Wizards of Oz: Zimmermann’s New York Moment

In the realm of swimwear, Australians and their beach-centric lifestyles have a hometown advantage. But over the past two decades, sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann have created a global fashion brand that extends far beyond their brilliant bikinis. As they prepare to open more stores in the U.S. and abroad, creative director Nicky Zimmermann explains why their romantic aesthetic is resonating.

Between your flagship in Soho, permanent boutique in East Hampton, and now, a show on the New York calendar, Zimmermann is having a real New York moment.
Simone and I have been coming to New York for the past 22 years, selling the collection and participating in what we need to do for our business. A long time ago, we decided that New York was going to be our home away from home. We created a fashion destination that’s similar to what we have in Sydney, where we have a head office and a permanent staff. It’s been a really natural fit for us. We’re always very keen to work where we want to be, and we felt very comfortable in New York. Our line has always been easily understood here.

And you’re currently operating five stores in the United States?
Yes, and we’re also opening in Miami, London, and the Meatpacking District this year. Zimmermann really started with retail stores. We love having that connection with our customer, and it’s very important for us to be able to show our collections in the way that we do in Australia.

How many collections are you putting out?
At the moment, we’re doing a Spring/Summer and a Fall/Winter ready-to wear collection, as well as Resort, Summer Swim, and Resort Swim. And then we do different special capsules; we work with Net-a-Porter and Barneys New York on several of those. The only one that I don’t do is Pre-Fall—which we will probably start doing!

Each collection has a story line—the starting point is never an easy trend. How do you create so many distinct points of view?
I work with two separate teams in our design studio—one for swimwear and swim clothing, one for ready-to-wear. The swim definitely has the flavor of what we do in ready-to-wear, but there’s a more relaxed, resort feeling to it. I’m the one who’s mainly working across a couple of different things, quite often at the same time. At the moment I’m putting together a swim collection while I’m finishing up the full collection and the show, so I’m intensely doing fittings and working on putting all of that together. In the background, I’m allocating time to work on the swim collection, putting together our prints and embroideries while I’m developing all of the stories. It’s almost like a release to get out of one thing and get into another. I quite like it!

What is your favorite challenge of designing swimwear?
Trying to find something new that’s aesthetically pleasing and also fits and functions perfectly. Getting those three things into a swimsuit is our goal. We’re always trying to really bring newness and new technology to pieces while making them really Zimmermann. Swimwear is as naked as you get in public. We’re doing our best to really make people feel good. A lot of thought goes into every single piece—who will wear it, and what it’s doing for the collection?

You’re known for your prints.
I have two gorgeous young artists who work in the studio, and we do every single print ourselves. When we conceive a collection, I work out the direction and the type of things that we want, and then the design team and I sit with these artists to talk about the feeling and the colors we’re thinking of. Then they look at a whole lot of different inspirations and put the artwork together. And then they work with myself and the designers—make the floral bigger or smaller, try these colors, add this stripe. It’s a collaborative process in the design room.

There have been so many developments in fabric production and in materials over the course of your career. What have been some of the most prominent changes in the way you develop a collection?
Because I love texture, the changes in what’s available to me now have been incredible. We can work with so much in terms of all the different types of base cloths, and the textures we can apply to the fabric—bonding, embroidery, surface decoration. When we started 25 years ago, particularly because we were in Australia, it was wool, it was cotton, it was silk. Polyester was always available, but it wasn’t what you wanted to use. Now, the polyesters are incredible, and it’s not even because they replicate silk. We have people who are specifically weaving our striped suiting and stripe-based fabrics. We have another group of people who specifically work with us on weaving our checks. They can do anything. For people like me who just love making stuff, it’s getting more and more exciting.

Zimmermann is able to do all this at a relatively friendly price point. How core is that to your mission?
It’s 100 percent core. I know that some people would think what we do is expensive as well, so in the design room, we talk about how much we want people to see the love that we’re putting into it. We’re really trying to make each piece be worth the cost. When we’re doing fittings, that’s what we’re sitting there for hours contemplating, “Does this look like it’s worth what I know it’s going to cost?”

Over the years, how have you seen what your clients want from you evolve?
Rather than just repeating the things that have sold well previously, we’ve said, “You know what? We’re just going to do something new, and hopefully everyone will come with us.” And we’ve seen that yes, they definitely do. The Zimmermann girl is fashion-forward, and she wants to move. It’s our responsibility to do that as well. Particularly with our shows in New York, we’re showing clothes that look Zimmermann, but they’re coming from quite different directions, and with different detailing. Particularly in America, our customers are loving it. The sales are growing very quickly, and that gives us confidence.

What kind of world do you hope to create in a Zimmermann store? What do you want a woman to feel like when she walks inside?
This is a silly word, but we want women to feel that the atmosphere is “friendly.” We always strive to be as helpful and welcoming as we can. It’s an Australian thing—we want people to be comfortable, particularly if they’re trying on swimwear! The stores have an optimistic feeling, fresh and light, and they don’t feel like any other store.

What’s your concept for the Fall ’17 collection?
When Zimmermann does Fall, we maintain that optimistic, fresh feeling. There’s a lot of light color, and that has always been really important to us. The collection is based on a nice memory of my grandmother, who’s long passed now. She was a young woman in the 1920s in Sydney; she lived in a beach area called Coogee, which is a couple of beaches along from Bondi. She had great stories about the life in those times, and how carefree and fun the women were. There was a big change going on; they were sort of free to be what they wanted to be. At University of Sydney, the women were on rowing teams, and playing tennis, and having businesses, and they were very much a part of nightlife. So the collection is derived from a bit of the ’20s life of a young woman going to University. There’s a mix of those collegiate stripes and sweaters, and then an Asian influence—silk pajamas and things. There’s a real mix of masculine and feminine, and that’s always a bit of a theme that really appeals to us.

Have you ever thought about doing a home collection?
Well…no! [Laughs] I absolutely love textiles, texture, print, colors, everything like that. To be honest, I’m extremely focused on what we do at the moment. We’re very, very interested in our product lines—there are so many other things I’m more interested in that will happen before that.

Such as?
Sunglasses! We’ve had many opportunities, but when we do them, I really want to do them right