The Business of Fashion Joins Forces With Australian Fashion Week 2025

SYDNEY, Australia — IMG-owned Australian Fashion Week, introduced by Pandora, will return in 2025 from Might 12 to 16 at Sydney’s Carriageworks — an city arts cultural precinct within the former Eveleigh Railway Workshops. The trend week’s content material programming can be supported by The Business of Fashion (BoF) by way of a sequence of occasions on the official schedule, together with panel talks, intimate designer conversations and shows. The talks can be open to trade attendees, the general public and dwell streamed at australianfashionweek.com.

“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Australian Fashion Week 2025,” says Nick Blunden, president of The Business of Fashion. “We are looking forward to putting together a series of events that will engage the Australian fashion community and highlight the extraordinary talent featured at such an important part of the global fashion calendar.”

“The Australian fashion market is incredibly dynamic and exciting, showcasing an impressive mix of creative talent from both well-established fashion businesses and a new generation of independent brands. It is no surprise that Australian fashion is reclaiming its rightful place on the global stage,” he provides.

Australian Fashion Week is the most important worldwide trend occasion within the Asia Pacific area. Held yearly in Sydney in Might, the occasion options many celebrated names in Australian design, from established manufacturers like Bec & Bridge and Bianca Spender, alongside the subsequent technology of expertise shaping the Australian trend trade, like rising manufacturers Alix Higgins and Ngali.

“IMG is excited to be bringing The Business of Fashion to Sydney for Australian Fashion Week presented by Pandora 2025,” says Natalie Xenita, vice president-managing director of IMG Fashion Occasions Asia Pacific. “For 30 years, Australian Fashion Week has been the leading international fashion trade event in the Asia Pacific region, providing a global platform for Australia’s most innovative designer talent to showcase their creativity. We’re looking forward to working alongside The Business of Fashion to further amplify the voices and visions of Australia’s leading designers, creatives and fashion leaders.”

The trend trade in Australia has traditionally confronted challenges with its geographical positioning: logistically, a flight from London to Istanbul takes much less time than a flight from Perth to Sydney, as one instance. With a inhabitants of solely 26 million, Australia additionally has a comparatively small native market — though the Australian Bureau of Statistics tasks the inhabitants to achieve between 34.3 and 45.9 million individuals by 2071.

Backstage on the Bec & Bridge trend present throughout Australian Fashion Week 2024. (Brendon Thorne/Getty Photos for AFW)

Nevertheless, Australian designers at the moment are placing the nation’s artistic expertise again on the style map. Notable success tales embrace Zimmermann. Just lately valued in deal at greater than $1 billion, it has over 55 worldwide shops, funding from Italian backers Type Capital and workplaces and showrooms in New York and Paris. Different impartial labels are gaining world traction: Camilla boasts 264 wholesales accounts in 65 nations on prime of its 25 Australian shops; Aje has 75 abroad wholesale accounts and is rising at tempo within the US and Center East; Rebecca Vallance is rising its bodily retail footprint each in Australia and additional afield. All these designers have proven on the Australian Fashion Week schedule.

Scanlan Theodore, Carla Zampatti, Camilla and Marc and heritage excessive road label Cue are different notable names with a robust presence in all main Australian cities, whereas Maticevski and Alex Perry have robust worldwide presence by way of wholesale channels.

Dion Lee is one other notable Australian expertise and export — the artistic director and Tafe NSW graduate established his namesake label in 2009 and debuted at Australian trend week on the age of 23. He has since operated out of New York and proven on the New York trend week schedule since 2013, though the enterprise went into voluntary administration earlier this 12 months.

The Australian Fashion Council (AFC) shares the newest statistics from a 2021 survey on the area’s trend and textile trade, citing its financial contribution as AUD 27.2 billion, of which AUD 7.2 billion was in export income — greater than the export worth of Australian beer and wine. The Australian trend trade employs half one million staff.

The native trend trade has traditionally struggled with the shortage of native manufacturing alternatives accessible, with the necessity to produce offshore presenting each artistic, financial and environmental challenges to younger designers.

Nevertheless, the textile, clothes and footwear (TCF) sector within the southeastern state of Victoria alone has grown 9 p.c year-on-year to $318 million, in accordance with a brand new report ‘Moving the Needle: The State of Play of Victoria’s Textile, Clothes & Footwear Manufacturing Sector’, attributable to be revealed later this 12 months. It additionally states that the sector presently generates over $960 million for Australia’s economic system.

The nation can be experiencing elevated consideration from main worldwide gamers vying for rising client markets in even one of Australia’s most distant places: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co and Gucci are among the many manufacturers increasing within the Western metropolis of Perth, whereas Dior, Fendi and Cartier are reportedly opening shops there — all trying to profit from its newfound standing as a journey hub and relative financial stability with its booming mining and petroleum industries.

Visitors attend Australia Fashion Week 2024 in Sydney, Australia. (Myles Kalus)

Perth additionally had the best inhabitants progress price at 3.6 p.c from 2022-23. Nevertheless, the state capitals all grew by 517,200 individuals, or 3 p.c, in the identical interval, with abroad migration the most important driver of progress, accounting for 454,900. Consequently, native alternatives within the trend house are rising — and Australian Fashion Week, in partnership with strategic sponsor Vacation spot NSW (New South Wales) and with the help of the New South Wales Authorities, is trying to nurture the artistic expertise on this house accordingly.

Occasion organisers are additionally waiving designer participation charges for the 2025 occasion, to help manufacturers showcase their newest collections. Australian Fashion Week additionally helps rising designers by way of its programme DHL Subsequent Gen, which has helped uncover and launch the careers of main names, together with Akira, Anna Quan, Bec & Bridge, Camilla & Marc, Sass & Bide, amongst others. The prize is valued at over $100,000 and consists of runway present manufacturing, runway images and livestream.

During the last 4 years, Australian Fashion Week has additionally included the Australian division retailer David Jones’ Indigenous Fashion Initiatives (IFP) runway occasion, in a celebration of tradition, group and nation, that includes some of Australia’s First Nations designers and types: Ngali, Liandra, Miimi & Jiinda, Maara Collective, Joseph & James and Gali Swimwear.

Manufacturers who participated in the newest season of Australian Fashion Week are: Acler, Albus Lumen, Alix Higgins, All Is a Mild Spring, Anna Quan, Asiyam, Beare Park, Bec & Bridge, Blanca, Carla Zampatti, EM on Vacation, Inury, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, Karla Špetić, Liandra, Madre Natura, Mastani, Michael Lo Sordo, Nicol & Ford, P.E Nation, Romance Was Born, Rory William Docherty, Velocity, Third Kind, Verner, Viktoria & Woods and Wackie Ju.

This can be a sponsored characteristic paid for by Australian Fashion Week as half of a BoF partnership.