Update: The family of Maggie Tabberer have released a public invitation to Maggie’s memorial on February 10, 2025, at Randwick Ritz Cinema, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick, Sydney.
“We are delighted to invite you to attend a memorial celebrating the life of our darling mother and grandmother.”
There is no dress code, but the family asks you to ” wear something you think Maggie would like to see you in!”
When the news broke on December 6 that icon Maggie Tabberer had died age 87, a dazzling star went out in Australia’s fashion firmament. Modest Maggie would have been surprised at how intense the outpouring of emotion was. The news of her passing was the lead story for every newspaper, social media site, radio and TV network.
At The Weekly, Maggie Tabberer was and remains our guiding light — the epitome of elegance with a whip-smart intellect, naughty sense of fun and innate kindness. She was a one-off.
The loss felt by Australia was palpable, for even though she was “a very old lady” – her words not mine – Maggie never lost her lustre. The stunning young girl with piercing sky-blue eyes and perfect bone structure from working-class Adelaide who then grew up to be a supermodel, TV star, fashion editor and savvy business entrepreneur was a national treasure and as was immediately obvious, she commanded a very special place in the nation’s heart.

Even though I knew she’d had some health issues, the news came as a shock. I’d expected to be calling Maggie in a few months for our regular dance of persuading her to do “just one more shoot”. She would always laugh and say “no, darling” but then a couple of calls later we’d be booking the studio.
Maggie loved The Weekly and was always excited to be on the cover. I phoned her daughters, Brooke and Amanda, who confirmed that Maggie had sadly died at 6am that morning. “Just five days before her 88th birthday. I feel numb,” Brooke told me.

In one of our many interviews over the past decade, Maggie told me that she didn’t have a bucket list of unfulfilled ambitions. Life was about the here and now. “I just want to have more of what I’ve got,” she said.
“Friends and family who make me laugh and are happy to see me. All those nice warm things are what life is all about.”
As she had been throughout her life, Maggie was surrounded by family and friends in her final weeks. “She was very happy, very comfortable and most important of all in no pain,” said Amanda, who lived with her mother at their home in Sydney.
“It was just her time and Maggie knew that.”
Amanda’s son, Maggie’s beloved grandson Marco, had flown over early from his home in Italy a few weeks before. He’d always come at that time of year to lead the celebrations for his grandmother’s birthday but pulled the date forward. Marco filled Maggie’s room with bossa nova music and Amanda says the two talked and talked.

Styling: Mattie Cronan
Here at The Weekly the loss felt personal. Maggie was fashion editor for 15 years from 1981 and a regular on the cover throughout that time and afterwards. She was “our Maggie” and in her last shoot just over a year ago to celebrate the magazine’s 90th birthday, Maggie looked as ethereal as ever.
I first met her more than a decade ago. In front of the camera, she was captivating; back home, talking about the highs and lows of her extraordinary life, she was fascinating, warm and funny with a down-to-earth honesty. “Do what you love”, was her best advice to young women and that is certainly what she did.
Maggie was raised to be “neat and tidy”, but her sense of style was her own. “My mother told me I wouldn’t go to school unless my hair ribbon matched my dress, that was a thing in my family,” she said with that gentle smile I came to know so well.

She married car dealer Charles Tabberer when she was just 17. “He had a push-button hood convertible. I thought that was just the ants’ pants and was smitten.”
Together they had daughters Brooke and Amanda, but the marriage was never going to last.
Maggie was starting to model and in the years that followed there were a couple of key turning points.
“The first – and probably the one that set me on my way – was when I was booked to do some modelling for the Australian Wool Board at David Jones. There I met Diane Masters. She said to me ‘You’ve got to get out of Adelaide … the fashion centre in Australia is in Melbourne and that’s where you belong’. I discussed it with Charles … we packed up, put the kids in the car and drove to Melbourne. Charles soon went back to Adelaide, but I stayed with the girls.”

Styling: Mattie Cronan
When she met visionary German- Australian fashion photographer Helmut Newton, Maggie shot to fame on the cover of Vogue magazine.
“He terrified me, but he was also funny. He loved my look. In those days they used to take Polaroids first and those images were so sexy, like nothing I’d ever been in before. Helmut loved me to have a cigarette in some of the shots, sometimes in a long sleek holder. I felt like Greta Garbo, it was all so European.”
Maggie soon forged a deep bond with Helmut. “We finished up having an affair. I was separated from Charles by then, but Helmie told me, ages later, that when he confessed to his wife, June, she said she didn’t blame him. I think she could see what was going on between us.”
When Helmut moved to Paris, Maggie couldn’t follow. She had two girls to care for, her life was in Australia.

In 1967 and now in Sydney, Maggie married the love of her life, Italian restaurateur Ettore Prossimo. Her greatest sadness was losing their son, Francesco, who died at just 10 days old from sudden infant death syndrome. “I never got over that” she said.
She loved “Pross” passionately, but their marriage ended when she found out he was cheating on her. In later years she could laugh about it. “You know when men are playing up. They go and buy half a dozen pairs of new underpants.” Maggie remained a romantic at heart, though she never married again.

In her heyday Maggie was the original influencer and a pioneer for working women. She was a young mother who loved to work not just because it was thrilling – which she told me it “nearly always was” – but because it gave her crucial financial independence and an ability to control her own life.
She quickly became a role model. “I think we can be very proud of the way that Maggie helped women in Australia,” her daughter Brooke told me in one of many interviews for my profiles of Maggie.
“She was pretty out there – and they saw the first signs of that on the TV panel show, Beauty and the Beast, when she said ‘women, be proud of yourselves, don’t put yourself down because you’re a big girl. Take advantage of all the other attributes you have and if you don’t like it [life], change it’. She used to sign off her own TV show: ‘And remember, girls, whatever you do, be good at it’. She really meant that. She worked by that mantra.”

When Maggie created her own fashion label, Maggie T, which was aimed at larger women who wanted to dress stylishly, she won a new army of fans.
“It was for women like me because people always loved what I wore and there was nothing out there for them. There were cross-over bodices and wrap dresses and skirts and they looked really bad. Maggie T was a success pretty immediately.”

Maggie lived every aspect of her life to the full. “I don’t think Maggie is going to have too many regrets when she gets to heaven,” daughter Amanda told me, adding: “One of her greatest attributes is her generosity as a person in all respects – not just with other human beings but with her feelings.”
At the end of one of our interviews Maggie and I played the fantasy dinner-party game, pulling together a list of perfect guests living or dead. In addition to her daughters and grandson, Maggie wanted Winston Churchill – “powerful and witty” – George Clooney and David Niven – “both so handsome” – the baby son she had lost – “grown up as a young man” – her dearest friend, Barb, who died too early from cancer – “I long to see her again” – and Kerry Packer, “my favourite boss. We got on like a house on fire.” “I think it’s going to be a great party, don’t you?” she quipped. Oh, how we will miss you, darling Maggie.