Pia du Pradal POWER DRESSING

Her smart, striking suits have been present at some of the most significant events in Australia’s recent history. Susan Chenery meets Pia du Pradal who, with collaborator, traditional artist Louise Numina Napanangka, is taking Australian design to the world.

- Susan Chenery

When Dame Quentin Bryce attended the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011, she was resplendent in a hot pink, coral and orange silk brocade suit with matching pink patent stilettos. The Governor-General of Australia was seated close to the action in Westminster Abbey. “There’s the royals,” she recalls, “then the foreign royals and then the governors-general. We were right up front in the abbey, looking across where they face each other. So we could see everybody coming in – the Middletons, all the royal family. It was a lot of fun.”

While 36 million people watched the wedding on television, in a small studio in Brisbane, several seamstresses watched even more intently. They had made the GovernorGeneral’s outfit and now it was being beamed around the world.

The next day, designer Pia du Pradal’s phone started ringing with media asking for details about Dame Quentin’s suit. “I was mortified,” says Pia. “We are very discreet about who we dress. This was all hush-hush. There is no way that any of us would have spoken about it.” Then the phone rang again. It was Dame Quentin. “I told them,” she admitted.

This was the first time, says Pia, “that the public actually learned we were dressing Quentin to a large degree.”