Stylist Nicole Bonython on living a life by design

As one of Australia’s most acclaimed fashion editors and stylists Nicole Bonython-Hines has worked with all the big names over the past 40 years – Kylie Minogue, Miranda Kerr, INXS, Toni Collette, Naomi Watts.

But as she reflects on her star-studded career, Nicole says it was a shoot with English supermodel Naomi Campbell in 2000 that goes down as one of the more memorable celebrity encounters.

Naomi, famous for her diva ways, was in Sydney to launch her signature fragrance and Nicole – then one of Australia’s most renowned fashion stylists – found herself wheeling a rack of Australian designer outfits into the model’s penthouse hotel suite in Sydney’s CBD for Naomi to consider wearing for a photoshoot.

“I walked in and there were at least 17 Louis Vuitton trunks, those huge trunks, and it was just wall-to-wall designer clothes, such as Galliano couture, Chanel, every designer you can think of,” Nicole says. “And I’m standing there with my meagre little rack of Australian designer clothes.”

Despite all the couture on offer, Naomi chose one of Nicole’s Australian looks. The supermodel took a shine to Nicole and as she was preparing to pack up and leave, Naomi asked Nicole about her plans.

“I said I was going home to my husband and kids, and she said, ‘get me your hubby’s number’ and she called my husband and said, ‘do you mind if Nicole comes away with me for a few days?’.

The family relaxing in their artistic Leabrook lounge room.

“I was saying, ‘Naomi, I have nothing to wear’, and she said, ‘that’s okay you can wear my stuff’.”

The duo promptly flew to Melbourne where they hung out for a few days with Nicole wearing Naomi’s designer outfits (they were the same size) and accessories, including “Chanel’s actual diamonds”.

“I had to go to the supermarket to buy undies,” she laughs. “Her staff were terrified of her, she was formidable. But I guess because I’d grown up meeting famous people, they didn’t mean anything to me, they were just people.”

Brushes with fame were part of the everyday for Nicole, daughter of Adelaide arts icon Kym Bonython and his wife Julie.

Kym was one of Australia’s most influential art dealers and collectors, as well as a successful jazz music promoter. The charismatic entrepreneur brought some of the world’s most legendary performers to Adelaide in the 1950s and ‘60s including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie and Duke Ellington, many of whom visited the Bonython home.

“We often got dragged along to jazz concerts as well and I remember meeting people backstage a lot, in green rooms,” says Nicole, who has two older brothers, Tim and Michael.

As a young girl with her brothers and parents Kym and Julie.

Their mother Julie, a former Miss South Australia, was a doyenne of the Adelaide social scene, and Nicole remembers her parents’ extravagant dinner parties at their Leabrook home where regular guests included actor Sir Robert Helpmann and comedian Barry Humphries.

Motor racing was another of Kym’s passions and he built Adelaide’s Rowley Park Speedway, which he also owned for more than two decades.

“There was always lots of entertaining,” Nicole says. “That was Mum’s role, really. If she had been in my era, she would have been a stylist, but maybe more of an interior stylist, she had an incredible style. And she would have a massive following on Instagram if she was around now. She was just one of those innately artistic people.

“In terms of being a hostess, she was very good at it. She made a beautiful table, and cooked great food, and was the life of the party. I never saw her in anything other than full make-up and always beautifully dressed. My friends used to laugh because Mum would even vacuum in her high heels.”

Nicole has memories of her mother’s beautiful jewellery and designer wardrobe, with gowns and outfits by Halston and Geoffrey Beene, and then more modern Parisian designers such as Pierre Cardin and André Courrèges.

“I definitely got a taste of fashion from her,” Nicole muses.

Nicole with supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Art was also a constant in the Bonython home; walls featured works by Brett Whiteley, Arthur Boyd, John Coburn and others, all of whom were represented through Kym’s gallery.

Nicole recalls some of her brothers’ friends were not allowed to visit their Leabrook home because there were “too many naked ladies on the wall”.

The family moved to Sydney for a couple of years when Nicole was aged about 10, living above an art gallery that her father had bought in the cosmopolitan suburb of Paddington.

“I can remember coming home from school and seeing artists, most frequently Brett Whiteley and his wife Wendy, sitting at the table in the courtyard, where I would join them to eat my after-school snack and chat in the sun,” Nicole says.

The family returned to Adelaide and eventually moved into a sprawling property in the Adelaide Hills, Eurilla. The home had been the summer residence of Nicole’s grandfather Sir John Lavington, a former Lord Mayor of Adelaide, and his family.

Growing up, Nicole says she would often find herself home alone when her older brothers were busy, and her parents were out. She would escape into a world of fantasy through books and movies, enamoured with Hollywood stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Joan Crawford and Grace Kelly.

On a magazine styling shoot.

“I do think that a lot of where I ended up in life, in fashion, was informed by how many old movies I used to watch because the outfits, the costuming, they were just incredible back in those days,” she says.

Nicole would also devour her mother’s Vogue magazines and dreamed of one day working at the luxury title. After graduating from Seymour College, Nicole studied science at university, but quit after a year and headed to Sydney, chasing her dream of working in magazine publishing.

By then she had met the man who would become her first husband, photographer Grant Matthews, 10 years her senior. The couple met in Adelaide when Grant photographed Nicole, a part-time model.

“He was super smart and knowledgeable on lots of subjects whereas the guys I’d been dating got drunk and talked about footy,” Nicole says. “I was smitten.

“I moved to Sydney because I was determined to get into the fashion world, and he followed a few months later. I would have gone with or without him.”

Initially, Nicole took odd jobs – working as a junior assistant in the film industry and then as a waitress at the exclusive Australian Club. One day, Nicole overheard the daughter of an Australian Club member talking about how she had just finished up at Vogue.

Nicole during her modelling days.

Nicole raced home and called the magazine: “I said something like, ‘I hear you may have a position going?’,” she says.

She landed the merchandising role, which was essentially “running the fashion office and packing boxes”, but was soon promoted to fashion assistant.

“I worked incredibly hard, and any success I’ve had is based on the fact that I’ve been a very diligent, responsible, hard-working person. I think I got that from Dad, because I would see him at his desk every morning from 6am. He would have his jazz playing and would be writing letters. He would organise these tours with people on the other side of the world, and it would literally be all via correspondence.

“So, I observed that, and I wouldn’t stop unless things were perfect. I was probably an amalgamation of both Mum and Dad actually.”

Nicole was working at Vogue when she heard the devastating news of the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires in Adelaide. Tragically, Eurilla and everything in it were destroyed.

“Dad had time to grab his camera and that’s all. Can you imagine? He stood out the front and photographed the whole thing burning. It was very traumatic,” she says.

The family at the Sydney art gallery where they also lived.

After a couple of years at Vogue, opportunity again came knocking. A new magazine called Follow Me headhunted Nicole to be its fashion editor – she was 21 years old.

“I really didn’t want to leave Vogue, but it was nearly double the money and to get that seniority at Vogue would have taken me a decade,” she says.

Nicole’s time at Follow Me coincided with an exciting new time in fashion, a changing of the guard from old-school couture to a new wave of cutting-edge designers that included the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Gautier, Claude Montana, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons.

“Before that it was Valentino and Ungaro, all that couture glamour, whereas this was just raw, and it was a complete reinvention. It was so exciting to me,” she says.

At age 23, Nicole’s career took a backseat when she and Grant welcomed their first child, Ava. Son Ruben arrived two years later and daughter Esther a couple of years after that.

“Out of my school group, I was the least likely to get pregnant,” Nicole says with a laugh. “I was always ambitious, but I was also crazy about kids. I was the oldest cousin, so I always had little kids around.”

Nicole with brothers Tim and Michael.

Nicole quit fulltime work after having Ruben and established herself as a freelance stylist, allowing for more flexibility. She and Grant often worked on projects together including styling and photographing Australian band INXS and lead singer Michael Hutchence. In fact, it was Nicole and Grant who introduced Hutchence to pop princess Kylie Minogue, in one of the most unexpected couplings in Australian music history.

“We did a bit of a cupid thing and had them both over for dinner,” Nicole says. “They had met in Hong Kong, but it was just a matter of getting them in the same room, really.”

Nicole was Kylie’s stylist for many years, responsible for some of her most cutting-edge looks, as the singer shed the girl-next-door vibe for a raunchy reinvention.

“I had been working with Kylie for about 18 months before I was pregnant with Ruben, and we were firm friends by the time she invited me to her 21^st birthday party,” Nicole says. “I was still breastfeeding and I had to take Ruben into the manager’s office of this pub where Kylie had the party.

“There were plenty of parties in those days, but because I had kids so young, I was always the responsible one and I’d be like, ‘I’m out of here, I’ve got to get up early’.

“I loved working with Kylie, but it was hard for me to continue when she ended up basically living in the United Kingdom and I had young children.”

A family portrait with all of her children including sons Ruben, far left, and Jimmy, front.

Nicole famously collaborated on the design of Kylie’s iconic noughts and crosses dress. The singer, hand-in-hand with Hutchence, was photographed in the striking dress at the 1989 London premiere of her debut feature film The Delinquents. The dress, and the couple’s new relationship, made global headlines.

“Who knew we were creating a fashion moment?” Nicole says.

When Nicole’s marriage to Grant ended in 1992 and she found herself aged 30, single and with three young children, she stepped back into fulltime work again, as fashion director on Cleo magazine, as well as a contributing fashion editor for Harper’s Bazaar.

“I ended up staying at that company for 20 years and I was also still doing a lot of freelance work, so I was busy,” she says.

Over the years, Nicole’s career has taken her all over the world, including to exotic locations, but it hasn’t always all been glitz and glamour.

“At Follow Me, on a shoot in Brazil, I had a policeman hold a gun to my head demanding I pay him for letting us shoot in a particular location,” Nicole says. “In Morocco, I was threatened by about 50 camel traders when we shot in their market because they were demanding money, and I had none.

Nicole with her daughters, from left, Ava, Audrey and Esther.

“At Cleo, we started what became the famous swimsuit issues where we would travel to an exotic beach destination with multiple models and photographers to shoot all the different stories. We shot in Tahiti, Maldives, Fiji, Hawaii and the Philippines just to name a few, taking models such as Jodi Meares and Kristy Hinze.”

Nicole juggled work and children and, as such, her home was often the scene of photo shoots, bustling with make-up artists, fashion assistants and celebrities. It was not unusual for Nicole to be getting the children ready for school, while models, such as Miranda Kerr, were having their hair and make-up done at the kitchen table.

During this time, Nicole met her second husband Peter Hines, who was a teacher at her son’s school.

“Ruben was about eight years old, and he came home from school one day and said, ‘Mr Hines is going to call you tonight,’ and I said, ‘why?’ and he said, ‘because I told him that you think he’s cute and I gave him your phone number’,” Nicole says. “Ruben had heard me say that once when we were in the car collection queue at school.”

The couple married in 2000 and went on to have twins, Audrey and Jimmy, who are now 22 years old. However, Nicole reveals that last year she and Peter separated, signalling an emotional adjustment back to single life for the now-62-year-old.

“It’s been difficult, but you get through these things,” she says.

The stylist has stepped into her new role as grandmother, here with grandson Ernie.

Nicole, who is based in Sydney, says she doesn’t get back to Adelaide much these days, particularly since her parents passed away – Julie, who suffered dementia, died in 2016, while her father Kym died at home in 2011 aged 90.

“Although I do get back, whenever possible, so I can get my hair coloured at Clip Joint, which I still believe is the best salon
in Australia.”

Her brother Michael, who once owned well-known music store B Sharp, is based in Adelaide and runs his own gardening business, while Tim is a cinematographer who specialises in big-wave documentaries, shooting across the globe.

Nicole is currently embracing her new role – that of grandmother. Daughter Ava, 38, a beauty entrepreneur with her own sunscreen/skincare range Ultra Violette, and her husband Dion Chandler have two sons, Artie, two, and Ernie, born in July.

When it comes to her own style now, Nicole says she’s “pretty basic”, opting for functional, simple and elegant pieces, citing Australian designers Lee Mathews and Scanlan Theodore as two of her favourites.

“If I had loads of cash I would wear The Row, and there’s a designer called Phoebe Philo who used to be at Celine years ago and she’s doing her own label now and her stuff is incredible. Jil Sander is also fabulous,” she says. “But I’m happy in a pair of pants, a t-shirt, jacket, and a trainer these days.”

At age 62 Nicole remains a fashion leader and has created a new legion of fans via social media.

The self-described “energiser bunny”, gets up at 4.30am every day to take her dog Charlie for a 90-minute walk, then again in the afternoon.

Her work schedule remains full, although things have changed shape slightly. Nicole now does more personal styling, working with “regular people”, which she says provides her with “a great deal of satisfaction”.

She has also recently embraced social media and its enormous reach, posting to her 11,000 followers and working with a variety of fashion brands.

“I feel as if this whole Instagram thing has opened up lots of new avenues of learning,” she says.

“This industry can be ageist and my work has changed, but I’m still really busy. I can’t imagine retiring.”

Today, Nicole says life in her 60s is also about just finding time for herself.

“It’s nice that I’m not as taken up with the day-to-day of my kids’ lives as I was when they were little,’ she says. “I can actually focus on myself for what feels like the first time ever and I accept that my kids are on their own trajectories, and I can be there for them, but their lives are now theirs.

“I had to make my own mistakes, and they will make theirs, and we all learn along the way and hopefully we come out as better humans.”

This article first appeared in the September 2024 issue of SALIFE magazine.