Carla Zampatti’s fashion legacy lives on in permanent tribute

Australian Fashion Week will honour Carla Zampatti by naming a runway in the late designer’s honour.

The largest space at Carriageworks, the arts and events venue in central Sydney, will from next week be known as the Carla Zampatti runway, fashion week’s organiser, IMG, confirmed this week.

In a statement, her children, Alex Schuman, Bianca Spender and Allegra Spender, said the dedication was a great honour for their mother, who died in April after suffering a fall. “We hope that her life and legacy can be an inspiration for many young designers to come,” they said.

“Mum saw Australian Fashion Week as the key focal point for the Australian fashion industry. She thought showing was a vital discipline for designers that drove them to greater creative heights.”

Indeed, Zampatti was the last designer whose collections appeared on the runway at fashion week, in May 2019, before COVID forced the cancellation of last year’s event. She was also part of the very first fashion week, in 1996, alongside venerated designers such as Wayne Cooper, Alex Perry and Akira Isogawa.

“But like everyone else showing at fashion week, that excitement was mixed with terror,” her children said. “Even after 50 years, she was always nervous about her own shows and would want to pull out just days before. Only after a show, she would feel a rush of exhilaration when the last model exited the runway, visible for the briefest of moments behind the curtain.”

Zampatti, who would have turned 79 this week, died on April 3 after a fall at the opera at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair on Sydney Harbour one week prior. A state funeral was held in her honour at St Mary’s Cathedral on April 15 at which tributes were paid by speakers including former governor-general Quentin Bryce for her work in fashion, philanthropy and the arts, as well as her championing the status of women.

Natalie Xenita, head of IMG Fashion Asia-Pacific, says Zampatti was part of the fabric of fashion week since its inception. “There is no one who has played a greater role in shaping the Australian fashion industry than Carla Zampatti,” Xenita says. “Not only did she build one of the most enduring and successful Australian brands, but she generously shared her immense experience and wisdom to help many other designers establish their own successful labels.”