Ready To Dress Up Again? Zimmermann Celebrates The Joy And Optimism Of Fashion For Next Spring

If this were a normal year, Nicky Zimmermann – the creative director and founder of Zimmermann – would be stateside right now unveiling her SS21 collection on the catwalk. You’d likely spy high-profile fans likeKatie Holmes on the FROW; throngs of streetstyle photographers would be gathered outside busting to get shots of attendant influencers and editors. But as this is 2020, New York Fashion Week looks about as ‘normal’ as the rest of the world (i.e. not at all), and so Zimmermann is at home in Sydney showing it via a digital presentation instead.

Speaking on a Zoom call the night before the collection reveal, although Zimmermann admits to missing ‘the adrenalin of a show and that exuberance at the end’, she has embraced the opportunity to think differently. ‘It isn’t just about the 400 or so people in room, it’s going to be experienced by all of our customers, all of our followers. I love that they’re all in it, they’re experiencing it almost at the same time we are. For them to feel like they’re in the room, I just think it’s how you have to be now. It’s really important’.

Lockdown, she says, has fostered an even great unity among the Zimmermann team. ‘The intensity was exhilarating,’ she says. ‘As bad as everything is and has been, for me as part of a team, I’ve really discovered a lot about people. You really see the strength in people. I will be forever in debt to my team for how they behaved and just got on with it. It was brilliant to see’. She hopes the upheaval of the fashion industry will result in a more ‘lo-fi’ industry with young, independent designers given a chance to get in on their own terms (Zimmermann herself started her business on a market stall).

Zimmermann’s luxe boho aesthetic is one rooted in optimism and wanderlust – things that have been sorely lacking this year. For SS21, that spirit continues to defiantly shine through. Taking inspiration from Australian botanical art, and in particular the work of Ellis Rowan ‘an amazing creative adventurer who went through the Australian bush documenting and painting’, the collection is a celebration of the joy of dressing up. Two-fingers up (in a lace glove) to the doom and gloom of 2020. Lavish ruffled skirts, fluid linen tailoring and painterly floral prints are made to pep up the spirits of even the most rigid pessimist.

‘We think it’s very important that we stick on our path, that fashion is enjoyable and fun and optimistic and joyous,’ says Zimmermann of the feelgood collection. ‘For us, if we can do that as a small part of trying to get people through this horrific time, and they just find some joy in loving a beautiful garment, and when they see the garment they can see the detail and the love we’ve put into it, it makes it special’.

There’s a barefoot, easy glamour to Zimmermann which has made it the roaring success it is. Pieces are special but not stuffy; it’s not hard to imagine this season’s hand-crochet dress on a beach, or a ridiculously romantic blouse with fluttering, laser-cut florals dressed down with denim. So does the designer think we will once again learn to lean into the sheer thrill of dressing up again? ‘I think glamour can be associated with ostentation and I think ostentation can never come back,’ she says. ‘It’s more about loving something creative and that being glamorous. And that people are confident to be individual and enjoy different and authentic fashion. That’s how I’m wanting us to move forward, just to keep that love with clothing. You can wear what you want. If you want to dress up to the nines one day and you’re just going down to the delicatessen, why not? If that makes you feel good, why not?’.