The families of Carla Zampatti, Michael Gudinski and Neil Balnaves describe how they grapple with a legacy – while grieving a loss.
There’d been reversals. Two years earlier, in 2002, Balnaves had nearly died in a boat accident. The glacial pace of his recovery left him too much time to think and resulted in what became his life’s work, the Balnaves Foundation, a philanthropic fund into which he ploughed $27 million from the Southern Cross sale to support the arts, Indigenous and educational projects.In recent years, those reversals had multiplied.
We’re sitting in the boardroom of the Balnaves Foundation on Sydney’s Macquarie Street, a series of white cubes, like most offices – except for the art. To my left, a pair of Fiona Hall clocks, each ticking slightly out of sync; a white skull etched delicately across the face of one. Opposite, the fireworks of an unwaged war erupt across the peaks and valleys of what China calls its Greater Bay Area in artist Yang Yongliang’s video workIt’s late January, almost a year since Balnaves’ death.
First there are the clouds, which turn into torrential rain just as the guests begin to arrive. The evening’s relevant superpower becomes staying crisp enough not to look out of place in the loading dock down the drive, transformed for the night into a rectangular runway. Inside, the atmosphere is expectant, almost apprehensive.
This, the first show without the founder, has been engineered to harness the Zampatti legacy – and established clientele – and take them somewhere new. Hence the 12 limited-edition pieces designed in collaboration with Australian artist Lindy Lee, the first of what will be an annual “Art of Women” Zampatti collaboration.The strategy is alchemy.
Alex Schuman, artist Lindy Lee and Bianca Spender in February this year at the first Carla Zampatti show since the founder’s death in 2021.Which means there’s a lot more riding on what’s about to come down the runway than just the fortunes of Autumn 2023. As the lights dim, Zampatti’s granddaughter, Alex’s daughter Brigid Schuman, untethers the silk scrim that acted as a media screen, perforated with signature Lindy Lee burn-holes, and the models come out of the gates.
Carla Zampatti’s kids haven’t just been planning for this moment for a year. They’ve been preparing for it for a decade-and-a-half, ever since the youngest, Allegra, joined Carla Zampatti Pty Ltd as managing director to her mother’s CEO in 2008. Those values turned out to be empowering women, supporting the arts and creativity, and championing multiculturalism. The February 8 show was literally walking the talk that began 15 years earlier, from the Lindy Lee collaboration to the army of models of all ages, races and shapes that wore it.
Fashion may be the family’s “love language”, as Alex puts it, but all three are equally schooled in the left-brain sciences: Alex in finance and economics, which Allegra studied at Cambridge, following up with a master’s in organisational psychology before working at McKinsey. Even Bianca studied commerce before succumbing to design.
That family constitution does a lot of things, Alex says. “It’s about reminding us to enjoy ourselves, not just be a family that works together, but it also allows us a forum to speak, to address any issue, and things like whether you bring the kids into the business first or the [philanthropic] foundation first.
Or the succession speculation that recently greeted the elevation of Antoine Arnault, eldest of the five children of the world’s richest person, LVMH founder Bernard Arnault, to CEO in December last year.Few lie at such rarefied altitudes, but everyone understands the territory. For the Balnaves, that process – like Neil Balnaves’ grave, an elaborately undulating unmade bed carved in marble by artist Alex Seton – was already well underway before the founder’s demise.
Evolution of both foundation and family was always the plan. “It was Neil’s intention for it to continue generations after,” says Victoria. “We’ve always known it’s not just about Dad and Mum or Hamish or Alex, when she was around. ‘This is for your children, her children.’ He wanted to create change for generations.”Mushroom Group, too, is deep in its legacy moment by the timespeaks to Matt Gudinski, a year after the group’s 50th anniversary.
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