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The next chapter of Carla Zampattiâs fashion empire
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Surviving 56 years in the fickle and, by global standards, comparatively minuscule Australian fashion industry is not only impressive, it is practically miraculous.
The late
Carla Zampatti managed to do that and so much more. In fact, she flourished. And she did so in a country in which she arrived as a 9-year-old from Italy not speaking a word of English.
Carla Zampatti, pictured in her Woollahra home in 2018.
Credit:Louie Douvis
Add to that, when she re-launched her business after her first marriage ended, in the still conservative late 1960s, she did so as a pregnant soon-to-be-single mother in an era in which such women were frowned upon. But thanks to a $5000 loan from a cousin who stepped in after the banks rebuffed her, Zampatti single-handedly went on to build an empire.