POSITION Owner/Designer Palm Beach Couture (new beachwear store)
MY CHILDHOOD DREAM JOB To create beautiful gowns
MY FIRST JOB As a nine-year-old selling ice creams at a kiosk at 'Little Luna Park' (Melb). Good retail training. Then during my tertiary student days (no, it wasn't design school). I had quite a nice little business making my friends clothes especially evening gowns (excellent training for my past 20 years as a couturier)
MY BIG BREAK Came when I packed my suitcase full of creations, knocked on a designer's door and asked for a job! I started the next week. I then moved on to spend the next 20 years designing casualwear
MY BIGGEST RISK Moving to Sydney (from Melbourne) and getting married. After 35 years of "wedded bliss" I guess it wasn't so risky after all
MY PROUDEST MOMENT Seeing my daughters grow into beautiful and well adjusted young women (after all, working mums in the '70s were warned of having delinquent children)
MY BIGGEST MISTAKE/REGRET No regrets and no mistakes, they are learning experiences
MY BIGGEST FASHION FAUX PAS I look at old photos and think "did I really wear that?" then before you know it "that look" is back in fashion again
MY MENTOR My Nana - as a 10-year-old she bought me fabrics and overseas fashion magazines and let me use her sewing machine
IF I COULD DO IT OVER I wouldn't change a thing - I've had the best of both worlds - a career I'm passionate about and a wonderful close and supportive family
IF I WASN'T IN FASHION I'D BE An extremely boring housewife
IN MY SPARE TIME I Walk, do yoga, cook and spend time with family and friends
PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED TO KNOW My tertiary education qualified me to be a school teacher. However my teaching career was very short
I WANT MY EPITAPH TO SAY N/A... no tombstone for me as my ashes are to be scattered over Pittwater
