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.
