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Marc Freeman, 46, and Camilla Freeman-Topper, 43, are the creative siblings behind the fashion label, Camilla and Marc. A shared childhood loss led to their campaign to help save women from an early death.
Marc Freeman and Camilla Freeman-Topper. “We never get sick of each other,” says Freeman-Topper. “We talk on the phone up to 20 times a day.”Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Marc: In 2003, at 21, Camilla was studying fashion design. I was 23 and doing an engineering degree, but I was just as interested in her course. Her graduating collection won her a scholarship to do her master’s in Italy. She was also invited to show at Australian Fashion Week. She called and said, “What do you think I should do?” I said, “We’ve always talked about doing something together. Why not start a brand?”
We hired a hotel room, showed the graduating collection and ended up selling to half a dozen stores. Then I realised we needed to figure out how to make it all. I looked inside the offcut rolls Camilla had used and found the phone numbers for the Italian mills, so, in the middle of the night, I’d be calling Italy, trying to order fabric.
Our family wasn’t in the fashion business at all. They’re doctors and lawyers, but from her early teens, Camilla was in love with fashion. We’d go to all-age concerts and Camilla would make her own outfits. She always looked very cool – lots of short skirts. It was the ’90s and grunge [was popular]. She liked hanging out with my friends, and ended up marrying one of them.
All our stand-up rows finished by the age of about eight, but of course, as siblings and business partners, we’ve had every disagreement you could possibly have. If you observed our conversations in a business setting, you might think they were “robust”, but we move on quickly. Long ago, we made a policy of “the best argument wins”, and have stuck to it.
Outside business, we holiday together and have one or two family dinners a week, or social things. We’ve both got three children but hers are much older, so she’s very good at giving advice. Our partners handle our sibling relationship very well. We all joke about it. Sometimes Camilla’s husband, Dave, gets called Marc, or my wife, Nicole, gets called Camilla.
I was 13 and Camilla was 11 when our mum passed away from ovarian cancer at 42. She was ill for a long time and our parents had been honest with us, but when she actually passed, it was a huge loss. One day you’ve got your mum, and the next you haven’t. It would have been particularly hard for Camilla. Dad was a good father but outnumbered. We weren’t bad kids, but he was strict and we pushed the envelope.
As we came up to our mother’s age, we started looking into the best way to help with ovarian cancer research. It didn’t feel right that the survival statistics had hardly changed. We found the best researchers right here at UNSW. We’re both passionate about the “Ovaries. Talk About Them” campaign.
Baby Camilla and brother Marc with their mother, Pamela Freeman.
There’s nothing I’d change about Camilla, except that if you’re in a car or office, she’s either hot and wants the air-conditioning on or cold and wants the heating on: always the opposite to what I want. She also always looks good, put together, even when she’s not attempting to. She has an innate sense of what to wear and how to wear it – whether it’s in the boardroom or picking up her kids from school. She’s my business partner, my sister, my best friend. I can’t imagine life without her.
Camilla: Marc was very creative growing up, but there was probably a family expectation that he’d go into a field like engineering, especially since our father was mortified I was going into fashion. But fashion was always my path. Both our grandmothers were very elegant. My mother’s mother had all her clothes made to measure. I got my first sewing machine the summer our mother passed. Later on, I had an entire room in Dad’s house set up as a mini-atelier. Marc would spend hours there with me, trying to help me solve problems with patterns or whatever, although I don’t think he’s ever sewn anything.
I’m a doer: I don’t sit around talking about things. Marc definitely likes to talk it through: dot his i’s and cross his t’s. I create the collections with my team and, at certain points, Marc gets involved. He might say, “There’s not enough colour,” or this or that. He’s got a really clear commercial eye and I can sometimes push things a little too far. It helps that we can be brutally honest with each other.
We never get sick of each other. We talk on the phone every day, at least five times, and sometimes 20. Mostly about work, but it could be about kids or dinner or trips coming up.
I was 27 when I started having children and they’re now 16, 15 and 10. Marc was in his 40s and he’s now got three kids under six. The moment I met Nicole, I knew she was just the one. I would have loved anyone he married, but it helps that I actually do love her. Both our partners have a great sense of humour and are respectful of our relationship.
Maybe it’s his age, but Marc’s patience with his kids is on another level. He talks through concepts with them to lengths I’m in awe of. He takes after our mother. She was also very, very patient. I did not get that gene.
We were young when our mother passed. It was three days before my first day of high school. There was suddenly this gaping hole. Marc was very unhappy, of course, and a different person for the first few years. Boys go through a lot at that age. It definitely brought us closer. The goal of our campaign is to develop a blood test that detects ovarian cancer early. The research is getting closer.
Marc is chatty. Most of our international travel has been him beside me chatting and me trying to get some peace. Still, some of the best ideas we’ve had have been on those journeys.
We have worked our arses off to get to where we are. In the beginning, we both did every job. One New Year’s Eve, we had to steam 1000 metres of crinkled fabric so the cutters could work with it. I can’t imagine being in business with anyone else. We’re in it together. Yeah, maybe into old age.
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