Australian Story: Aug 31

Monday’s Australian Story looks at fashion designer Collette Dinnigan’s private world and her decision to spend more time with friends and family.

Interviewees include Collette and her husband Bradley Cocks, close friend Sarah Murdoch, designer Catherine Martin and magazine editors Edwina McCann, Kellie Hush and Jackie Frank.

In an intimate profile, we look back at Collette’s unorthodox childhood and international career and follow her as she prepares to showcase her life’s work at the Powerhouse Museum.

When designer Collette Dinnigan stepped back from her global fashion empire it shocked not only the fashion world but even her closest friends.

Since the early 1990s, Collette Dinnigan had pursued her career with single-minded determination. “It’s difficult to delegate a vision,” she says.

Famously hands on and exacting, Collette was a pioneer of the ‘inner as outer wear’ trend and the first Australian invited to show at the prestigious Paris Fashion Week. Her unique vision, design talents and work ethic helped build a global business and made her a household name.

Collette raised one child, daughter Estella, during the peak of her career. But by the time her second child, Hunter, was born following her marriage to Bradley Cocks, work and family life became harder to balance.

“Most definitely after Hunter was born … I did start thinking, I don’t want to be doing this for the next two years at this kind of speed,” Collette says.

“Another collection, another show, another this, another that. It wasn’t what was important and it wasn’t what was motivating me anymore.”

Many of Collette’s friends wondered how she would cope with the change of pace. But Collette didn’t sit still for long, throwing herself into a collaboration with the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (Powerhouse) on a 25-year career retrospective.

In an intimate profile, Australian Story looks back at Collette’s unorthodox childhood and international career and follows her as she prepares to showcase her life’s work at the Powerhouse Museum.

8pm Monday on ABC.