Designer’s flattering clothes made her popular with politicians and celebrities

Carla Zampatti was the Coco Chanel of Australia. She often wore dark glasses, called everyone ‘‘darling’’, had a chic blonde bob and an unerring knack for designing flattering clothes of impeccable cut. Nigella Lawson, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard have all worn her designs, while Jenny Morrison, wife of incumbent prime minister Scott Morrison, chose a Zampatti gown to dine at the White House in 2019.

Yet the Italian-born Zampatti was resolutely down to earth. She was described by her daughter Allegra as ‘‘having an allergic reaction to entitlement’’.

Typical was the story of how she had written to a female chief executive she had never met to congratulate her on a successful first year in business.

Zampatti, who has died aged 78, left school at 14, and spoke openly of how she had arrived in Bullfinch, Western Australia, as a 9-yearold, unable to speak English and aghast, after the formality of Italy, to see children playing barefoot. The free spirit of Australia soon grew on her.

Success, however, was hard won. In 1970, as a single mother, she struggled to relaunch her fashion label. After she married accountant Leo Schuman in 1964, he took care of the finance of her business, but proved unfaithful. As Schuman owned a half-share in the label and her factory, Zampatti asked her bank manager for a loan to restart her label, but he refused and her cousin stepped in to help.

The early years were tough: she lugged suitcases crammed with designs to hotels for meetings with buyers, modelling the clothing herself. Her secret lay in the cut, not the fabric. ‘‘Clothes that look expensive yet are affordable’’ was her mantra.

Her bold, simple designs, often in a basic palette of red, black and white, soon attracted the famous. Yet Zampatti never forgot the sartorial needs of the average Australian woman who splashed out on a ‘‘Carla’’ for a special occasion. Many sent her photographs of themselves in her clothes. Any she saw wearing her designs in the flesh, she would tap on the shoulder to say hello, or wink at across crowded rooms.

‘‘Women, if they feel fantastic, can move mountains,’’ Zampatti wrote in her autobiography, My Life, My Look (2015). ‘‘There’s no greater reward than to know that something I have created has given someone the confidence to get through a critical presentation or job interview, or made them feel utterly sensational on a night out.’’

Carla Maria Zampatti was born in Lovero, Italy, to Anna, a stay-at-home mother, and Domenico, who migrated to the Gold Coast and eventually saved enough money to bring his family to join him.

As a child, Zampatti would stare at the drapery on bright frescoes of the saints in Italian churches. Aged 5, she had been entranced by the shop of the local dressmaker. Arriving in Australia a few years later, she found women’s clothing dowdy.

When her family moved to Perth, she was hired by a workshop that made garments for local designers. In 1963 she moved to Sydney, armed with her savings and a sewing machine. She began to chat to a fellow passenger on a bus one day, only to discover he was a manufacturer of women’s blouses.

Soon Zampatti was designing his entire range, ultimately leaving to start her label. In 1972, she opened her first boutique, in Surry Hills, Sydney, which grew to more than 25 shops and outlets. In 2009 she was made a Companion of the Order of Australia.

A 34-year second marriage to John Spender, an MP who became Australia’s ambassador to France, ended in divorce in 2010. They had two daughters. Allegra is the chief executive of the Australian Business and Community Network. Bianca is a designer. By her first marriage, Zampatti had a son, Alex, the chief executive of her label.

At her home in Sydney, whatever the time of day she would ply visitors with champagne and croissants. A lover of opera, she was often spotted zooming through Sydney in her bright yellow Mercedes-Benz SLK, and continued to work at a pace that exhausted younger colleagues.

She died of injuries sustained from a fall. A state funeral was held at St Mary’s Cathedral Sydney on April 15. –

Zampatti never forgot the sartorial needs of the average Australian woman who splashed out on a ‘‘Carla’’ for a special occasion.