‘A heartbreaking decision’: The news no fashion brand wants to share

The Instagram posts often begin much the same. “To our most valued customers, after taking some time to reflect on how far we have come in our brand journey, as well as the current conditions affecting the fashion industry, we have made the heartbreaking decision to close our business.”

Yet for each Australian fashion brand that has shuttered in 2024 – first a trickle, now a wave – the path to closure has its own set of circumstances.

“We have too many brands, too many restaurants, too many choices, and we’re all cannibalising each other,” says Kerry Pietrobon, founder of size-inclusive brand Harlow. “There had to be a shift at some point, but it came bigger, harder and stronger than anyone knew.”

Tough trading conditions have forced Marissa Ganino, of Tunik, and Kerry Pietrobon, of Harlow, to rethink their businesses.Credit: Jason South

In April, Pietrobon told customers of her 11-year-old label, which makes sizes 12 to 26, of her decision to close this July. Since the pandemic, her customers are buying fewer items per person, and she can no longer compete against constant promotions by larger brands. “We are saying it’s a break, but I can’t see us coming back,” she says.

Pietrobon’s former colleague, Marissa Ganino – the pair worked together at denim retailer Westco 20 years ago – isn’t closing her brand, Tunik, but has paused production indefinitely on her Melbourne-made printed dresses to focus on jewellery, which is still selling reasonably well.

“I didn’t create this brand for nothing, but I can’t bear to create more clothes until something ticks over,” she says.

‘A flickering flame in a storm’

Many smaller fashion proprietors, including Pietrobon, say trading conditions are the worst they have been in more than 25 years. “Three times [since the pandemic], I thought things were getting better, then the rug would literally pull itself from under you,” she says.

If the corporate world had its “great resignation” immediately after COVID-19, now the fashion industry is facing its own “great reckoning” as the tally of brands shuttering (or pausing) climbs each week.

Already this year, sustainable brands Arnsdorf and Nique have closed. Last month, Dion Lee went into voluntary administration, to the shock of the industry. International closures include Mara Hoffman and The Vampire’s Wife, whose owner Susie Cave, the wife of musician Nick Cave, says the brand fell victim to the collapse of e-tailers such as London-based Matchesfashion.

Another cause is that spending on clothing and footwear is falling – new ABS figures showed consumers spent $76 million less this April than in April 2023. Then there is perpetual discounting by the major players, like department stores, including an earlier than usual start to the annual winter sales. Smaller brands in particular are left feeling like there’s nowhere to go.

“Surviving as a small independent brand in a sea of heavy discounting from big brands during a cost-of-living crisis is like trying to be a flickering flame in a storm,” Pietrobon wrote last week on Instagram.

“It’s not just challenging creatively, but economically suffocating … Witnessing the devaluation of fashion and the lure of rock-bottom prices is a battle against the tide, where the undercurrent favours giants over small fish like us.”

Nessie Croft announced the closure of her label, Corepret, last week. She says with Australians now the largest consumers per person of fast fashion globally, it’s harder than ever for smaller, ethical brands to succeed.

“We’re competing with fast fashion, a social media landscape that promotes over-consumption and distorts our value of fashion,” she says.

Croft, whose pieces mostly sell between $500 and $800, says making Corepret more profitable required too many ethical compromises. “It didn’t sit well with me that the only way I could grow the brand was to pump out product.”

Buy or beware

Fashion consultant and agent Phoebes Garland says confusing messages in the marketplace are fuelling a “retail recession”.

“The messaging out there [to consumers] is stop buying so much; that is true for fast fashion, but unless we start selling some [locally produced] product, there won’t be any fashion labels left,” she says.

Garland, who has 35 years’ experience, says the fashion industry is broken on two fronts: climate change has delayed the start of the traditional seasons, so stock in store does not match the weather; and an addiction to discounting, especially during events such as Black Friday, has narrowed the window for brands to sell stock at full price.

Ganino summarised the impact of perpetual discounting in a social media post: “These larger companies have devalued our creations, clothing and everyone that works so hard to produce them. We need to come back to reality. There is nowhere left even for the large retailers to go now that they have created this constant sale frenzy – which is actually falling on deaf ears as no one is spending.”

But that’s not entirely true. People are still shopping, particularly at the extremities of the market. While the luxury sector has slowed following huge gains during the pandemic – Kering, owner of Gucci and Saint Laurent, reported an 11 per cent dip in earnings for the first quarter of 2024, while at LVMH (Dior, Louis Vuitton), earnings rose a tiny 2 per cent in the fashion division – the ultra-fast fashion category, dominated by Chinese company Shein, is booming.

Not only are Australian brands unable to compete on price – on Shein, dresses sell for as little as $6 – they are also penalised when it comes to issues such as import duties and tax, says boss of the Australian Fashion Council, Jaana Quaintance-James.

“It’s harder than during COVID – at least then you had a framework, everyone was in the same situation and there was some government support,” she says. “Now, it’s just very hard to predict what’s going to happen.”

Over-production and over-supply is also contributing to Australians producing 300,000 tonnes of textile waste every year. Whereas the message for consumers to “buy less, buy better” carries some weight, most people agree brands need to adopt a “make less” strategy.

“I look at brands, there’s one thousand things on the clearance area of their website – and this is not a fast fashion brand,” says Tunik’s Ganino. “And I think, shit, what has gone on there?”

‘It kind of collapsed’

Seasoned public relations executive Libby Hutton started Monte, a brand selling luxury slippers, in 2018 (when it was known as Bertie). While not technically a “COVID-19 brand”, Monte took off during the pandemic, when sales of loungewear exploded.

But the success didn’t last. On Tuesday this week, Monte – via an Instagram post penned by Hutton – announced its closure.

“We grew too quickly, then it kind of collapsed, then people weren’t buying luxury items like slippers, and they [had already] bought them over COVID-19 so it was the last thing on their list,” she says.

Running a direct-to-consumer footwear brand, with 11 sizes to each style, created a punishing turnover cycle for Hutton and her husband and business partner, Will, who never paid themselves a salary.

“It’s hard when you go from that massive high, and you think you will keep going up, up, up,” she says. “We still have the fire in our belly for [creating a] brand, so we’re looking to do something else with everything we learnt.”

That same passion for fashion, creating and the industry hasn’t waned for any of the founders interviewed for this piece. One of them is planning a move to the UK to further her contribution to sustainability, while another is working with entrepreneurs on new fashion business models. One founder told this masthead her greatest concern was having the closure of her business perceived as a failure when it’s not.

Perhaps Corepret’s Nessie Croft put it best when she wrote: “It’s a beautiful thing to be at peace with an ending.”

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