Collette Dinnigan: The start of something new

AFR | October 2013

Never play poker with Collette Dinnigan. I should state here that in years of knowing her, both as a designer and a friend, she’s never suggested a card game. But were she to do so, I’d decline. Goodness, can she keep things close to her chest.

Recently, I have seen quite a lot of Collette; at her Paris show, for afternoon tea, and then over drinks at Le Meurice she gave me her gorgeous new book (launched in Australia on Tuesday), many of the adventures within ones we shared. Her business grew as my fashion life in Australia began. Arriving in Sydney from London to edit Vogue, as I did in 1997, was a pretty lonely gig. Collette just plunged in and invited me home to dinner.

So when my colleague Katrina Strickland called seeking comment on Collette closing her business, I was stunned. Collette had just shown the freshest collection she’s done in years: genuinely lovely, bang on trend.

Close now? I haven’t been able to talk to Collette before writing this – the time difference from London and deadline didn’t allow. What follows is my guess of what might be happening.

What I know for sure is Collette is smart, ambitious, driven. Her husband Bradley, also in the business, is charming and strategic. Give up a career she has fought so hard for?

My hunch is that’s not what’s happening here.

Spending time looking for the right investor – not found – makes one examine a business. What went wrong? Perhaps this is a case instead of what to do right. Close stores? Why not, as rents and staff costs rocket. Bizarrely, Australian designers are online from overseas.

There’s a reason Matches Fashion – which grew to an e-commerce force from a store in south London – is bringing British designers on a “rock tour” of Australia. It is the same reason American retail giant Neiman Marcus is sending its creative director to meet the customers.

Last May, Mr Porter’s Jeremy Langmead was delighted to appear at The Australian Financial Review Bespoke conference because Australian men are the e-tailer’s second-biggest customers.

What astonished even Langmead was that the offer of three days’ free shipping after the event, announced from the Sydney Opera House stage, had a take-up over triple what he’d anticipated, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Who needs stores anyway?

MORE TO COME
Is Collette giving up altogether? I think she’s just pausing for breath before an even bigger next chapter. Her family is happiest at their organic farm down south.

Might this be the launch pad for a business like the UK’s Daylesford Organics? (Good food was important to Collette long before it was such a trend.) Maybe a Maggie Beer-meets-Donna Hay with seasonless, gorgeous, ethical clothes in the mix? And perhaps a really glorious collection of rural holiday rentals too, given Bradley has a background in hotels and she’s great at interiors?

Could this be the beginning of the business I longed for when I first arrived in Australia? One that encapsulates the uniqueness and makes the differences touchstones of chic – as Ralph Lauren did for America years ago?

The modern business model would be to sell that dream almost all online and have a gorgeous shop off-the-beaten track with places to stay to experience the lifestyle. If she is giving up a brand she’s fought for to bake cookies for the kids, she’ll bake those cookies into another even better Collette Dinnigan brand.