‘A true trailblazer’: designer Perri Cutten remembered for her enduring mark on Australian fashion

Cutten launched her eponymous label in 1981, representing ‘ambition and success’, and remains one of David Jones’s most beloved brands today

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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% 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.

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