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In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep\u2019s character Miranda Priestly sneers at the screen, wearing clothing fit for the most influential woman in fashion. Along with dresses by Miuccia Prada, the character inspired by Vogue boss Anna Wintour dons luxurious layers of Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Lanvin.<\/p>\n
For the most powerful woman in Australian fashion, Carla Zampatti is enough.<\/p>\n
Marianne Perkovic doesn\u2019t work for Vogue, or even media rivals Harper\u2019s Bazaar, Marie Claire or Elle. Instead, the executive chair of the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) arrived at her post, which now includes overseeing Australian Fashion Week<\/a> (AFW), via a career in finance.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A background in banking explains why 53-year-old Perkovic wears an unfashionable smile instead of sunglasses when she sits in the front row, as well as her preference for Carla Zampatti which, in the boardroom, still carries the same clout as a Chanel handbag at a party in Paris.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started in the industry at my first job, there weren\u2019t many women but the ones I looked up to wore Carla Zampatti,\u201d Perkovic says, remembering her corporate career beginnings in the mid-\u201990s. \u201cWith my first little bonus, I headed straight to Pitt Street Mall in Sydney to get a Carla Zampatti suit.\u201d<\/p>\n Perkovic quickly realised that she couldn\u2019t afford it. She explained her situation to a woman on the shop floor, who told her that she would have to work hard and work her way up to be able to buy it.<\/p>\n \u201cShe took me over to a rack of more affordable items from Cue and demonstrated how to mix and match them,\u201d she says. \u201cAs I was leaving, I asked for her name: \u2018I\u2019m Carla\u2019 was the reply. I met Carla Zampatti again years later, but I always remembered from that encounter that people in fashion can help you \u2013 whether it\u2019s setting goals or dressing for the corporate world where women are judged differently to men.\u201d<\/p>\n The wait to afford expensive suits wasn\u2019t long. In 2006, Perkovic became the youngest female chief executive of an ASX-listed company at Count Financial Limited. Senior roles at Commonwealth Bank followed, where as general manager of Commonwealth Private, Perkovic faced the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in 2018. (As a senior CBA executive, Perkovic was grilled on the stand and accused of misleading the commission \u2013 asked more than 10 times to properly address questions about the flashpoint issue of fees for no service.)<\/p>\n \u2018Even five years ago, if you had told me that fashion would be a major part of my portfolio, I wouldn\u2019t have believed you.\u2019<\/p>\n Marianne Perkovic<\/p>\n \u201cThey were certainly not the headlines about me that I would ever have wanted,\u201d Perkovic says. \u201cFor me, it reinforced the importance of listening carefully to customers and understanding the real impact decisions can have on people\u2019s lives.\u201d She adds, \u201cI knew it was going to be the hardest thing in my career. Many declined [to appear at the commission], but from my values base it was important to show up, even if the problems were historic or not: I was an employee of the bank and leadership roles come with that obligation. You can\u2019t step away when issues are hard or when historic problems need to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n She left the Commonwealth Bank in 2020, consulted at accounting and auditing multinational KPMG and began joining boards with a finance bent. Then in 2023, a change of direction \u2013 Perkovic became executive chair of the AFC. It was a move that would have stunned her friends at Bankstown Girls High School, where she was school captain.<\/p>\n \u201cAt school I looked at fashion magazines \u2013 it was the supermodel era, after all \u2013 but I was already set on the world of economics. My friends would be surprised, but even five years ago, if you had told me that fashion would be a major part of my portfolio, I wouldn\u2019t have believed you,\u201d Perkovic says. \u201cThis was supposed to be my fun board.\u201d<\/p>\n But when Perkovic took the reins, the AFC was about as sexy as a pair of greying Y-fronts. The voluntary not-for-profit membership organisation for the local fashion and textile industry, which contributes more than $27.2 billion to the Australian economy annually, was primarily focused on worker and sustainability issues.<\/p>\n Australian Fashion Week, the premier industry event for designers, had a monopoly on the enticing atmosphere of strutting models in dynamic creations that fill both social media accounts and the dreams of future designers. The event \u2013 founded three decades ago in 1996 \u2013 helped shape the international profile of success stories such as Zimmermann, Sass & Bide and Ksubi and launch the careers of models Miranda Kerr, Abbey Lee and Gemma Ward. When global entertainment organisation IMG announced that it was withdrawing from operating AFW<\/a> after nearly 20 years in November 2024, just as Perkovic was setting into her style side hustle, the change-management expert saw an opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the first questions I asked when I started at the AFC was, \u2018Why don\u2019t we run Fashion Week?\u2019\u2009\u201d Perkovic says. \u201cI was used to industry associations running major events for their industries. I got different answers, including, \u2018That\u2019s not what the Fashion Council does.\u2019 As an outsider, I saw something different.\u201d She adds, \u201cI\u2019m an action-orientated person and I think people can give you excuses as to why things can\u2019t happen. But if it\u2019s the right thing, you\u2019ve got to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article Perkovic raced to have the AFC fill the XL-sized void with the support of the NSW government. Weeks later, the AFC was appointed official organiser of AFW, to be based at Carriageworks in Eveleigh<\/a>.<\/p>\n With the assistance of the persuasive former Harper\u2019s Bazaar editor Kellie Hush, brands such as Romance Was Born, Lee Mathews, Aje and Bianca Spender signed up to participate. There were some bumpy moments, but in the face of extinction, the Australian runway narrowly avoided reaching its end.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat sets Marianne apart in an industry that runs on instinct and creativity is that she also runs on strategy,\u201d says Hush, who is currently fashion director of AFW. \u201cTransforming the AFW model is no small undertaking; it demands the kind of leader who can make a tough call on Monday, pick up the phone on Tuesday to rally the industry and open her contact book on Wednesday to bring serious business to the table. Marianne does all three with the quiet confidence of someone who knows that staying positive isn\u2019t naivety, it\u2019s the job.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, the revitalised event relocates from the industrial setting of Carriageworks to the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) on Sydney Harbour<\/a>. This move harbourside holds yet another Carla Zampatti thread, with Perkovic inspired by the label\u2019s AFW runway show last year, held outside the MCA. \u201cThe venue is the right backdrop for designers, international designers and consumers, which I want to look at bringing back to AFW with ticketed shows,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to be there for the industry, but consumers are just as important.\u201d<\/p>\n For the event, which runs from May 11-15, there will be lessons learnt from last year\u2019s show. \u201cOn the night of the Carla show it looked like it was going to rain, and there were stories that if the clouds opened, we would have party umbrellas or a big marquee. The truth is that we would have sat there in the rain. It would have still been spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"After](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/7a8fd209b9c579faf04072b9ca9fc019b32b46e3.jpeg\")
After Australian Fashion Week\u2019s longtime operator pulled out, last year\u2019s event was taken over by Perkovic and the AFC.Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Jewel-bright](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/276200809b7b2bcab245b96adc9c1ce1dcd7f6d9.jpeg\")
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