How Tania Austin plans to support the Australian fashion industry

Tania Austin built Decjuba into one of Australia’s most successful fashion businesses. She’s not done yet.

Tania Austin (seated) and Audrey Nania. Nania will succeed Austin as the new chief executive of Decjuba. Picture: Cameron Grayson

Tania Austin doesn’t rest on her laurels. The chief executive of Decjuba, one of Australia’s largest privately held fashion companies, certainly could have.

Prior to buying the fledgling Decjuba in 2008 – growing it from five stores to some 175 today in Australia and New Zealand – Austin built Cotton On alongside her former husband Nigel Austin into a retail juggernaut. 

It’s why Austin today announced she would be stepping aside as chief executive of Decjuba, and promoting Audrey Nania, current chief operating officer and Austin’s long-time ‘right hand’ to the role.

Austin will stay on as chair. No, she says, she’s not selling the company, and she’s not floating it either.

“Handing over the reins is a really easy thing for me to do. I think one of my superpowers is about empowering, particularly women, and giving them agency to really come into themselves,” she says.

Stepping back will give Austin more time to focus on areas she’s passionate about and feels she can have the most impact.

This includes Decjuba’s philanthropy arm, particularly with the children’s mental wellbeing digital initiative Smiling Minds, and supporting the Australian fashion industry.

“If I can share any part of the platform I’ve created to help other people do better and do more, whether that’s in fashion, whether that’s in charity, I think it’s really important to do that,” she says.

It may include investing in or creating new fashion brands.

“I think there’s still opportunity to create new brands, [I’m] mostly interested in rebirthing, some brands that I think we could have great conversations with and bring to a greater audience as well,” she says.

Tania Austin wants to spend more time on her philanthropic endeavours and supporting the Australian fashion industry.

The recent closure of some Australian fashion brands, including the likes of globally recognised ones such as Dion Lee, speaks to the challenges of the fashion industry across the spectrum.

Where Austin, a self-described “eternal optimist and an opportunist” sees she can add particular value is business coaching and leadership.

“One of the things we are really interested in … at the moment is certainly how do we better support and how do we help nurture...some Australian brands that perhaps haven’t had the business leadership that they need, that we and I certainly can offer them,” she says.

“I think there’s a lot of momentum around fashion … I think to be able to step into a space where we can then harness the superpowers we have as a business, [that] I have as a leader and be able to grow what we do, and whether that’s through brand acquisitions … or doing new brands, we are pretty excited about that.”

As for stepping back from the business – one in which every Friday she spends in her stores – Austin says there’s much she feels proud of.

Partly it’s because she didn’t sit on her laurels when she could have.

“I’m proud of the me 17 years ago who chose to do this … when I look around and I see what we have created and I see the careers that have been created and the lives that have been impacted through these careers and through the things we have done and through fashion, I just know it was the right thing to do,” she says.

“And starting a business again … was probably not something I needed to do, but it was something I wanted to do … I knew I wasn’t done, and I knew I wanted to create something very different from what I’d been doing. I was very clear on that.”

That clarity, she says, remains.

“I think choosing to begin is always the hardest part … I’ve done it my way,” she says.