The Buzz: Net-a-Porter signs Christopher Esber, Westpac award finalists announced, and Outland Denim wins anti-slavery award
Sydney designer Christopher Esber launches on Net-a-Porter, and Outland Denim wins Stop Slavery Award.
Christopher Esber has found the perfect way to celebrate his 10-year anniversary: a contract with Net-a-Porter. The Sydney-based designer’s pieces will arrive on the site on February 24, and Buzz can’t help but concur with Esber when he says it is “super exciting”.
While large retail accounts are a goal for most designers, if they come too soon they can all but cripple a business that has to deliver from a low base. But Esber feels that, for him, the timing is perfect.
“My whole thing from the beginning has been a slow burn, growing organically,” the quiet achiever of Australian fashion tells Buzz.
“It’s definitely an injection (for the business), but we’ve grown in other areas. For me it’s a good way to expand the collection and offer that globally.”
Net has picked up pieces including leather tops and culottes, tailored trousers with leather yoke detail, and eveningwear and tailoring finished with crystal rope — a concession to glamour that Esber says he was reluctant to embrace earlier in his career.
“I held back on glamour for so long and just gave in. I just do what I naturally do best. For me it was always more about functional daywear and tailoring, because tailoring was my background. As you go on and meet more women you see that need in the market. I wanted to merge the two elements of tailoring and glamour, to finish it with crystal rope. I felt like it worked.”
With the preliminary names for May’s Australian Fashion Week starting to filter through, Esber confirmed to Buzz that he will be among those to show.
“I’ve had a good think about what a 10-year show looks like for me. Doing an extravaganza and some form of celebrity spectacle doesn’t feel like me or the brand. So I think I’m going to really scale it back and involve those people who have supported me over the years.”
It’s the season for emerging designer awards, and Buzz is pleased to reveal the finalists for the Westpac Private Bank Emerging Fashion Designer Award (formerly the BT Award), in conjunction with the Australian Fashion Council. Mndatory, Commas and Nagnata will compete for the prize at an event to be held in April.
This was the first time the competition was open to both men’s and women’s collections, and out of 45 applicants two of the three finalists are menswear labels. Mndatory is also shortlisted for the National Designer Award at next week’s Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, where designer Brian Huynh was also a finalist last year.
The total Westpac prize pool is calculated to be $120,000, including insurance, financial planning services, business advisory and a lookbook produced by the Vogue Australia team. Of that, only $10,000 is cash. Former winners of the prize include Christopher Esber, Macgraw and Blair Archibald.
Finally, congratulations to James Bartle and Outland Denim, who last week were awarded the Thomson Reuters Foundation 2020 Stop Slavery Enterprise Award for small and medium companies at a ceremony in London. The awards recognise those companies globally that have actively eradicated forced labour from their supply chains. Given that Bartle started the brand four years ago to employ and empower women in Cambodia and rescue them from human and sex trafficking, it was a particularly significant recognition. “This is kind of like the Oscars for us,” Bartle said on accepting the award. “This is why we started.”
Kevin Hyland, who was Britain’s first independent anti-slavery commissioner, and one of the judges this year, told Buzz: “Outland are unusual in so far as their business model is designed around ethics, which has been successful and sustainable.
“Despite being a company that is not required to report under the Australian Modern Slavery Act … Outland has examined and managed its entire supply chain to prevent exploitation of workers. This demonstrates great leadership and setting of standards and values taking into account human rights, all too often ignored or diluted in many business models.”