SYDNEY—Australian fashion icon Carla Zampatti graced the Shen Yun audience with her presence on International Women’s Day, March 8.

“I’ve been coming for many, many years,” Zampatti said. “I adored it.”

“I love the costumes and the color,” Zampatti said. “It kind of influences my ideas of what I want to do for the next collection.”

She appreciated New York-based Shen Yun’s mission to revive 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.

“It does give you an understanding. We have so many Chinese in Australia now, which is wonderful ... adding to our culture, and it’s good to understand the Chinese culture better, to understand the history, it really helps a lot.”

Zampatti said she particularly appreciated the male dancers, who performed very masculine movements in performances inspired by Mongolian culture as well as ancient culture from the Ming Dynasty.

“It reminds me that I have to get fit and go home and do some exercise,” Zampatti joked. “Incredible, just amazing.”

“I love the comedy pieces ... the Monkey pieces,” Zampatti said, referring to the performance that depicted the Monkey King from the Ming Dynasty classic “Journey to the West.”

“They’re fun. There’s a lot of humor, which I think it is very important. [It’s] very engaging,” she said.

Carla also remarked at how Shen Yun’s digital-backdrop helped extend the stories told by the Shen Yun dancers beyond the stage. “I love the disappearing into the sky. I’ve never seen it done so perfectly. It’s very hard to believe that it’s not real.”

She said Shen Yun was an event not to be missed.

“I would describe it as a must do,” she said. “It is very inspiring, very knowledge-giving, and yet uplifting and amusing.”