InStyle’s Laura Brown to headline VAMFF summit

Laura Brown to headline VAMFF fashion summit, and Outland Denim launches into US with Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s.

Isabel Lucas in Outland Denim.

As January approaches, diaries are starting to fill up for the new year. And Buzz is already pumped for the 2020 Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival. The launch takes place in Melbourne on Thursday night, but Buzz is thrilled to reveal one headline act from its Australian Fashion Summit. Drum roll please … Laura Brown. The expat editor of US In Style will be grilled by Buzz as host of the summit — and we started the ball rolling with a chat this week.

“I appreciate they’ve asked me, not just because I edit a fashion platform but because of the editor I am,” Brown tells Buzz. “Do I want to talk about fashion all day? No.” Brown is very interested in talking about feminism, the environment, animal welfare, social issues and politics. The last has been particularly pertinent, she says — she was hired just 3½ months before Donald Trump was elected US President. “It’s important to talk about these things without being turgid or wordy or hysterical. If I can shoot someone in a fabulous dress, all the better. It’s still up to me to make people dream a bit.”

Brown’s celebrity speed dial would be the envy of the industry, but her very Aussie approach to life and work has served her well in the US and in the industry. “I’m from a farm outside Camden (NSW), which I think helped me out in the beginning. I would talk to (celebrities) like regular people, respectful but irreverent. And as you earn your professional stripes you’re able to apply that to yourself and the people around you that you choose to celebrate. I will not always chase the biggest star around for a cover, but someone I admire? Yes. Also, I’m 45 years old, I’m not chasing Instagram influencers. That doesn’t interest me and it’s not where lasting success is.”

Tarana Burke, Elizabeth Debicki and Laura Brown at the 2019 Max Mara Women in Film Gala

This year’ Australian Fashion Laureate champions game changers, rule breakers and outspoken women in the annual Badass Women issue and list. “It’s funny, my greatest professional contribution has the word ass in it. I’m so proud of it.” Coming up in the next issue is #MeToo founder Tarana Burke. “She loves fashion, she loves whisky. I get more kicks out of spending time with someone like Tarana. I love how that activist spirit has been taken on in magazines, in culture, with actors, everyone just more aware as of three years ago.”

And Brown’s summary of her success so far? “You’re just doing your job, being nice, not being a snob, you make other people feel invited. Only in fashion do people think that’s radical.” Word.

Others doing good in this world include James Bartle and his team at Outland Denim. The label, founded to help rescue women from human trafficking in Cambodia through education, training and employment, has just had another win. The three-year-old ethical and sustainable denim label worn by Meghan Markle has just signed two major US contracts, with Nordstrom for women’s wear and Bloomingdale’s for men’s. “You couldn’t ask for a better introduction (to the US). It sends a really clear message to the rest of the industry and then we see the flow-on effect to independent retailers or boutiques who might be more willing to try us,” Bartle tells Buzz. He says that often it’s those independent retailers who are “very good at communicating the story and purpose of the brand, and that’s part of the agitation process for the consumer as well”.

Isabel Lucas models new styles from Outland Denim

The award-winning company now has more than 100 staff and has just opened a new cut-and-sew facility in Cambodia that not only is bigger and better and will help increase supply chain efficiency but also more closely mirrors facilities in the broader industry. That way, “staff can get a job elsewhere, not just depend on this type of business to support them. We’re trying to create that independence for them.”