Carla Zampatti was born on 19 May 1942 in Lovero, a village in the Valtellina in Lombardy. Her father had left for Western Australia months earlier, and when Italy entered the war he was interned as an enemy alien, leaving the family in Italy without income. Only in 1950 were she and her mother able to join him in Bullfinch, a mining town in the Western Australian wheatbelt. She left school at 14 to work in the town's only shop, moved with her family to Perth in 1960 and to Sydney in 1963.
In 1965 she produced her first small collection. A national launch followed two years later, and in 1970 she founded Carla Zampatti Limited. From the start her clothes were valued for their longevity: one dress bought in 1967 was still being worn by its owner in 2021, and was worn again at the designer's funeral. Her aesthetic was modern, polished and practical, made for working women who wanted to look composed.
Her start in Sydney had a touch of chance. Arriving in 1963 with her savings and a sewing machine, she fell into conversation on a bus with a manufacturer of women's blouses, and was soon designing his entire range before leaving to found her own label. The Times later called her "the Coco Chanel of Australia": dark glasses, a blonde bob, a habit of calling everyone "darling" and an unerring eye for flattering, impeccably cut clothes, often in a bold palette of red, black and white. Nigella Lawson, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and the former prime minister Julia Gillard all wore her designs, and she would greet strangers she saw wearing them.
She opened her first boutique in Surry Hills in 1972, followed within three years by shops in Mosman, Double Bay and Elizabeth Street, and eventually a chain of some 30 boutiques and concept stores nationally. The label entered David Jones in 1990 and Myer in 1992, later signing an exclusive arrangement with David Jones in 2009. In 1973 she was among the first Australian designers to add swimwear; she created designer eyewear for Polaroid, launched the fragrances Carla (1983) and Bellezza (1987), and worked with Ford Australia on Laser and Meteor models designed for women drivers.
Zampatti was equally prominent in public life. She chaired SBS, was a director of the Westfield Group and a trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and sat on the boards of Sydney Dance Company and the MCA Foundation among others. From 1988 until her death she judged the Ethnic Business Awards, which honour migrant and Indigenous entrepreneurs. Her autobiography, My Life, My Look, was published by HarperCollins in 2015.
Her honours were many. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987 and a Companion in 2009; Italy made her a Commander of the Order of Merit in 2004; and she received the Centenary Medal. The industry named her Designer of the Year in 1994, she was one of six designers on Australia Post's 2005 Australian Legends stamps, and in 2008 she received the Australian Fashion Laureate. She also designed Australia Post's corporate wear in 2007 and held honorary doctorates from Western Sydney and Wollongong universities.
Her daughter Bianca Spender, who joined the company with a capsule collection in 2004, launched her own label in 2017; her son Alex Schuman and daughter Allegra Spender both served as chief executive of the business.
Zampatti died at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney on 3 April 2021, aged 78, a week after a fall on the stairs at the opening night of Opera Australia's La Traviata on Sydney Harbour. Her family accepted the New South Wales government's offer of a state funeral. Some 1,200 mourners filled St Mary's Cathedral, many in her designs. "Nothing made her happier than seeing her garments out in the world," said Bianca. "If she was alive, she'd say this is the best-dressed funeral she had ever attended." Obituaries described her as the matriarch of Australian fashion, and she was survived by her three children and nine grandchildren.