The hard yards

She's considered to be one of the hardest working women in the Australian fashion industry. Now, after more than 20 years in the game, Collette Dinnigan is ready to take her business to the next level, as Assia Benmedjdoub reports.

Perhaps it was during her days as a costume hand with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) that Collette Dinnigan first realised the importance of fine detailing.

Period garments are, after all, among the most difficult to construct; requiring accuracy and flair on behalf of the creator while dangling the career-ending prospect of anachronisms should they in any way neglect the former.

Granted, after decades of producing contemporary womenswear collections, things are a little different for the South-African born designer these days.

The astute eye which once oversaw the production of antiquitous garments now oversees a multi-million dollar international fashion empire. Along with an export market that's spread across the UK, US, the Middle East, Europe and Asia, Dinnigan also supplies some of the biggest names in global retail including Barney's in California, New York and Chicago to Harrods and Browns in London.

To add to her growing portfolio - which is already bursting at the seams with bridal, resort, infant, ready-to-wear and eyewear collections - a homewares venture is reportedly not far off either.

While she admits the process is ultimately rewarding - "I enjoy the business side of things - we're very successful and have a great team"- personal circumstances have no doubt pushed Dinnigan to question her involvement in other areas of her company. On top of producing several collections a year, managing wholesale and retail operations and co-ordinating a team of close to 100 employees, the designer is also a dedicated mother of one.

So after more than 20 years of having her eye on every nook and cranny, Dinnigan is now warming to the prospect of a general manager (GM). Someone to look after the administrative, financial and "people management" duties, she says.

"When you're so busy, and especially now that I have a daughter who is my priority, it's just really difficult to be able to juggle everything at the same time. I couldn't think of anything more rewarding than spending time with my daughter this afternoon because I miss her [but] it's very difficult when you're caught in a wheel that keeps on turning."

Even at the time of our interview, Dinnigan, who only very recently wrapped up her 2007 resortwear collection, was already mid-way through creating her spring/summer range and brainstorming for autumn/winnter 2008. Time eludes her, but what can she do? she asks. Drop bridal? Drop childrenswear? Drop eveningwear? Drop resort? It's not viable when it's becomes the economy and scale of her business, she says.

"If I could just create for three months, that would be wonderful but i'm so interrupted in other areas. [With a general manager] I'd be focusing more on perhaps doing smaller collections [because] I can quite often find that I do larger collections because I run out of time and I do everything just in case. Doing something I've really planned and know all of the outcomes that go together, I'd love to be like that."

On a practical level, Dinnigan says she could also use the extra hand to clean up around the edges, so to speak.

"I liken a really great general manager to a really great vacuum cleaner. Someone who can keep up with my ideas, take them all in, organise them, decompartmentalise them and then come back to me with the suggested route and what angle we should take. I have so many ideas, it's like which are the ones to go with? I'm a good ideas person."

Irrespective of which way the pendulum swings, whether Dinnigan's GM eases her administrative stress or has input into other areas of the business, sharing the reins with someone else is not something the designer relishes. This is, after all, a woman who readily admits to the virtues of being a "control freak".

"The minute you stop been passionate about it, you see things falling through the cracks - the detail. I find it really kind of surprising that [the media] is fascinated by my attention to detail and me wanting to control everything. Wouldn't you want to buy something that a designer has chosen the buttons for and the fabric for and seen the fitting fore and made sure the thread colour is right?

"Or would you prefer to buy something where you knew the designer had someone else decide that it was okay? I absolutely want to make sure that what I design, what goes through; I've had my hands over nearly everything."