When Alexia received a call from friends in Paris, offering to have her to stay, she jumped at the chance. “I deferred my studies in London and went to The Sorbonne to study French literature.

“I’d meet people on the street or at a party and they would say, you should model and I thought I could do with an extra dollar. So finally I gave it a try. I was very fortunate, I ended up working a lot with Georgio Armani and I worked very closely with Muicca Prada.”

“I loved the transformation from normal me to wow me. There is a part of me that enjoys being the protagonist. I loved drama at school and I lived it with modelling. When I was asked to perform, whether it is in front of a camera or on the cat walk, that’s what I did.”

Alexia was in Milan to do some fashion shows. She was chatting to an English girl in the lobby of her hotel when a young Italian man named Paolo rang and invited this English girl for dinner. “She said to me, why don’t you come and I said no, no, no, this guy is inviting you. She said please come, he’s going to bring a friend.”

And so begins the story of Paolo (Alexia’s now husband). For the record Alexia insists that this English girl is still a very good friend.

“There was definite interest when we first met, but it wasn’t until the next day that sparks flew.” She mentions that she was not impressed with his thunderbolt style, hot blooded Italian moves from the night before. The next morning Paolo rang Alexia and said ‘will you have breakfast with me?’ She said ‘no’. And he said ‘will you have lunch with me?’ She said ‘no’. And he rang back and said, ‘will you have dinner with me?’ and she said ‘Oh OK’.

So they had dinner, and that was it. They have been together ever since, continuing to live a well travelled, international life.

“I often wonder why the relationship works and I have come to realise that it’s because we have a very similar upbringing. I have a Latin parent and an Anglo parent, and so does he. We were brought up with the same kind of morals and rules. It’s interesting how those things become important in a relationship. We’re both independent and very respectful of each other’s space. We love each other but we both have our own things happening.”

Alexia and Paolo now live in Sydney with their two children, Tania 21 and Vittorio 18. Alexia recalls it was her beloved Tania that secured Alexia her first swimwear shoot.

As a model Alexia wasn’t voluptuous so she never got to shoot swimwear. “This was really very disappointing because those girls went to all the best locations. I used to do the stuff out in the cold weather with the fur coats. However, when I fell pregnant with my daughter, my bust grew very quickly and so my agency said to me, there’s this thing with La Perla, it’s for a swimwear campaign. I got the job. I still have the pictures. I would never had done that campaign if I wasn’t pregnant, but if they had known that I was pregnant I would never have got the campaign.”

Alexia has been designing and making things all her life. She baked cakes, she made her own dresses, she made cushions and she made quilts. “Living in South America at that time there weren’t a lot of nice shops. You could buy Chanel but you couldn’t buy anything under that. So I would design all my own clothes and have them made.

“Even when I was in Paris I was making my own clothes. The first winter I was there was extraordinarily cold. I had just started modelling and I couldn’t afford to buy myself the coat that I wanted, which of course was cashmere. I thought how difficult can it be? So I bought some beautiful fabric, rolled it out on the kitchen table, cut it all up and got the sewing machine out. And then I realised I had cut both of the sleeves together. They were both facing the same way. I just sewed it together anyhow. I loved it and I went to a casting for Yohji Yamamoto. I had about 4 models come to me and say ‘where did you get your coat?’ And I thought if only they knew that the arm was on backwards.”

That was the beginning of Alexia’s career as a designer.

Alexia now runs her own fashion label and store in Sydney, Australia, aptly named Eclettica. She is known for creating an interesting hybrid of casual and luxury. She attributes her varied and colourful upbringing, as a source of her inspiration. “I often go back to the colours that I lived with in the Caribbean, the bright pinks and blues and the music from that time in my life. It’s really a big part of me.” A keen horse rider as a young girl, she now has a real love of leather; the smell of it, little buckles, the polishing. Alexia explains that you carry a bank of inspiration around always, and then something might just trigger it.

Alexia: “I love the giving birth of an idea, it’s like ‘wow that was nothing until I thought of it.’ You see it in your mind’s eye, you create it and put it out there, and then someone purchases it and wears it, that’s just the best.”
 

“There are definitely moments in your career that are defining – whether it's dressing Madonna for the first time 15 years ago, showing in Paris and or having a 10 year anniversary show. The consumers see success as very famous people wearing your clothes, but success for me is finding that balance between having more time with my family and friends, and having an extraordinary career.”

I can see that for Collette Dinnigan finding this balance is challenging. She is extremely hard working. “If you are going to do something you have to do it properly and give it 100%.” She creates nine collections every year; three collections for her three different brands, plus all the other things she does in-between. It's no accident that she is one of the most successful fashion designers of today.

Collette admits that when she was starting out fashion design wasn’t her first love. “I would much rather have studied photography or graphics or something. My mother was really into textiles – drawing and designing and she worked for a fabric company. She was always around textiles so it came very naturally to me.” Now Collette loves every part of the process. “I love everything that is detailed; designing the fabrics, the colour. I am very obsessive about getting things right, putting good things together. Whether it is a set design or a collection, it’s the putting it together that I love. I love the realisation. Creating a show is like doing a movie. It’s not about ‘oh I want to be a designer and design fashion’, it’s about what collection works. What will people wear, where do I want to take people, what’s the journey. Is it dark, is it light or is it effervescent?”

Collette feels blessed that her career allows her to travel. She loves meeting people. “I have a lot of very good friends that live in different continents, which makes the world seem like a very small place. And I especially love going to Europe and America. I find that we are so removed in Australia. We are a bit of an oasis here, but when I travel it kicks me back into gear. Spending time in Europe gives me a broader perspective on life and design, that I wouldn’t necessarily have if I didn’t travel so much.”

Collette particularly loves Italy. She loves the weather, the warmth of the people, and the simplicity with which Italians put fresh produce together to create an incredible meal. When Collette’s very handsome hotelier beau proposed last year, they agreed Italy was the perfect place to exchange vows. An intimate ceremony, the couple wed under a purple bougainvillea bridal arch overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, in the presence of Collette’s seven year old daughter Estella and good friend, English photographer David Loftus.

“We got married in Positano because Bradley and I had been there a few years before and it was the one place in Italy that we discovered together. We eloped. Everyone wanted a big party but when you do shows and big productions and you have to go out and be on all the time, it was nice to do something simply.”

Over 20 years Carol restored the farm piece by piece, authentically and respectfully. “I don’t know if it was vision or stupidity. I just kept thinking I can do it, I can do it. I remember once crawling up into the loft and there were all these bent beams and water was dripping through and I thought what an onion, it’s terrible, how am I ever going to get it back together again.” But she did, and it is breathtaking.

Carol had the good fortune of employing a Swiss Italian guy who had been unemployed forever. He was an absolute gem. He could repair rock work, he could go into the forest and cut down a tree and work with the wood. He was a part of Lavandula for 20 years, just doing bits. Sometimes he would help Carol in the shop, sometimes he would child mind. “He actually had the old working skills and was interested in them – the old linseed and wood finishes. He understood my understated feeling. He didn’t use all new products. It sort of saved it. I think if someone had have thrown a cheque book at it, it would have ended up a completely different product.”

Lavandula is now a major tourist attraction. People flock to the farm to lunch under the trees, explore the gardens and discover the Swiss Italian history of the residence; it’s a very European experience.

Carol loves the European way of life. “I love Australia, I love Australians but in Europe there is a third dimension – a respect for culture, family and old fashioned values. I do feel that when people haven’t embraced all these elements in life, they are not quite whole.”

Carol reflects on the years spent nurturing Lavandula. “I have some amazing memories of my kids growing up here, from the first lavender bush we planted to one of my boys getting married here 18 months ago. This here is the story of them growing up.”

With mention of Carol’s boys, I half expect to see them boisterously appear from around the corner, carrying baskets of olives and wine. That seems fitting for a woman that has created her own bit of Italy. So when I discover Carol’s youngest son is actually a DJ in Melbourne and spends all his time clubbing, I am somewhat surprised. But Carol reassures me that he is still very passionate about the farm; perhaps in the future an all-night rave amongst the lavendar is on the cards? Or then again, maybe not.
 

He beams with pride as he talks about his team, in particular his young apprentices, who under his nurture have blossomed into sophisticated cooks. He relishes the friendships he has made. He loves nothing better than to sit down and chat with those regular customers whom he can now truly call friends. But most of all he lights up when we move onto the topic of his Australian wife Marilyn, his partner in life and business and the backbone to his success. 

“I met Marilyn when was I was young back in Sardinia. It was the end of summer and I had been working like a dog, all I wanted to do was go home to bed but my mate insisted that we go out for one drink. I walked into the local pub and there she was...”

Some months later Marilyn returned to Australia and after thousands of Lira worth of crazy phone calls Giovanni packed up his whole life, took a chance on love and jumped on a plane. 

“At first it was very hard to learn English. At cooking school I would listen to three hour lectures and not understand much. But Marilyn became my translator, my teacher would call her and explain the lesson which she would relay to me. It was a four year labour – a labour of love.” 

And it is love that is the core of his family, that is Pilu.

Pilu is an award winning Sardinian restaurant at Freshwater Beach, Sydney. 

Erica recalls that from an early age Italian culture was woven into her life. She lived in Sydney five doors down from her maternal Grandma, Nonna. Her earliest memories are of big family gatherings at Nonna’s house. There would be other Italian speaking people there, she had no idea if they were family members or friends, but there were always Italians everywhere.

And it is at these family gatherings that Erica first sharpened her business teeth. They used to play a card game called Bestia (originating from the Venetian area) and they would play for money. From a very young age Erica was a gambler. 

Erica: “I was better at it than my sister or brother. We used to get a small amount of pocket money and I would say Ok guys come and let’s play Bestia. I would end up winning all their pocket money.”

And Erica continues to gamble. Five years ago with two small children and going through a terrible divorce, the only certainty in Erica’s life was her successful career in the magazine world, but she stumbled onto a great business idea and went for it. Most people would consider it madness to throw away their safe salary to risk venturing into an online start up business – but not Erica. Today, Erica is now joint owner of the extremely successful online gift store, Hard To Find.

Dani: “I’m so proud of the fact that Erica has gone through adversity and maintained her dignity and her sense of humour. She is a fantastic mother, and through all of the hardship, she is coming up roses. And I’m proud of the way she has decided to run her own business.” 

Erica: “I think that Italian women are strong. I really love the fact that I am half Italian and I like to use that to my advantage. There is something quite sexy about being half Italian. It’s a sexy country. In business I can be quite fiery (an Italian thing) but I think that can be a positive. I don’t beat around the bush. I call it as I see it and don’t muck around too much.” 

Erica didn’t really understand what growing up in Italian culture meant until she was older. She now cherishes the family value system and the way the family comes together. 

Erica: “I could never have got through all that stuff without my family. My kids have been enveloped into the family bosom and I hope to instil the same family values.” 

“However, the one thing I have always been cross about is that Mum never taught me Italian – and you can say this in the story! So I have never had a good grasp on the language.”

Dani pipes up: “Just for the story you might also say that her siblings speak the language!”

Chip off the old block? Most definitely. 

Based in New York, Joe now spends his time travelling the world promoting his life-changing documentary, and inspiring, educating and empowering people to make positive change in their lives. 

Joe has a special connection with Italy. He loves the Italian way of life and the way food is about community. The Italian attitude to fresh and seasonal produce has been a big inspiration for his own philosophies on nutrition and eating.

He grins as he remembers his first time in Italy. A lad of 21, in Rome at the end of a 6 week world tour, flat broke, travellers cheques spent, cards maxed out; he didn’t have a single Lira to his name.

Always the entrepreneur he had an idea. “In those days you paid your accommodation in advance. I had seven days booked at a hotel called La Residenza. They wouldn’t refund me, but I did convince them to cut the stay to four days and give me three days credit at the hotel. So although I couldn’t afford a $1 orange juice on the street, I could use my hotel credit to get ridiculously expensive meals. I had breakfast lunch and dinner at the hotel for three days, and also managed to see the sites. I talked my way into the Sistine Chapel for free”.

“How?” I ask.

“I just told them I was Joe Cross from Australia, and as a good catholic boy they needed to let me in. And they did.”

It is a beautiful thing to know that Joe is now using those powers of persuasion to have a positive social impact - I have the feeling that he really will go some way towards making the world a better place.

Gemma ran away to Italy and joined a film production company. “Working in Italy is just so different from London. In London everyone lives to work and in Italy everyone works to live.” Gemma discovered that living in Italy was all about family, your social life, the culture and being happy. Part of her job was to hold a status meeting every week, and during the meeting she found it an impossible thing to get Italians to not talk about food, their family, a recipe or a film they had seen. “And they would say to me Gemma why do you care? And they would laugh at me. I did end up relaxing.”

“London is a very masculine place in many ways, it’s very hard-edged. I was not in touch with my femininity at all until I went to Italy. I really took that on and I came back feeling far more like a woman.”  Gemma discovered that it was OK to be all the things that a female can be – she had never been allowed to feel that, especially in the work environment. Italy pushed her further into her true calling – fashion. 

“I was so inspired by the way Italians dress and the way they put their colours together in a tonal way, the way they accessorize. It’s all so harmonious.”

When Gemma moved back to England, she forged a career as a fashion stylist; and then one day she found an eccentric but wonderful little fashion boutique for sale. “It was a total risk because it was in a flood plain, it was a complete mess, it hadn’t been touched for 45 years.” She threw caution to the wind and bought it. “The owner was a 92 year old woman. She dressed herself from head to toe in Chanel and had this amazing bouffant hair. She was immaculate – and renowned. Women would come from far and wide to find the perfect outfit for Ascot and Henley. They would go in there and sit down and have lunch and drinks.”

”She was a bit scary because if you went in, you weren’t coming out with your money. But she absolutely new about style. I took over that legacy. At my opening she came along and I was more nervous about her than anyone else, but she was really impressed and loved it.” 

Gemma’s boutique, Plume, is a really personable space. She gets to know everything about the people that come in there and she has made a lot of friends. It’s all about the regulars.  

Gemma confides, “I felt like Italy helped me get back on my path towards fashion. My experience in Italy made me think life is meant to be enjoyed, so just go for it, and don’t be afraid of failure”.

“Working for Enrico was rewarding but so challenging at the same time. I was convinced that at first he didn’t like me. There was a moment when we were all sitting around the boardroom and Enrico revealed the colour for his next range – a chartreuse green. Do you like it was the question? Everyone gushed, ‘Oh Enrico we love it you are brilliant' and I piped up, as I tend to do, and said personally I don’t. Silence. He was glaring at me and I know he was thinking you crazy Australian you know nothing! However, once we started working and he saw the hours I was putting in, everything changed. We would go to Paris and do those midnight collections where you would have to sit up taping shoes until 3am, sleep for four hours and then get up and do it all over again. It was all about who is the strongest. Then he ended up loving me.”  

In the second year of working for Enrico, Amanda migrated south for a summer holiday, as all good Italians do, and it was then that she met Sergio. She rang her mum and said, “You know that guy I met in Positano?” 

A nervous “yes...” came down the line from the other side of the world.

“Well he is so beautiful, I am going to go and live with him.”

As Amanda remembers her mum Maggie was concerned: “Amanda you are nuts, you’ve got this job and a career in fashion. You go to Paris and New York and you’re travelling and you’re making money and you’re getting a name and blah blah blah...” 

All Amanda could say was, “Mum, I am out of here!” 

“When this huge beautiful mountainous man appeared in front of me and said, ‘Why don’t you come and live with me?’, it really was a no brainer. Why wouldn’t I? Why would I be taping shoes in a back alley in Paris with all the crazy neurotic personalties when I could live in a garage, with a water bed and this guy.” 

So Amanda went back to Florence and got her tiny 126 Fiat and piled up everything she owned.  

“When I got into that car and headed south, it was literally as if time stopped.”

It wasn’t until she left at 46 that she realised she had been living in a bubble. Even though every year she would come back to Australia for Christmas with Sergio and her son Marco, and stay a few weeks, she was never really involved in living and functioning in society outside her beloved Amalfi Coast. 

She has such beautiful memories of her time there, and is no stranger, visiting her friends at least once a year.

When I ask Amanda the question ‘what is your affair with Italy?’, she doesn’t hesitate to respond “It’s my gorgeous son Marco.” 

“I feel like I gave birth to Marco with the entire country, not just with his father. So Italy and I had this love affair and together we had this beautiful child.”

I ask Amanda about the dashing young man of 20, reluctantly taking part in this photoshoot, embarrassed by his mum’s fussing. 

“Marco is so Italian sometimes. He speaks Neapolitan and he’s got all the gestures and the characteristics. Even his way of organising himself is very Italian, but then when he is in Australia he is very Australian. He goes to the pub with his mates and does all the things the Aussie boys do. He goes out on his surfboard whenever he can. When he is in Australia he is very Aussie, when he is in Italy he is so very Italian. And he’s gorgeous, he’s my little bear.”

Amanda claims that she is not like a true Italian Mum. She definitely doesn’t dote over her little prince like Italian mothers do with their sons. As I pack up my things to leave, Amanda jumps into top gear to prepare dinner for Marco before he goes off to his poker night with the boys (as she can’t bear the thought of him going hungry), I think to myself, Amanda Tabberer you’re far more Italian than you realise. Che bella donna!

Amanda’s book My Amalfi Coast, published by Penguin is now available from all major bookstores, and her second book with more amazing tips and recipes is due to be launched in October 2012.

As the style icon for the Sydney Morning Herald, Melissa ran two weekly columns for 16 years and has an enormous following. It is then no surprise to me that she has found her perfect match in fiancé Nicholas Caré. She has a knack for uncovering all things sophisticated, stylish and classic – Nicholas is no exception. He is warm, handsome and impeccably dressed in a navy blue Zegna suit with his signature blue and white checkered pocket square (inspired by an Italian bread basket). He is charming, witty and unaccountably passionate about Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. He tells me that this small, grey marsupial sealed the deal when he was trying to decide between Australia and the US as his future home, (did I mention he is witty).

“If I could bottle up everything I want in a man, Nicholas is it. He's the perfect partner. I love everything about him.” This ridiculously effusive soon to be married pair spend the afternoon adoring each other, while I try my best to interlope with some questions.

Melissa reflects on her relationship, “Having an Italian partner has enriched my life in so many ways. It’s opened up a whole world to me that I would never have had access to with my conservative Anglo-Saxon upbringing – a world of incredible flavours, classicism in design and fashion and a warmth and love of life that only the Italians bring.” And she loves the way that with Italians so many decisions are made with the heart. Nicholas describes, “Passion is everything. How we work and make decisions is by rationalising all the projects but then the final decision is made through the heart. If you feel positive, even if the numbers don’t stack up, we may go with something that doesn’t make money because it makes us all happy.”

Nicholas loves the way that Melissa always manages to cheer him up when is he is in a funk. Nicholas explains that Italians show their emotions more readily than other cultures. (Apparently he does a fair amount of yelling at work!) “They are either totally depressed or up there with the stars.” He describes to me one particular evening when he was completely down in the dumps after a gruelling day at work... when he walked in the door at home Melissa was waiting for him, looking amazing, with his favourite drink mixed, smiling and full of energy... and started to tell him stories. Just simple things about her day. But it’s the way she told the stories. “They were so funny and suddenly I felt as if my soul had been restored.”

Melissa and Nicholas’ partnership is perhaps a micro example of a larger story. Nicholas informs me that Australia is considered the most successful nation in the world for its ability to blend the Italian and Australian cultures. “Whether it be design, food, literature, art or business, Australians and Italians are so good at respectfully appreciating the best of each other.” Perhaps we need to bring back Skippy; this time in a Pucci scarf!

Balla is a sensory experience, a merging of visual language, food and culture. Manfredi wants his customers to experience an engagement that only good design can bring.

Manfredi reflects: “I spent the first few years of my life growing up in Italy, and the Italians get design. There is a style and sophistication to the Italians. My family wasn't wealthy but I can still see a picture of me when I was small wearing little leather shoes and a little bow tie.”

The concept behind Balla came from the Italian futurism movement, and in particular the work of Giacomo Balla. Manfredi has always had a fascination with the futurists – the graphics, the shapes, the philosophy. The futurists were into speed and machines - they set about reinventing life, to conceive of a new race in the form of machine-extended people. “And to top it off the futurists wrote a cookbook that wanted to do away with pasta, for they believed that pasta made the Italians slow.” Manfredi laughs and shakes his head. “It was a grand artistic joke.”

As a reflection of this philosophy, the front of the restaurant is filled with old machines and machine parts that somehow harmonise into an eye-catching sculptural feature. The ceiling is inspired by a painting of Balla’s – angular with repeated triangles, and these acute shapes are a theme throughout the entire restaurant. Even the asymmetrical uniforms have been inspired by Balla’s designs. At Balla nothing is ordinary. 

“As a 6 or 7 year old, when we first moved to Australia, I thought everyone ate like we did - my mother always cooked things from scratch - until I went to eat at my friends' places and saw how they ate and then I understood why they always wanted to come to my place to eat. Kids love flavour. A little by little I began to understand that meal time in my family was very very special. Clearly mealtime with Stefano Manfredi continues to be very very special.

Over the years Manfredi has watched Australia become more sophisticated and he hopes that the Australians of today will connect with a dining experience that moves towards the future - while connecting with the past.  

Balla Restaurant is now open at The Star, Pyrmont, Sydney.