1. Dame Zara Kate Bate was an Australian fashion entrepreneur.
22 Facts About Zara Bate
1. 2.
Zara Bate was best known as the wife of Harold Holt, who was prime minister of Australia from 1966 until his disappearance in 1967.
3.
Zara Bate was the second of four children born to Violet and Sydney Dickins.
4.
Zara Bate was of Irish and Scottish descent, her mother being born in Scotland.
5.
Zara Bate was educated at home until about the age of 10, which she "remembered with distaste" and "remained convinced that such an education was a poor preparation for school and life".
6.
Zara Bate left school in 1925 at the age of 16, after completing her final year of secondary education at Toorak College.
7.
Zara Bate was first introduced to her future husband Harold Holt in early 1926, through a university student she was dating.
8.
Zara Bate carried on alone for another year, becoming exhausted by her work of purchasing fabric and designing, sewing and fitting dresses.
9.
Zara Bate worked in marketing for her father's food manufacturing business during World War II, after separating from her first husband.
10.
Zara Bate designed labels and advertisements for its Tandaco trademark, incorporating plastic recycled from munitions factories into its packaging.
11.
In May 1949, Zara Bate resumed her partnership with Betty Grounds, opening a new Magg shop in Toorak.
12.
Zara Bate was the head designer while Grounds looked after the business aspects.
13.
In 1979 Zara Bate was appointed as chair of Yves Saint Laurent's Australian subsidiary.
14.
Zara Bate designed the Australian women's uniform for the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, providing one design in "wattle yellow" for official use and another in "Olympic green" crimplene for casual wear.
15.
In 1966, Zara Bate was said to favour monochromatic "total look" dresses that were well-cut and "strongly styled".
16.
Zara Bate praised the miniskirt style that Jean Shrimpton had controversially introduced to Australia the previous year, although noting that it did not suit all figures, and expressed her disdain for hats.
17.
Zara Bate legally adopted her children and gave them his surname.
18.
Zara Bate brought a new style and prominence to the role of prime minister's wife.
19.
Zara Bate Holt was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1968, for "devotion to the public interest".
20.
In 1968 Dame Zara Bate published My Life and Harry: An autobiography.
21.
On 19 February 1969, Dame Zara Holt married Jeff Bate, a farmer, Liberal politician and member of the Bate family of Tilba.
22.
Dame Zara Bate was buried at Sorrento Cemetery, in the seaside suburb of the same name.