Collette Dinnigan Profiles

Collette Dinnigan launched her label in 1990 and built it, unusually, on a single uncompromising product: dry-clean only lingerie. This profiles page tells that founding story — the reputation the lingerie won, the signature of detail that was evident from the beginning, and the Sydney store that turned a launch into a two-decade following. Her biography can be told almost entirely in three dates, because the founding was the career's defining act: 1990, 1992 and 2011 mark the label, the store and the move.

The biography searches in the references gather the wider career coverage; her official website is also linked there. Pair this page with the collections page for the work itself, and with the main Collette Dinnigan page for the news, photo and video routes.

Illustrative image created for this guide — an artistic impression, not this designer's own garments.

1990: The Lingerie Launch

In 1990, Collette Dinnigan launched her label with dry-clean only lingerie that quickly garnered her a reputation. The product was the manifesto. Lingerie that must be dry-cleaned refuses every compromise fashion usually makes with practicality — and in refusing, it announced exactly what the label would sell for decades: sexy romantic lingerie and incredibly detailed clothes, made to a standard where the making is the luxury. Her signature is evident from the beginning: French fabrics, hand embroidered in India by highly skilled craftsmen. Design in Sydney, cloth from France, handwork from India — the triangle that still organizes her collections was complete in the first year.

The speed of the reputation matters to the profile. A launch product that impractical should have narrowed her audience; instead it concentrated it — the clients who came for the lingerie were precisely the clients who would follow her into dresses — and within two years the following was strong enough to carry a store of its own.

1992–2011: The Store and the Following

In 1992 Collette Dinnigan opened her first retail store in William Street, Paddington, Sydney. It became the go-to destination for beautiful lingerie style dresses, delicate lace pieces and amazing prints, rapidly building a strong following. The store's range is the label's range in one room: the lingerie the label began with, the lingerie style dresses that carried its fabrics and finishes into outerwear, the lace pieces and the prints — four strands of one romantic idea, sold together for nineteen years at the same address.

In 2011 the store relocated to Queen Street, Woollahra. A relocation after two decades is its own biographical fact: the following moved with it, because what clients were loyal to was never the street — it was the standard set in 1990, of romance executed by hand. Read with the collections and runway pages of this series, the profiles give the complete picture of the label those three dates built. The news page continues the biography in the present tense, story by story.

Photos