WHEN IN ROME
Designer Collette Dinnigan lends her signature romantic style to an 18th-century Roman rooftop apartment, where she has been living for over a year, as well as a new range of artisanal homewares.
Designer Collette Dinnigan lends her signature romantic style to an 18th-century Roman rooftop apartment, where she has been living for over a year, as well as a new range of artisanal homewares
Ihave a great passion for textiles and colour, which have inspired both my fashion and interior lives,” says Australian designer Collette Dinnigan from her 18th-century top-floor apartment in Rome’s Centro Storico where she is currently living with her husband, Bradley Cocks, and their son, Hunter. “I love an eclectic mix of old and new. I believe I always create a freshness to my spaces and most definitely give them a feminine edge.” For Dinnigan, the power of femininity has always been central to her aesthetic. Having wound up her hugely successful fashion business in 2013 to spend more time with her family, the award-winning designer — who was bestowed an Order of Australia in 2017 — has gone on to build a reputation for her romantic interiors infused with a carefully considered combination of art and antiques, nature-inspired pattern and floral-infused colour. Dinnigan has worked on luxury penthouse suites at Bannisters by the Sea in Mollymook on the South Coast of New South Wales and a wallpaper range for Porter’s Paints in addition to interiors for her own string of properties past and present: her former Watsons Bay home in Sydney, a farm in the New South Wales’ Southern Highlands and an 1880s property near Bowral, which remains a retreat when the family is in Australia make up just some of the designer’s interiors ouvre.
Over the past three years however, Dinnigan’s home of choice has been Italy where in the summer of 2019, she and Cocks purchased a two-bedroom apartment in Rome as a main residence while renovating Casa Olivetta, a 500-year-old rambling masseria in Puglia. “Our home in Rome is very private yet a place that is always filled with joy and life,” says the designer. “And as much as we dream about relaxing, our home is always energised with friends and family eating, drinking and telling stories. It really is la dolce vita.”
While Italy provides an endless source of inspiration for Dinnigan, she still calls Australia home. “I’m most looking forward to being back in Australia but with the way the world is right now, travel is so difficult,” she says. “Australians have always been known for their sense of adventure but when our wings are clipped, it’s just not the same.”
Right now, the dynamic entrepreneur has yet another project underway, preparing for the April launch of a collection of ceramics including plates, lamps and candlesticks, all handcrafted in Italy. Here, we talk to Dinnigan about her Roman home away from home and her love affair with the Eternal City. ››