Maggie Taberer, an icon of the Australian fashion and television scene, has died aged 87.
The two-time Gold Logie winner and ex Australian Women’s Weekly fashion editor and supermodel died this morning, her daughter, writer Amanda Taberer, said.
“This morning we lost our beautiful mother and Nana,” she wrote on Instagram.
“She was an icon in every sense of the word and will be sorely missed… Along with the rest of Australia.”
“Rest in peace Nanna. We love you forever.”
Born in 1936 in Adelaide, Taberer began her modeling career in the late 1950s and was named Model of the Year in 1960.
A move to publishing followed in 1963, when she began a long-running fashion column for Daily Mirrorand a year later she started as a TV panelist on Beauty and the Beast.
In 1970 and 1971 she became the first woman to win back-to-back Golden Logies, picking up Best Star two years in a row for her eponymous talk show Maggie.
In addition to a successful career in public relations at her own company, Taberer was fashion editor at Australian Women’s Weekly between 1981 and 1996 launched her own clothing brand, Maggie T, and wrote a bestselling autobiography, Maggie, which was published in 1998.
The same year she became a member of the Order of Australia for services to charity and fashion.
She has twice been the subject of a portrait shortlisted for the Archibald Prize – the first in 1999, the second in 2020, both by the artist Paul Newton.
“I’ve often thought of revisiting it, using the original composition as a starting point for something new,” Newton said of his second work.
“So earlier this year, before COVID-19 hit, I got together with Maggie, now in her mid-80s (though just as elegant and beautiful as ever), to work with her again on this new portrait.
“Again, I was drawn to the simplicity and graphic quality of this kind of composition; her strong presence needed nothing else to sustain her.’
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In 2015 she came out of retirement to appear on the front cover of Australian Women’s Weekly.
Four years later, she was named a finalist for the Australian Fashion Laureate, but missed out on the award – only for winner Laura Brown to dedicate the industry’s highest accolade to Tabberer.
