Bianca Spender on Growing Up as Carla Zampatti's Daughter: PART 1

What does it take to earn your place in one of Australia's most famous fashion families?

This is part one of a two-part conversation. Marie Claire editor Georgie McCourt sits down with designer Bianca Spender to talk about growing up as the daughter of fashion icon Carla Zampatti. Bianca takes us back to her childhood: sharing a bedroom with her sister, now-federal MP Allegra Spender, the strip of masking tape that kept the peace between them, and discovering, decades later, that dyslexia ran through three generations of her family.

She reflects on the lessons learned at the “School of Mum”: working in the family business from age nine, learning to say yes to everything, and what she only came to understand about her mother's leadership after becoming a parent and business owner herself. Bianca is candid about mum guilt, treating the business as her “first child,” and the four years she spent working in Paris, deliberately choosing a place where nobody knew her mother's name, so she could prove her own worth.

She also opens up about the strict terms under which she finally joined the family label: one season, three months, twenty pieces, and an agreement that she would leave if the collection failed to sell. It's the story of how “the market decides” became the clearest and kindest way for Bianca to earn her own place, separate from her mother's approval, and how that same conviction led her to launch her namesake label.

Part two continues the conversation with Bianca's creative process, her aesthetic, two skin cancer diagnoses, the loss of her mother, and what she's learned about living with grief - it's live right now in your podcast app!

This episode covers:

• Sharing a room with her sister, now-federal MP Allegra Spender, and the masking tape down the middle

• Discovering dyslexia ran through three generations of her family

• Working in the family business from age nine instead of watching TV

• What she only understood about her mother after becoming a parent herself

• Wrestling with mum guilt, and treating the business as her “first child”

• Moving to Paris for four years to prove her worth entirely outside her mother's name

• Earning her place in the family label through a strict “market decides” trial

• The moment her own namesake label found its own space

• Finding the confidence to trust her own aesthetic, even when it meant disagreeing with her mother

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Credits:

Host Georgie McCourt

Edited by Helen Smith

Head of Vodcasting Rachel Fountain

With thanks to our amazing team at Marie Claire

You're Gonna Want to Hear This is a production of Marie Claire and Are Media.

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