Classic Country Road returns to the fashion frontlines with top award

It’s easy to take Country Road for granted after 50 years on the unforgiving Australian fashion landscape, which might explain why it’s taken so long for founder Stephen Bennett to be acknowledged by the Australian Fashion Laureate.

Trailing behind former recipients such as Cue founder Rod Levis, designer Dion Lee, expat fashion editor Laura Brown, Carla Zampatti and artist Ken Done, Bennett today received the Australian Fashion Laureate for Lifetime Achievement.

“When we started, we were talking about labels rather than brands,” Bennett, who was unable to attend the ceremony at the Sydney Opera House, says from Melbourne. “The word brand wasn’t really a catchphrase in the ’70s. You just have to produce great product.”

Stephen Bennett, founder of Country Road, has received the Australian Fashion Laureate Lifetime Achievement Award.Credit: Eddie Jim

Borrowing $20,000 from his father-in-law, Bennett launched Country Road in 1974, slowly unleashing products that became aspirational symbols of an Australian way of life. Country Road chambray shirts, canvas bags and beach towels are immediately recognisable and still desirable.

Recently, the brand has struggled to maintain that sunny optimism, with Country Road’s sales falling by 8.8 per cent in the 18 weeks before November 3, executive reshuffling and internal claims of harassment and bullying.

“I’m not involved in the business, so the thing that I feel good about is the legacy that we were able to establish in those first 26 years,” Bennett says. “For us, it was always more about the Country Road person than just clothes.”

Since leaving Country Road, where he helped pioneer the store-in-store concept with Myer in the ’80s Bennett has consulted to other brands, including Driza-Bone and beauty behemoth Mecca.

“Steve has always been five steps ahead of the rest of us - and continues to be,” says fashion writer Glynis Traill-Nash, author of the forthcoming book Country Road: The Fabric of Australia. “With Country Road, he revolutionised not only our wardrobes but also our homes and our shopping experience.”

“His merging of fashion and lifestyle was a revelation, and equally he helped our homes to shake off the stuffy chintzes to look clean, fresh and modern. I think it’s fair to say he changed Australian style – and how we saw ourselves.”

Bennett scraped across the finish line to receive the award created by IMG and the NSW government in 2008.

Last week, IMG announced they were withdrawing from operating Australian Fashion Week and the awards. Membership organisation the Australian Fashion Council has appointed itself to run a future fashion week but has not indicated whether that will include the awards.

For Bennett, the road may have been long, but the award was worth the considerable wait.

“It certainly is a great honour and something that is hard to believe. From starting as a 21-year-old junior salesman for Trent Nathan in Melbourne, to getting an award is quite remarkable.”

“I am lucky to have created something at a time when the communication highway was dominated by newspapers and magazines. We got our information from the top down. There were outstanding stores and amazing customers.”

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