Photo: Zimmermann

Ever wonder what a designer does all day? We do, so we asked Nicky Zimmermann, the lovely woman behind Zimmermann swimwear (and ready-to-wear!) to document a day for us.

6AM

I get up and go for a jog from my home in Watsons Bay in Sydney. It’s a quiet, beach side area on Sydney Harbour. I plan my day when I run. Once home, I get my son and daughter ready for school. Because Australia sleeps when the rest of the world is awake, I normally have lots of emails overnight so I try to respond to a few easy ones over breakfast.

8:30AM

It’s 6:30PM in New York. I have a scheduled call with our U.S. PR office to discuss the launch of our first store in Los Angeles. The store is located on Roberston Boulevard. We have 15 stores in Australia but this is our first permanent store in the U.S.—there’s so much to do and it’s a lot harder when you’re overseeing it from the other side of the world.

9AM

I drive to our office in Rosebery in Sydney. On the way I drive past our flagship store in Paddington just to have a little look at the store windows and to make sure I’m happy with how everything is looking. All good! I talk to Alexa Cahill our U.S Sales Director, while I’m in the car. She tells me what’s happening but mostly we just have a bit of a laugh. When I get into my design room, I answer the rest of my emails first thing in the morning so I can get some out of the way. I like to clear away periods of time so we can work on nothing but what we are creating in the design room and this helps.

9:30AM

We presented a new ready-to-wear collection in Sydney last week and I still have a few extra pieces that need to be fitted for sales. I spend a lot of my day in fittings and I really enjoy working with my pattern makers and the design girls to get things just so. We spend huge amounts of time fitting our swimwear to make sure it’s perfect because if its not, it doesn’t work.

Photo: Zimmermann

12:30AM

We don’t get any rest between collections and we are already on a tight turn-around to create our next High Summer Swim collection. I have been working on some prints for a few weeks and I discuss the fabric strike-offs with Zoe, who is my design room manger and my third hand! We spend a lot of time talking about color and getting our prints to a point where I’m happy. I usually get feedback from Simone and a few of the other girls in the studio just to make sure that everyone is in love with it.

2PM

I spend some time drawing and talking to the design girls about the direction that we are taking. I’ll go through and refine them until I feel like we’re heading in a new direction that works for Zimmermann. With our swim, I’m always influenced by what we are doing with our ready-to-wear and I have always adapted these ideas and worked them in new ways into a swimsuit.

4PM

I have a meeting with a young Australian designer, Dion Lee, who we are mentoring as part of a creative program set up with the support of Qantas. He is just starting out but is hugely talented, great guy. We just make ourselves available to discuss whatever he wants to talk about. It’s really hard for young designers to run a fledgling label and it’s particularly so in Australia.

Photo: Zimmermann

6PM

I have a work dinner but I want to come home beforehand and play with my kids. We just play and talk.

7PM

An informal work dinner at the Icebergs in Bondi with Simone, Marie Claude (my long-time friend and our Australian PR) and Tamila Purvis (she is our stylist and is co-founder of an unreal jewelery brand, ManiaMania). We need to finalize our July swim campaign concept and discuss the ideas that have been presented to us by our Art Director (Louisa Gent who lives in New York).

10:30PM

I’m home and go straight to sleep. I’m still really tired after our show last week and I’ve got lots to do for the rest of the week!