goodrem was
one of the celebrity clients that Carla Zampatti chose to feature in her runways.
In April 2015, the singer was on hand for Zampatti’s launch at the Sydney Opera House; she wore an off-the-shoulder dress a year later, to close out the spring/summer show at the designer’s Sydney home; and she would also wear Zampatti’s designs during her time as a judge on The Voice.
“Carla always recognised the beauty of each person’s individuality,” Goodrem, 37, tells Stellar:
“She was a trailblazer and had an incredible gift of inspiring women to feel their best and to shine.”
And while her global status means Goodrem is dressed by all manner of international designers, it was Zampatti she turned to time and again for a striking look to wear for a TV appearance or a special occasion.
“I’m deeply honoured to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Carla,” she says. “Her legacy is timeless.”
It can be strange to think of a celebrity being awe-struck, but that’s what happened for Dannii Minogue when she met Carla Zampatti.
“I was lucky enough to meet her with her daughter, Bianca, at an event,” the TV host and singer tells Stellar.
“I’m sure they could both see I was totally starstruck just by being in her presence.”
While she regularly turned to Zampatti’s designs for important moments, including red-carpet events and TV shows – such as the Grecian-style dress she wore on The X Factor UK in 2010 and the lilac design for Australia’s Got Talent in 2013 (both pictured) – Minogue, 50, also considered her a role model for working mothers, like herself, and admired her ability to nail the juggle of work and family while constantly evolving her brand.
“Every mother knows this is a hard balance and it requires attention on a daily basis to get it right,” adds Minogue, whose son Ethan is 11.
“She built her company steadily and carefully. Having a fashion brand is like another baby that never grows up – it needs constant attention.”
When Nine Network newsreader, Georgie Gardner delves into her wardrobe and slips on a tangerine coat from more than a decade ago, it not only makes her feel fabulous, but reminds her of memories made.
“This coat has seen lots of corners of Australia and met lots of people because it was one I so often wore during my nine to 10 years on the Today show,” she says of the piece she put on once more for Stellar’s shoot.
“I’d wear it often when we were travelling and doing outside broadcasts, so it’s a reminder of a really happy time in my career meeting fabulous Australians.”
As a newsreader delivering stories both harrowing and heartening, Gardner says it’s imperative that her jackets are elegant and feminine but not too fussy – which is why, over the years, she’s accumulated a substantial collection of “Carlas”.
But, as she explains, it’s more than that. “Whenever I wear her jackets I feel like I’m being enveloped in Carla and her love and support. It feels like she’s cheering me on. As a newsreader you’re often the bearer of particularly unpleasant news, so wearing one of her
jackets feels like Carla is giving me a big hug.”
Lauding Zampatti as “the Donna Karan of Australia”, Gardner, 51, says she also designed dresses for her to wear at the Logie Awards.
“She was such a trailblazer and such an astute woman who lit up a room. I’d spent a couple of years living in Italy, so I have a passion for anything Italian. She was the epitome of style and professionalism and warmth. When I saw her, I used to say, ‘Thank you so much for what you do.’”
Gardner remains grateful for their years of friendship but, more than anything, she values the template the designer created for working women.
“She had an extraordinary work ethic and wasn’t ashamed to say that she loved having her career as much as she loved being a mother. She combined both and made no apologies for it.
“The more we take ownership of that and say, ‘I want both’, the better,” Gardner continues.
“As a society we’ve got to be more supportive of women being able to pursue both because men sure as hell have, and they’ve never had to think about it.”
She also points out that Zampatti didn’t just design for those with money, but also those who would save up to buy one of her pieces perhaps every other year. It’s why, Gardner surmises, her designs were so timeless.
“She was a thoroughly fabulous woman, and we’re a poorer place without her.”
Allegra Spender remembers the moment she learnt her mother was a design powerhouse. She was about eight years old and needed to call her mum at work. Recalling the moment for Stellar, she says, “Someone answered and said, ‘Carla Zampatti’ and I said, ‘Oh, Mum.’ They said, ‘No, it isn’t your mum; let me put you through to your mother.’”
For the youngest of Zampatti’s three children, it was a crystallising moment when she came to learn that the woman who always turned up at her school in smarter clothes than the other mums was, in fact, a style icon.
Since primary school, Allegra, her sister Bianca and brother Alex worked in their mother’s business during the school holidays – though, as Bianca points out, it wasn’t just the odd day.
“It was every day of the holidays, unless it was Christmas or we had a playdate,” she recalls.
“I remember Mum had this mezzanine office and there was always this flurry up and down the stairs to enter her world.”
While Bianca, 45, now has her own design label and Allegra, 44, is running as an independent for the Sydney seat of Wentworth in the federal election, they credit their mother’s boundless energy and devotion to both work and family for illustrating that they, too, could have both.
Says Allegra: “She taught us that it’s OK to value your own happiness, yet she was always our mum first. That was the important part. She helped me realise that you can have a career and be a loving, caring and involved mum.”
For Stellar’s photo shoot, both women chose to wear pieces that evoke their mother. For Bianca, that meant a fluffy jacket – “she always wore something fluffy in texture” – while for Allegra it was one of her mother’s white pant suits and her gold scorpion necklace.
Over the past year, the family have come to terms with not only Zampatti’s passing but also her legacy, including her quiet support of others.
“She wasn’t just a trailblazer,” Allegra says.
“She brought other women – and men – along with her.”
Adds Bianca: “She’d write letters to women she’d never met to tell them they were doing a great job [and] say ‘Keep going and let’s have coffee.’ Her reach was incredible.”
In the days after her mother’s death, Bianca says she found comfort in the words of a friend: “She told me that the loss never leaves you, it just visits you less often. There’s something quite beautiful knowing that Mum’s presence will never fade. It’ll always be there.”
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Originally published as Famous Australian women paying tribute to Carla Zampatti
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