Zimmermann Fall/Winter 2025 Review: Picnic At Hanging Rock

THE SYDNEY THEATRE Company’s new production of Picnic at Hanging Rock — an adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel written by Tom Wright and directed by Ian Michael — eschews period clothing in favour of modern-day school uniforms for its cast members, with only one long white Victorian-style dress making an appearance throughout. Nicky Zimmermann took a similar approach for her Fall 2025 collection ‘Hypnotic’ which, like the STC production, pays homage to the 50th anniversary of Peter Weir’s iconic film adaptation of Lindsay’s thriller about three schoolgirls and their teacher who go missing on Victoria’s Mount Macedon on Valentine’s Day 1900, never to be seen again.

“There’s little subtle moments that we’ve taken from the film — like our Victoriana has dresses with hand-smocking — but it’s not overt” Zimmermann told BAZAAR Australia backstage before the show, which was staged inside the imposing Petit Palais just off the Champs Élysées.

“There’s a denim dress that is corseted and has panelling, cut-outs and a crinoline skirt,” she continued. “So it takes cues from Victoriana, but it’s incredibly modern.

“We started with the opening [of the film] where it’s romantic, iconically feminine, it’s about lace, it’s about beautiful relationships, the girls are all giving each other Valentine’s cards. We have dresses that have [feature prints of] hand written notes and Valentines cards with lace around them. Then we progressed into the Australian bush section, where it’s all tans and olives and snake prints. Then we kind of move into the mysterious section, where it gets a little bit moody. We wanted to still obviously keep it upbeat, but it’s such a haunting and beautiful and unsolved [story]. I was relatively young [when I watched it]. You never forget”.

Fall 2025 has been a big season for lace. Lace permeates Zimmermann’s collection, which opened with a romantic high-necked ecru lace mini dress with bell sleeves and a draped apricot silk bodice, its half maxiskirt floating around the model as she walked. Lace also featured in bibs, harem pants, peignoir-style wrap robes and a cape minidress, with coarser crochet lace factoring into several looks as well. Notably, a seventies-adjacent high-necked, tiered ecru column with extravagant trumpet sleeves that reeked of Daisy Jones and The Six. A few looks later emerged Daisy Jones herself — a Riley Keough doppelgänger — in Zimmermann’s take on the naked dress: a totally sheer caftan/dress hybrid in snake print georgette with a high collar and smocked bodice. The latter might have been a nod to Victorian smocking, however the technique also happens to have been an area of fascination for Zimmermann since her early teenage years when she began making christening dresses, enthralled by the techniques of smocking, hand-stitching, embroidery and lace insertion.

The collection toughened up in the tailoring that riffed on schoolgirl pinafores and uniforms, as well as the outerwear section, which included roomy leather bomber jackets with fur trims and a fuzzy black shearling chubby. One stylish day look — a leather-trimmed houndstooth oversized wool jacket and matching near ankle-length skirt — referenced the riding wear of the search party that goes looking for Miranda and her classmates on Mount Macedon. The sheer organzas were counterpointed by bohemian devoré paisleys and draped velvet stretch-knits and accessories included knee-high braided boots, fractured polished stone jewellery and a new almond-shaped suede bag.

There were plenty of the kind of wow factor party dresses that have helped fuel the brand’s spectacular growth trajectory, with over 60 boutiques now operating worldwide and a US$1 billion valuation as of August 2023, when American global private equity firm Advent International acquired a majority stake.

To give you an idea just how big the Zimmermann enterprise is today, Zimmermann revealed that the company has just purchased an entire building in the Marais district to house its expanding Paris operations.

“I’m setting up a full Paris atelier, a brand new office,” said Zimmermann. “It’s incredible. I just did a site visit. It was supposed to be open, it’s two weeks late. But I’m back in April, so I’ll be working from there then”.

It’s a remarkable journey from the brand’s humble beginnings, she admitted. “It wasn’t our initial plan in 1991!” she quipped. “With our little Paddington store. It wasn’t even a store, it was a market rack”.