Bianca Spender has spoken candidly about the sudden death of her mother, legendary Australian fashion designer Carla Zampatti, revealing why she has come to view her final night as a fitting end to an extraordinary life. Appearing on marie claire’s You’re Gonna Want to Hear This podcast, Spender reflected on the shock of losing her mother while also finding comfort in knowing Zampatti had spent her last evening doing something she loved.
“For Mum, it was actually the perfect ending,” Spender told host Georgie McCourt. “She was with her best friend, she saw La Traviata opera out on the opera steps on an incredible night. She was dressed to the nines. She’d had an incredible life, and, as a lot of people who have incredible lives, they’re not looking for the downhill slope.”
While the loss was devastating for Zampatti’s family, Spender said she and her siblings believed their mother would have been at peace with the way her life ended. “She had lived such a big and beautiful and full life and died literally with her best friend after doing something she loved,” she said. “If she could literally write it, that would be her perfect way.”
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Zampatti’s death was followed by an enormous public outpouring, with women sharing personal stories about the ways the pioneering designer had supported their careers. Spender recalled discovering that whenever Zampatti read about a woman becoming a CEO or achieving professional success, she would write to congratulate her and invite her for coffee. “It was just such a beautiful gesture of, ‘Yes, another woman. Another woman makes it. I’m just going to hold you up,’” Spender said.
The messages gave the family a deeper understanding of Zampatti’s influence beyond fashion. “The intensity was high, but the beauty and the love… there was so much love and respect,” Spender said. “That space really holds you.” Spender’s father died the following year, meaning she lost both parents within approximately 18 months. She said one piece of advice offered shortly after her mother’s death has continued to define her understanding of grief.
“Someone said to me, ‘I have to tell you something about grief. It never leaves. It just visits less frequently, and you never know when it’s going to visit,’” she recalled. “It was the most perfect piece of advice.”
Some days, Spender said, grief would appear without warning, leaving her overwhelmed by the desire to speak to or simply spend time with her parents. “With grief, my learning is that you have to let it happen more than anything,” she said. “There’s a beauty in grief because it is that you’re still connected to them.”
During this already difficult period, Spender was also diagnosed with skin cancer. She initially kept the experience private, describing it as a “side story” beside the far greater loss unfolding within her family. She later developed skin cancer again, including a basal cell carcinoma on her face and a squamous cell carcinoma on her leg. Both diagnoses were prompted by conversations with other women. After a friend described a cancer that had repeatedly bled, Spender realised a persistent spot on her own nose required investigation. Later, her sister-in-law’s description of a dry, scaly patch led her to have a similar mark on her leg checked.
“Two conversations led me to two diagnoses,” she said. Spender eventually decided to speak publicly about her experience while launching her first swimwear collection and sun-care awareness campaign. “I can’t be launching something that is actively talking about being in the sun and not talk about this,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known what those signs were if other people hadn’t had those conversations with me.”
The designer also opened up about the competing demands of motherhood and her career, revealing that she returned to work when each of her sons was six weeks old. “There are moments I missed that, if I had stayed home, I wouldn’t have missed,” she acknowledged. “But for me, I had to believe I could be a good mum and do what I loved.”
Rather than attempting to eliminate guilt entirely, Spender said she learned to focus on what her choices could teach her children in the long term. “I was teaching them they can do what they love and be a good parent,” she said. Spender, who has now led her independent label for 18 years, also discussed growing up with dyslexia, working in Paris to establish herself outside her famous family and the pressure she felt to prove her designs had merit beyond her mother’s approval.
Her lasting message to women navigating their own complicated careers and lives was simple: “Trust yourself and back yourself.” “It’s not always a straight journey,” she said. “Trusting yourself and trusting the journey will always lead you to a better place.”
Listen to part 1 here. Listen to part 2 here.
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