Profile

Bianca Spender

Bianca is an independent Australian fashion designer. This interview is part of the LEGACY Summit x Intent editorial partnership.

Tell us about your upbringing. Were you raised by a family with very strong values? How have your personal values and life experience shaped your work and attitude to the world?

My mum—Carla Zampatti—is a post war, Italian immigrant from a small town. She says we were never poor, we always had things to eat, but we didn’t have a lot of anything. We were brought up in quite an unusual way for a lot of people. Many people didn’t really understand my background, in terms of how we lived and what we prioritised. Back in the ’80s, we lived in a big house that had beautiful art, and both my parents drove Rolls-Royces. That sounds fancy, but they were old cars and my parents just loved beautiful things. And yet, I always grew up with the mantra that everything had to be finished in the fridge, so we often ate leftovers to avoid waste.

There was a real sense of ‘less is more’ in my family; we preferred to have a few really beautiful things and were taught to save up for something we loved. We were also taught the value of wearing beautiful things often, rather than buying an abundance of things that we didn’t really love or feel inspired by. Even now, I have a limited range of outfits I adore and will wear regularly. I’ve always had a very emotional reaction to clothes and have never been able to wear something that didn’t feel right on the day.

Of course, because I’m Italian, the focus has always been on craft and beauty. I never went to church, but we would always be comfortable dressing up on a Sunday; we always had pride in how we wore things and the way we put pieces together. We were very resourceful in how we dressed, meaning I’m now always prepared. I’ll never buy a bottle of water, say, as I always have water in my bag; I’ll always have a piece of fruit on-hand for my kids if they are hungry, so that they don’t end up eating a packet of chips when we’re out. Just as my parents did, I will always cook out the fridge—using up leftover vegetables in a soup, or making a pie out of sad looking apples rather than throwing them away. Beyond food, this resourcefulness extends to the repurposing of almost everything. Every box in our house is turned into some kind of toy or adventure for the kids. And for their birthdays or Christmas, they receive one or maybe two gifts rather than a bunch of things they won’t care for.

Lastly, my family taught me about the importance of giving back to the community. I allocate 10% of my income to philanthropy and have always done so.

The ‘ethical fashion’ movement is often labelled elitist and inaccessible for the everyday customer. What are your thoughts on this?

I totally disagree. Growing up in the ’90s and going to a private school was really interesting. Many kids came from money, but it was the ’90s so it was cool to be grunge and look like you didn’t have much. Everyone was in flannels and jeans, and whilst the jeans could cost $400 or more, no one looked dressed up. I went through the ’90s without a single pair of jeans and only wore skirts. Whenever I turned up, everyone would comment on how posh I looked, when actually my skirt cost less than their pair of jeans. So it’s all about perception—you can look beautiful and have style without money. You don’t need money for style, you just need taste and a love for what you wear. There have been times when every single piece in my wardrobe was either inherited from a friend, or sourced secondhand. I’ve always prided myself on looking good on a shoestring.

Fast forward to the following decades, we have been conditioned into chasing cheap clothes, more often, and seemingly accepted that many items are not made to last. How can we encourage people to redefine their sense of value, look beyond an immediate price tag and consider longer term cost-per-wear?

I will say, you can spend money on fashion and not get quality. But the more you know about fabrications and construction, the easier it is to identify a well-made garment. As a designer, I’m focused on building longevity into each of the pieces that I make. It’s common to buy something from a high street label and suddenly notice it pill after the first wash, or find it disfigured soon after purchase. I do intensive tests on all of my fabric to ensure that when you wash, dry clean or steam my garments, you know whether they’ll shrink or grow. We then do a rub test, where we test how the fabric might snag if it’s brushing up against the crack of a table edge, for example. Then there’s the seating test, where someone has to wear the garment for a full day in the office to understand how it wears and recovers.

I adore my mum’s wardrobe from the ’70s that I grew up with, and I hope that the children of my clients adore the wardrobe that their mums are wearing right now. One of them is going to turn 18 and ask their mum if they can wear that pink suit she bought back in her 40s. I hope that my clothes continue to feel inspiring and relevant, and continue to be treasured.