Zimmermann: Glamour From Down Under
When most pretty little young things are out and about frolicking with friends or at the beach, Australian Nicky Zimmermann was sewing with her mother and learning the skills that would one day launch her into a global design phenomenon of ready-to-wear delights and swimwear. Today the label she and her sister Simone run under their name, Zimmermann, is a rockstar brand of feminine glamour meets avant garde edge and is sold around the globe. We caught up with Nicky go gain more insight into the mind of a genius fashion designer.
Tell us the story of how Zimmermann came to be:
I started making clothes from a really young age. I used to sew with my mum. Fashion was always what I was going to do and when I finished school I studied design at East Sydney Design School. While I was at college I’d design garments, make them in my parents garage and then sell them on the weekend at Paddington markets in Sydney. It wasn’t anything like the way new designers are launched today! Zimmermann really started in those Sydney markets in early '90s and at a time when there was a small movement of new designers emerging in Sydney – people like Collette Dinnigan, later Akira Isogawa. I remember getting a few pages in Australian Vogue, I received a few wholesale orders from some great local stores and it went from there. A few years later my sister Simone joined me and we started on the path that is now Zimmermann.
What was it like when first branching out to become a global brand?
Emerging beyond Australia coincides with our launch of Zimmermann Swim. We actually started as a ready-to-wear brand and the move into swim and resort came a little later but this became our calling card, so to speak. We showed swim in Sydney in the mid-'90s, I did a story on Australian fashion for 
CNN and basically from that interview I got lots of calls from the US asking about Swim. Our swimwear was really different – it wasn’t something fashion brands really explored either in Australia or elsewhere at the time and we really wanted to push the boundaries of what swimwear could be. Swimwear from a fashion perspective. Growing up in Sydney and being an Australian brand, it really made sense to people that we did this great swimwear and resort. Zimmermann was an Australian fashion story that was easy for people internationally to understand. It made sense. We’ve grown a lot since then but we have always done things in our time, how we wanted to do them.
Where do the biggest inspirations for your designs come from? 
We work with colour and print and a lot of the inspiration for that comes from where we’re from. There’s something about the light and the colour in Sydney. It’s a very inspirational place. And the people I know – the women who are outside my door in places like Bondi and Tamarama – they’re the people who influence us. How they dress and what they want. Fortunately that also resonates with lots of women around the world whether they’re in London, or New York or L.A.
Your dress designs are so whimsical but sexy at the same time and work for all types of women. In coming up with the looks, do you imagine something you want to wear or consider a larger snapshot?
Definitely I design more widely than just what I want. I have women in mind for everything we create but even if I won’t wear it I still have to love what it is, how it makes them feel.
If you had to choose one place on the planet that has inspired you most, where would that be?
Sydney. Bondi, Tamarama, Whale Beach. How the city meets the beach, how we live. How it looks. I love it.
Any places you have yet to travel that are on your must-visit list?
Too many to list but I’d love to travel in Africa.
What are the upcoming plans for Zimmermann?
We have lots going on at the moment both at home in Australia and in the US. We opened our first flagship store in Los Angeles last year and we are looking at some other opportunities for stores. I’m spending more and more time in America and we’re keen to keep extending Zimmermann more and more, to create things that women love.
