Today, I am celebrating the annual International Women’s Day on 8 March 2022 with the book My Life, My Look (2015), the memoir of Australian fashion designer Carla Zampatti. Italian-born Carla Zampatti (1942-2021) moved to Australia in 1950 as an eight-year-old, had her first clothing collection in 1965, and celebrated 55 years in the fashion industry in 2020.
She begins with her mother Anna and father Domenico, who migrated to Australia with Carla and her two older brothers, Dino and Pasquale.
Carla Zampatti knew from the age of five that fashion was her destiny. Her first creation was a cream linen suit. She left home with her sewing machine at the age of 20 in 1963 to live in Sydney. Her green velvet pantsuit made it to the display window of a large department store in 1965 – it was an instant success for its smart tailoring and versatility at a time when women wearing pants was not socially acceptable. The same year, she held the first fashion parade at the Sydney Opera House before construction had even finished.
She experimented with all the new materials – polyester, rayon, nylon, lurex, and spandex. She married, divorced, established her own independence, re-married, had children, and her business survived two recessions. It wasn’t glamorous work dealing with suppliers, buyers, finances, public relations, and marketing, but she quickly had two employees, then a factory, and a sales outlet.
Bold was her ‘go to’ word – for dresses, jackets, pantsuits, and jumpsuits – and also a car when she collaborated with the Ford Motor Company in 1985. She didn’t hesitate at hiring a ‘well-dressed, attractive blond’ woman, aged in her seventies, for a sales job in the mid-1990s.
She, of course, writes about her achievements, but she also writes of her failures and regrets.
Carla Zampatti was a household name in Australia, and it was a shock to hear of her death due to a fall on a staircase in 2021. Her sole memoir is brief, yet inspiring for her ambition, unconventionality, and determination to succeed in a fickle and intensely competitive industry.
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MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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