It’s exhausting to get a phrase in when Nicky and Simone Zimmermann are collectively. Over dinner at Sean’s, the famously kitsch restaurant overlooking Bondi Seaside, the sisters end one another’s sentences, share anecdotes from their travels and giggle at in-jokes. Their bubbly tendencies appear to contradict the seriousness of their achievements in enterprise – the explanation for our assembly – which embrace creating one of many, if not essentially the most, profitable luxurious trend manufacturers to return out of Australia. The pair make it appear as if such a feat is perhaps simple.
Coming into the world they’ve created is like diving right into a pool of frothy tulle. Zimmermann’s signature attire are sometimes tiered, with over-the-top frills, bows and sufficient ruching to make your head spin. Tremendous-flared trousers and candy pussy-bow blouses give off a decidedly ’70s air. The swimwear often has some type of flounce, and no scarcity of prints.
Zimmermann’s instantly recognisable aesthetic, which the sisters have articulated for greater than 30 years now, is probably not to “basic” trend tastes, however it does enchantment to an undeniably giant viewers, each domestically and internationally. The model has 52 shops globally, together with 21 in Australia and 18 within the United States, and sometimes ranks among the many high sellers on Web-a-Porter and MatchesFashion within the UK and US, notably in the summertime months. Zimmermann’s attire have been worn by Catherine, the Princess of Wales, Beyoncé and Katie Holmes, and in accordance with CEO Chris Olliver (who’s married to Nicky), international top-line gross sales have elevated at a mean of simply over 30 per cent annually over the previous 5 years. In 2020, Milan-based firm Type Capital purchased a 70 per cent stake in the enterprise, which was value roughly $363.3mn on the time.
Lace Excessive Tide Midi-Costume, £2,650
Denim Excessive Tide Flare denims, £495
Enamel and crystal hoop earrings, £285
Leather-based Backless Boat Footwear, £540
Nicky, the youthful of the pair, launched the model in 1991 after finding out trend design at East Sydney Technical School. She initially labored and offered from her dad and mom’ storage in Sydney to mates and native prospects earlier than graduating to a stall on the metropolis’s famed Paddington Markets. “I began out designing shirts with hand-embroidery, which was fully impractical as a result of I was doing all of it,” explains Nicky, who says she was artful from a younger age. The model’s early success was propelled by an editorial in Vogue Australia, wherein then trend director Judith Cook dinner gave certainly one of Zimmermann’s shirts a full web page.
Simone, who had been residing abroad, joined the model barely after launch to supervise the enterprise aspect of Zimmermann. “We’d all the time had a plan we might do one thing collectively,” says Nicky. They opened their first retailer in Darlinghurst however stored the Paddington Market stall as a result of it was so profitable, working each for 2 years. “It was a time when everybody went to Paddington, and it was actually enjoyable,” says Nicky. “And it’s the place a variety of different designers began out – Third Millennium, Dinosaur Designs, Wayne Cooper.”
In 1996, they helped to launch Australian Trend Week, along with eight different designers together with Collette Dinnigan and Peter Morrissey. It was a turning level. “We had determined that we wished a enterprise that was going to be worldwide,” says Nicky. Zimmermann was then picked up by London division retailer Harvey Nichols, which gave the model a coveted window show, and Web-a-Porter, which launched in 2000, quickly adopted as a stockist. Additional development got here by way of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, again when it collated merchandise from different manufacturers. “We hit this one bikini that was screen-printed, and it simply went on and on and on,” says Nicky.
“You couldn’t even imagine there have been that many individuals on the earth,” provides Simone. “It was an actual eye-opener.”
In these early days, Zimmermann’s proposition was distinctive – and one which some worldwide patrons didn’t perceive. “We determined to do swimwear with clothes, which nobody had achieved on the time,” says Nicky. “It was very trend swimwear, and the prints have been the identical as the garments. And it wasn’t kaftans. It was jackets and pants and full-on attire, and it was fairly a unique standpoint.”
“In 1996, Australia wasn’t on the world map in the identical method it’s now,” provides Simone. “It’s thought-about to be far more subtle at the moment than it was then.”
Silk Excessive Tide minidress, £1,350
Wicker crossbody bag, £425
Cotton Excessive Tide lace-up costume, £685
By that advantage, Zimmermann paved the method for Australian resortwear, which is at the moment populated with numerous manufacturers, from Matteau to Sir the Label and St Agni, which have all amassed worldwide buyer bases. “We simply get resort, we reside it, we grew up with that aesthetic, and I believe Nicky and Simone have mastered it,” says Yasmin Sewell, the Australia-born, London-based trend consultant-turned-wellness model founder. “Having seen them construct [the brand] over many years from my time again in Australia, they’re rising in confidence in design, taking extra dangers, being extra flamboyant however nonetheless so very them.”
A lot of the model’s success has come from promoting an idealised model of the Australian lady – a beachy, blonde and bronzed glamazon from Down Beneath. However over-reiterating this well-trodden aesthetic hasn’t all the time labored of their favour. In 2020, throughout the Black Lives Matter protests, social media customers criticised the model’s lack of range in its casting as effectively as for an present “grooming and displays requirements” information for retail employees that stipulated that staff’ hair have to be in “mushy, textured unfastened waves or blow-dried straight” with “excessive buns, high knots, plaits, braids” prohibited. “We’ve actually learnt, since that time when issues have been highlighted, to do higher and be as open as we will probably be,” says Simone. “What we took on board from that’s that we will do issues higher in all the things we do, with product and design, how we function as a enterprise round sustainability and [also] round range and inclusion. It’s one thing that we’ve gotten higher at, that we wish to be higher at… so we simply work on daily basis when it comes to creating environments that meet our humanity targets.”
Different adjustments of tack embrace switching from New York Trend Week, the place Zimmermann had proven its collections since 2013, to Paris Trend Week the place it debuted its SS23 vary earlier this month. It’s a part of a transfer to develop Zimmermann’s base in Europe, the place there are presently 12 shops, with plans to open extra. The model can be increasing additional into knitwear, denim and equipment to enhance its bestselling attire. “We will see the trail of development,” provides Nicky. “We speak about equipment, doing extra product traces, getting higher at what we’re doing, whereas sustaining what the model is. However for me, crucial factor is enjoyment.”
And, in fact, embodying the sunny Australian life-style, which Nicky says isn’t one thing she does consciously. “It simply occurs, in that the issues that I gravitate to are issues that individuals assume are Australian,” she says. “It’s within the colors, the prints. Typically a costume will make me snicker as a result of I believe it simply appears to be like enjoyable – I can simply see the woman going out and having enjoyable in it.”
Provides Simone: “To an outsider, I believe the Australian-ness is sort of intrinsic to your perspective to life and your individual persona. The sunniness, the eager to have enjoyable… I believe all of that comes by way of. It’s a pure symbiosis.”