Even as a child, clothing and illustration were all around me. I was born and brought up in Papua New Guinea, where Mum was a top model in the ’40s and ’50s. Dad was, among other things, a cartoonist. I was one of five boys, watching Mum as she modelled in parades all around the place, wearing beautiful clothes that designers in Australia had sent up to Papua.
In 1972, eight years after we left the country and decided to start a new life in Sydney, I graduated from Waverley College and topped the state in art. I thought a lot about becoming a costume designer in those days because all of the stuff I was doing in school was illustratively involved with clothing and design. I had an amazing art teacher at the time by the name of Brian Saville-Teal, who asked me whether I was serious about going into costuming.
When I said yes, he told me of a course at the Dress Design Studio in East Sydney Tech. We went along, met with the head, Ross Stay, and by the next year, I’d commenced part-time study in fashion design.
In 1973, I was studying three nights a week while working as an assistant cutter for a label called Najar in Surry Hills. I earned $20 a week. The boys who were there with me as cutters have gone on to become very, very successful rag trade people – Nick Jacenko has got Capital, Dennis Graham has got Love Love and George Spyrou has got George Clothing. The year after I enrolled, Gough Whitlam came into power and gave out a tertiary allowance to students. This made things a lot easier for us and allowed me to start full-time study at East Sydney Tech, which I did for three years.
In stage two of my course, I’d heard Bette Davis was coming out to Sydney to do a show called “An evening with Bette Davis”. I knew about the format – they would show some film clips of her work, she’d discuss them and there’d be a question and answer bit with the audience. I loved Bette Davis and wanted to meet her – simple as that, I just wanted to meet her – so I put together an oil painting from her movie All About Eve. My father, who was in the newspaper business at the time, sent out a photographer to take a photo of the portrait. We knew she was staying at the Sebel Townhouse and organised to send the photo with a note saying that I wanted to present this portrait to her during the Tuesday night show I had tickets for.
Sure enough, we got a phone call back from her assistant, saying Bette loved the portrait, she was very happy to accept it and I was to interrupt proceedings exactly one hour after she went up on stage. All of this was coming from her side – it was very, very organised. I arrived on the night with a girlfriend and the massive portrait, which had a big piece of red calico hiding the front of it. Of course, all the photographers were already there.
They’d rung up the press and told everyone that this guy was going to present a portrait to Bette Davis. We got to our seats and I set the portrait against a wall near where we were sitting. The whole time I was looking at my watch thinking, “Exactly one hour, one hour, it has to be exactly one hour”. The time came for me to walk up to the microphone. So I did. And I waited. At that point, Bette Davis looked out from the stage and asked whether there were any questions from the audience. I cleared my throat and said something like, “Miss Davis, I have something to give you. All my love and my respect for you and your career and I hope you accept it”.
“Come on dooooown!,” she said with a big wave of her hand. I walked down with the portrait and all I could hear was bloody Ross’s voice in my head saying, “When you get up there, you better mention East Sydney, you better mention the course, you better mention how good it is, you better do it, you better do it”. Then the press started on me: “When you get in the photo with her, you have to stand really close, the space has to be really tight but don’t block the portrait”. I’m thinking, “What’s wrong with these bloody people?! One expects me to talk about school and the other wants me to direct Bette Davis!”
I walked up on to the stage and Bette reached over to kiss me. Just as she brushed my ear, she lowered her voice and whispered, “Honey, just follow my lead and it will all fall to place”. Ahh, she was a star. We were on stage for about half an hour talking, posing and laughing. The next day, it appeared on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘To Bette with love”, the headline read. Eight years later, when I was a teacher at East Sydney Tech, an ex-student of mine living in America sent me a postcard of Bette Davis. She was sitting in her home doing petit-point and in the background, there was my painting, hanging above her mantelpiece.
Four years later I started teaching part-time at East Sydney Tech and another four years after that, I designed and made an outfit for Zsa Zsa Gabor, who was appearing on the Parkinson series. My boyfriend at the time, Paul, was working for a hairdresser in Double Bay and his boss had been picked to do Zsa Zsa’s hair for the show. Zsa Zsa was rumoured to be a “difficult woman” so he handed the job to Paul, who was beside himself with nerves. I told him to grow up. “She’ll be fine,” I said. “She won’t treat you like s**t! Don’t be stupid – you could f**k up her hair!”
Even though I was 12 or 14 years older than him, Paul eventually convinced me to pose as his assistant. Didn’t look like I did too well in the world of being an assistant at that age, did it? But she’s an Aquarius like me, I thought, so it’ll be fun and we’ll get along fine. We arrived at the Sebel at the scheduled time and buzzed Zsa Zsa’s assistant. She told us to come up to the room. We walked up the stairs, Paul knocked on the door and it opened. Zsa Zsa, completely glorious and aloof, was sitting at her dressing table. She turned, looked up at us in the mirror and with a flick of her hand said, “I don’t need two, take vone avay”. Don’t need... Wha? … She must have seen the look on my face because she rolled her eyes and signalled for us to both come in.
Paul started to look at her hair and fiddle with it while I struck up a conversation with her assistant about clothes. We got to talking about what Zsa Zsa would wear on her Australian trip, and sure enough I started flicking through her outfits myself. I thought, “It’s winter, it’s cold and all she has are a bunch of chiffon dresses and light blouses”. So I decided to make her a jacket. I didn’t tell her, I just looked at the sizes on her clothes, looked at her figure and when I left that day, I went straight down to the fabric shop.
I knew Zsa Zsa loved purple so I bought some beautiful quality dirty purple wool, made a pencil skirt, a jacket and lined it all. I had it beautifully packaged in a box, sent it to the Siebel care of Zsa Zsa Gabor and wrote a little note saying, “Darling Zsa Zsa, it was so lovely meeting you. You were an absolute delight and I hope you enjoy this”.
I thought that would be the end of it. A couple of days later I got a phone call from Zsa Zsa’s assistant, telling me she wanted to speak with me. There was a click at the other end and the next moment I heard, “Nicholas, daaaaaaahling, I can’t tell you, oh my life is full of people alvays vanting, vanting, vanting. For you to give me something like this, it’s so lovely”. Zsa Zsa then asked me if I owned a suit. Of course I owned a suit, I replied. She said, good, because she was inviting Paul and me as special guests to her cocktail party on Saturday night. On the night, I remember there were all these people standing there, waiting in a line like they were meeting the Queen. Zsa Zsa arrived a little late and you could tell she wasn’t too interested. She walked over to the corner where Paul and I were sitting and whispered, “Who are all these crap people?” She spoke with us for three-quarters of an hour and left. She was really gorgeous, really lovely. She signed some beautiful photos with a “Darling Nicholas, you are lovely. Love Zsa Zsa”.
I’ve done a lot of fun things since then – I was nominated for an Australian Film Institute award for my costumes in Sons of Steel in 1989 and was nominated for the inaugural Fashion Laureate Award in 2007, then 2008 and 2009. This year, I was selected by Sydney Institute to be one of the 120 ambassadors for the 120-year celebrations of Sydney Institute (TAFE NSW) and have now picked up Nicole Kidman as a client. I’ve already made a dress for her. But I’ve always remained at East Sydney Tech [now TAFE NSW Fashion Design Studio] and I couldn’t ask for a better job. I am surrounded by talented, innovative students who never cease to thrill me.
I recently saw my art teacher for the first time since I left school. He came to my place and as soon as I opened the door, he started to laugh, started to giggle. I said, “What’s the matter with you?” And he said to me, “This is exactly how I thought it would be. You never changed.”