Industry unites for Australian Fashion Week
This year’s revamped fashion week schedule includes several group shows and a showroom concept designed to lure international press and buyers.
When Australian Fashion Week kicks off on Monday, May 12, it will do so with a perhaps unusually high spirit of togetherness.
That Australia is a small industry and fashion is a tough game is part of the reason Amber Keating, founder and creative director of fashion label Common Hours, is happy to be participating in one of the event’s group shows, The Frontier.
“It was something that I hadn’t thought of before at all. And when the idea was presented to me, I actually had a feeling of a sense of community in a way,” she says.
“We’re all … dealing with similar issues from distance and risk or different impediments from working from Australia, and yet we all have this shared compulsion to keep making and creating. So I thought in a way it’s kind of like a feeling of camaraderie and support for each other and the Australian fashion industry.
“In the end, this group show, it’s a democratic shared show, perhaps to demonstrate a commonality and hopefully united feeling of shared endeavour of what we’re trying to do.”
For Keating, whose often intricate pieces are made in partnership with artists, it’s important that people are able to see her work up close. This is another reason she believes fashion week matters.
“We work with estates and borrow works from artists’ estates or working with artists themselves. So it takes a lot of time,” she says.
“It’s a very disappointing and limiting experience to have to show that via video. One of the great things about fashion week is to have the opportunity to engage and excite and to promote travel from buyers and media to engage with Australian fashion.
“It’s another touch point where we are able to physically show what it is that we’re working on and making.”
The Frontier show is one of two group shows on the official calendar. Unlike a typical group show that tends to focus on emerging designers, graduates or a category such as swimwear, it will showcase a mix of well-established brands with international followings and newer labels.
All of the designers participating have a unique perspective. Sometimes it’s an evolving one, as for Keating, who says this season will have a more “austere” and “disciplined” aesthetic than past collections.
Set to show a curated edit of new season pieces are this year’s David Jones National Designer Award winner Amy Lawrance, New Zealand labels Paris Georgia and Wynn Hamlyn, local label Esse Studios – which will present a “see now, buy now” collection of creative director Charlotte Hicks’s elevated minimalist with a twist designs – Courtney Zheng, Common Hours and Matin.
A second group show, New Generation, will showcase emerging designers as selected by designated fashion industry members.
Wynn Crawshaw of Wynn Hamlyn, who has staged solo shows at Australian Fashion Week in previous years, says the group format is a nice way to be surrounded by other talents. This season Crawshaw will be bringing back menswear.
“This season feels exciting because we are reintroducing our menswear collection, which has been a passion for a while now and we have had a lot of requests for it to make a return.” he says.
“It’s something we’ve been developing behind the scenes and I am really proud to bring it back with a fresh perspective and renewed focus. There’s something really rewarding about being able to add to the conversation and be part of this community.”
Running alongside the official calendar is the introduction of the Splash Sydney trade showrooms, which will host collections from emerging and established Australian brands. This includes the likes of Carla Zampatti, Madre Natura, Mastani and Joseph & James. The showrooms also will be visited by local and international buyers.
What designers typically want from a fashion week, Splash Sydney co-founder and fashion industry veteran Jenny Nakkan says, is “visibility and viability”.
Nakkan sees partnering with AFW by running the showrooms alongside the event as helping create a “more holistic and globally connected fashion ecosystem”.
“There’s a big appetite from designers and brands to connect with new markets, establish wholesale relationships and build community within the industry,” she says. “Our role with Splash is to help create those opportunities beyond the exposure of fashion week and ensure that designers are supported with the opportunity to establish long-term commercial partnerships.”
Kellie Hush, newly installed chief executive of Australian Fashion Week, says the week is focused on putting designers’ and the industry’s needs first.
This year’s AFW is the first under the banner of not-for-profit fashion and textile industry body the Australian Fashion Council, which took custodianship of the event after IMG pulled out late last year. It must be noted that following the IMG announcement the Australian fashion industry as a whole quickly united to call for support of a new Australian fashion week. You will often see designers sitting front row as cheer squad at their fellow designer’s shows.
“When the Australian Fashion Council took over AFW at the end of 2025, following IMG’s withdrawal, it had the opportunity to rebuild the event from the ground up to benefit the industry for the next decade and beyond,” Hush says. “Ultimately, the event must continue to foster its love affair with Australian consumers – encouraging them to seek out Australian designers both online and in-store.”
Hush says The Frontier show is one she is particularly excited about and hopes to expand the concept to menswear in the future.
“A full runway show can be daunting for a small team,” she says, pointing out the advantage a group approach such as this can offer a smaller brand.
Courtney Zheng, who launched her namesake label – which focuses on tailoring and fluid, sensual fabrics and silhouettes – in 2023, says the show is an opportunity to learn from her industry peers.
“I am just really grateful to be part of the group show because everyone else has actually done a show before … and it’s nice to know that I can lean on the other designers for advice and to not feel so alone in the process,” she says.
“I think that it’ll send a pretty powerful message because there’s a sense of collective momentum. And even though we all have different aesthetics and perspectives, I think there’s the shared idea that we want to really push Australian fashion forward.”
That Australian fashion can resonate on a global scale – beyond the resounding success of mega brands such as Zimmermann and the likes of Christopher Esber showing on schedule at Paris Fashion Week – is something Michelle Perrett of Matin is familiar with.
Her brand – which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary – is beloved by actor Margot Robbie and design tastemaker Athena Calderone and stocked in retailers around the world.
For Perrett, whose clothes are made in Australia using natural fibres such as linen, the collegial aspect of this year’s fashion week, and The Frontier show in particular, is something she is looking forward to.
“The community collaboration, in times like this, I think it’s lovely to have that sort of essence behind it all,” she says.
“The AFC being involved all sort of tied in the closeness. There’s so many beautiful emerging designers. Australia has got some great talent and just the synergy of it all to present to the overseas market on a global stage. It looks connected and collaborative.”
Australian Fashion Week runs from Monday, May 12 to Friday, May 16. Labels set to show on schedule include Carla Zampatti, Aje, Romance Was Born, Bianca Spender, Alix Higgins and more.
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