Zimmermann goes back to the Aussie beach on the Paris runway

With their first runway show in Paris, sister act Nicky and Simone Zimmermann made it clear they still call Australia home, stopping just short of playing the classic Peter Allen song inside the ornate Beaux-Arts setting of the Petite Palais.

Instead, the voices of Kylie Minogue, Naomi Watts, Thelma Plum, Rose Byrne and author Sophie Lee were mixed into a poppy soundscape by Sydney-raised DJ Mimi Xu, providing a backdrop to Zimmermann creative director Nicky’s nostalgic love letter to Tamarama Beach, just an Australian crawl south of Bondi Beach and 9,148 nautical miles from Paris.

A model walks the runway during the Zimmermann spring/summer 2023 show ‘Wonderland’ as part of Paris Fashion Week.Credit: Getty

“It started with my late nanny’s stories of Wonderland City, an amusement park at Tamarama Beach in the early 1900s,” Nicky said before the show. “I lived in the area for years and I just became intrigued with the idea of the huge rollercoaster and the fairground on the beach. It was so different from the beach scene at Tama today.”

“We used some of the workmanship and craft in the Edwardian details of the time (I love a corset and boning) and melded those with today’s beach lifestyle. The colours and artwork of Wonderland City started coming through in the palette of the collection, with some silhouettes that mirrored both the undulating forms of the rollercoaster and the circus tents but also the waves and surf. It all feels very Australian and optimistic.”

Nicky and Simone, who is the chief operating officer for the business, have reason to feel optimistic as they prepare to open their 53rd store in Florence next week, after a string of European store openings, including Madrid, Paris and Rome.

The company was bought by Milan-based Style Capital in 2020, in a transaction that valued the brand at $446 million. The growing European focus of the label, founded at Sydney’s Paddington Market in 1991, will see a sister design studio to its Sydney operation opening in Paris.

Nostalgic elements of Australian beach life emerged on filtered prints and glistening fabrics at Zimmermann’s runway debut in Paris.

“Our Paris office will become a sort of second home to the creative process and really helps us with some of the new things we are working on, particularly around accessories and other growing parts of our brand vision,” Nicky says. “It’s an exciting next step.”

Since 2013 Zimmermann had shown their romantic dresses and dynamic prints at New York Fashion Week, before entering the digital landscape with their seasonal shows because of COVID-19 lockdowns.

“We had an incredible time working on the digital shows over the last couple of years and worked with so many great, creative people on finding new ways to deliver content for the season, but now it feels like a great opportunity for us to do a bit of a refresh. After showing for so long in New York, it just felt like a good time to mix things up.”

Another change was the label’s return to casting traditional models, after exploring curve models with their digital shows. It’s an approach taken by many French luxury labels including Saint Laurent, Givenchy, Victoria Beckham and Hermès, with Balmain, Chloé and Jean Paul Gaultier’s protégé Victor Weinsanto exceptions to the Parisienne rule, with nods to size-diverse casting.

One thing that won’t change with Zimmermann is its ultimately Australian aesthetic.

“Every collection feels like a response to our environment and lifestyle,” Nicky says. “And it’s always about how Sydneysiders dress to some extent - relaxed, vibrant, and optimistic.”

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