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A few years ago, a friend lent me an ankle-length navy coat by Perri Cutten. It was the middle of the pandemic and having hastily returned to Melbourne from Paris, I had left my winter wardrobe behind. The vintage coat was one of Cutten’s signatures: 100 perfect merino wool, double breasted with a raglan sleeve. It made me feel powerful but feminine – so much so that when my wardrobe finally arrived, I didn’t want to give it back.
Cutten, who passed away on Friday 4 April, established her eponymous brand in Melbourne in 1981, opened her first boutique in Armadale the following year and had decades of success designing clothes for generations of corporate Australian women.
“Women had just become part of the workforce in a much bigger way than they’d been,” she told the fashion editor Janice Breen Burns in 2011. “That’s what we did; designs that would help [women] fit in and feel feminine but not look silly.”
Through a combination of printed silk blouses, soft A-line skirts, tailored jackets and pleat-front pants, that’s exactly what Cutten did for her clientele. She relinquished her role as creative director in the early 2000s, but it wasn’t until the end of last year that she quietly stepped back from the business at the age of 73.
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Burns remembers Cutten as a warm, funny, genuinely admired woman. Along with Margaret Porritt of Feathers and Anthea Crawford, “she was among the first designers of her generation to shift left of the ideal young, slim, high fashion consumer into broader collections that fit the realities of women’s body shapes,” she says.
Over the years, the brand collected accolades including four awards from the Fashion Industries of Australia and a Woolmark Award for Excellence. In 1998, Swinburne University — where Cutten studied graphic design — awarded her an honourary doctorate.
Kellie Hush, CEO of Australian Fashion Week, recalls growing up in Canberra and being “very aware” that the Perri Cutten store in Manuka was where the diplomats and politicians shopped. “It was a brand that represented ambition and success to me,” she says. “Launching a fashion brand in the 1980s took a lot of guts and ambition. Perri Cutten, was a true trailblazer herself.”
At its peak the business had a dozen stand-alone stores and 20 Myer and David Jones concessions. Eight boutiques remain (including ones in Armadale and Manuka) and the brand is still stocked by David Jones.
“Perri Cutten remains one of David Jones’ most loved brands,” says Bridget Veals, the department store’s executive general manager of womenswear, footwear and accessories. “It is a great Australian brand built on a legacy of great cuts, modern fabrications and the ability to meet the changing needs of women’s wardrobes through the decades.”
Over the weekend the Perri Cutten fashion house posted to Instagram: “May she be remembered for her pioneering spirit, her impeccable eye, and the enduring mark she left on Australian fashion.”
By Lucianne Tonti
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