More than a Roman holiday: How this historic city revitalised Australian fashion designer Collette Dinnigan

Collette Dinnigan’s love affair with Italy began more than 25 years ago, as a tourist visiting for the first time.

Still, it wasn’t until 2019 that the celebrated Australian fashion designer came to truly discover the dolce vita.

Dinnigan, her husband Bradley Cocks and their children moved into an 18th century apartment which they had bought in Rome’s Centro Storico and discovered the allure of the historic city.

After 18 years of showing in Paris, Rome enabled her to discover something “new” and drove a fresh creative streak.

Collette Dinnigan’s journey

After closing down the operations of half my business in 2014, I wanted some time out and a new place to reset. That’s when Bradley and I decided to go to a city we didn’t know.

I needed to get away from Australia, I didn’t want to be under public speculation once I shut the stores and my fashion label. And we literally chose Rome without doing a proper recce of the city. It felt ideal because it wasn’t Paris and had nothing to do with my work. It was a place we would both make memories together.

Read the latest edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

Leaving Australia to live in Rome really felt like being young again. We were taking a huge risk leaving so much behind, but I remember saying to Bradley, ‘what could go wrong?’

Travel really forces you to break from routine. Relocating the family to Rome for a year in 2019 came with its own challenges, we didn’t know whether the children would settle, or if we’d meet anybody new or find friends there. We were just happy to be a family and all together to be honest. But it took being in Rome to really fall in love with it.

The city has opened up so much for me personally – being immersed in Roman history and surrounded by the Roman Empire architecture felt like anything was possible and I felt creative and alive.

We met great people while living in Rome, and started travelling through Italy a lot more and then eventually bought a property in Puglia (Casa Olivetta). But in Rome, it was knowing I was walking and driving on the roads the ancient Romans did all those years ago that was truly mind blowing.

I love classical things; I adore good quality and authenticity, and I found a lot of that in Rome.

I fell in love with Italian artisans and how things are constructed. What I realised is that each region in Italy is focused on a specific craftmanship and has it owns focus. That’s what I really connected with and what I’ve been trying to do my entire fashion career.

What I’d taken from history in France and working in the film industry with the opera, as an example, I felt Italy was the next destination that helped me discover new things about me. It also helped me lean into the interior focus I was inspired to do.

Romans avoid Centro Storico because they don’t like to be around tourists and think it’s more expensive than other areas. But we loved being so close to everything — a five-minute walk to the Pantheon or a quick walk to Campo de’ Fiori to get produce. It’s also a two-minute walk to Roscioli for breakfast.

Rome is adaptable, you can hop on and off trams and being a walking city makes it a healthy lifestyle.

We loved exploring different parks, some were dishevelled, but others great. There was a lot of ease to living there. I didn’t speak a word of Italian which was hard, but did try to learn — I just loved living my life among a small community and being on foot the whole time.

I wrote two books in Rome – Bellissima: An Australian-Italian Affair and a children’s book, Louie And Snippy Save The Sea, inspired by my son Hunter.

We saw plastic and rubbish on the streets everywhere and I wrote about how the plastic went from the land to the seas. I had a lot of time to write and focus on this; it’s difficult when I’m back in Australia to have the freedom to take time out and do things that are indulgent.

I was back in Rome this past November. We go for a month every summer … I go to my favourite restaurants and visit my favourite furniture dealers. I inhale the city and its creativity as much as I can.

For me, it’s always porcini mushrooms and artichokes, boiled with herbs, parsley and oil, and grilled porcini for dinner. Casa Bleve is where all the Roman businessmen go for lunch. You’ll find few tourists and it’s a fave of mine.

Roscioli is still the best deli with the freshest mozzarella, artichokes and Sicilian tuna. It is full of Americans though I like to stop for coffee and get a melograno juice.

Rome makes me feel inquisitive. It’s so great to immerse yourself in a different culture because it makes you think differently. I love going into churches too and have a respect for these meeting places. I go to San Luigi dei Francesi, it’s filled with Caravaggio paintings.

My namesake home fragrance collection was developed in Rome. My ceramics also stemmed from my time in Italy, and collecting antiques became an obsession too. Rome is half hour drive from the main cruise port, and it’s something you don’t think of when you’re a tourist.

A lot of those ports in Italy are missed when traveling the big cities, but here you’ll discover great places to eat the freshest seafood like spaghetti vongole and clams.

One of the most romantic things Bradley did for me one year was a birthday lunch on a friend’s boat as it cruised along the River Tiber. We enjoyed an afternoon on this little boat, it was a great way to see Rome.”