It was a blow to the Australian fashion industry last November, when IMG withdrew their sponsorship of Australian Fashion Week after 20 years, forcing the annual event to be cancelled. However, Australian fashion designers and industry experts are pulling together to show that it is not all doom and gloom.
The cancellation triggered disquiet across the sector which was compounded by growing macroeconomic uncertainties, global trade hostilities and the recent widespread closures of popular women’s retail franchises.
Just one month after IMG announced its withdrawal as the official sponsor of AFW, the peak body for the Australian fashion and textile industry, the Australian Fashion Council, stepped up.
In December 2024, AFC announced that it would lead the AFC Australian Fashion Week in May 2025 to “reconfirm Australia as a global leader in fashion.”
Taking place in Sydney between May 12 and 16, the AFC Australian Fashion Week platformed both emerging and established Australian talent, “celebrating world-class creativity and innovation”, according to the AFC website.
RMIT University Melbourne’s School of Fashion and Textiles senior lecturer Harriette Richards said IMG’s withdrawal from AFW reflects “a time of reckoning within the industry” and described the AFC’s sponsorship as “extremely exciting.”
Dr Richards said: “It suggests a new era for AFW that is governed by an industry body, rather than strictly commercial interests. It is an opportunity to rethink what AFW stands for, and the type of fashion it champions. This really reflects the current moment in fashion, where we are seeing an increasing number of First Nations fashion designers, and the rise of more sustainable brands.”
This new era is a welcomed reprieve from the burdening news of late, which has highlighted a number of challenges the industry is facing. Dr Richards said these challenges include a lack of funding to support infrastructure and innovation.
Additionally, rising manufacturing costs and an aging workforce are triggering the erosion of skills and expertise needed to ensure the continuation of domestic, onshore fashion production.
And how about the impact of Trump’s controversial global trade tariffs?
Dr Richards said: “The tariffs will contribute to increased costs of local brands and severely impact those brands which rely heavily on the United States as their primary export market.”
“The rise of fast fashion coupled with the rising costs of production and rapidly declining capacity for local manufacturing has led to a retail crisis that has decimated much of the local industry.”
Dr Harriette Richards.
But experts are eyeing a solution to future-proof a robust and formidable Australian fashion industry, which they say will require greater financial and policy-based investments into the sector.
Dr Richards said: “For too long the industry has been overlooked as a feminised creative industry, its sustainable economic impact and role as a key employer of women ignored in favour of more masculinised industries. Taking the industry more seriously is the first step in building capability and committing to the innovation that is already underway.”
These sentiments are supported by the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which reveals the economic contribution of the Australian clothing retail industry was valued at $24 billion in 2024, and is directly responsible for the employment of almost 500,000 workers, nearly 380,000 of whom are women.
According to IBIS World, while there are over 13,000 businesses in the Australian fashion sector, “wobbly consumer sentiment and economic woes have encouraged value-conscious consumers to scale back spending on unnecessary discretionary purchases like clothing.”
Kristin Magrit, the founder and lead designer of her self-titled ethical label based in Subiaco, said that the local fashion industry of Western Australia faces unique challenges of its own, barriers Ms Magrit attributes to “our relative isolation and limited manufacturing capabilities.”
Despite this, Ms Magrit said: “There’s increasing demand in the community for Australian-made clothing, as awareness around sustainability and ethics is growing.”
“There’s an opportunity for a thriving industry right now, but there is little commercial incentive for brands to produce locally.”
Kristin Magrit, brand founder and fashion designer.
Ms Magrit recommends greater protections for the WA fashion industry would help to support local brands like hers, such as tariffs on off-shore made clothing, or tax incentives.
She also said: “I would like to see better technologies here to support our manufacturing. That would require some government support and investment to happen. But the outcome would be job creation, and viability for brands to manufacture locally.”
From academics to Australian brand executives, the call for greater government investment towards locally-based manufacturing and a strengthened workforce form the theme for recommended approaches to support the longevity of a thriving fashion industry in Australia that goes beyond leaving it to the individual brands to come up with solutions to industry-wide problems.
All 33 Australian brands who presented at AFC Fashion Week were contacted about their plans to future-proof against uncertain industry conditions, but none were able to supply a response.
This shows that while potential solutions exist, uncertainty is still woven into the fabric of an industry that, while propelled by creativity and talent, is in the midst of strategising how best to adapt.