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Australian Fashion Week (AFW) is back — and this year, it looks a little different.
The week-long event is now helmed by the Australian Fashion Council (AFC), following IMG’s November 2024 exit from AFW, which it had facilitated for almost 20 years. For a brief time, this put the future of the event up in the air, as the Australian industry was left wondering who the next owner would be — and if they would be announced soon enough to put together AFW 2025.
That same month, the AFC announced that it would assume management of Australian Fashion Week Resort 2026. “From that moment on, we have had incredible support from the entire Australian fashion industry and the New South Wales Government, which backed the AFC in taking on AFW,” says AFC CEO Kellie Hush, who assumed the role in January. “The AFC also engaged with the industry very quickly, so we could start planning the start of a new blueprint for AFW.”
Things kick off on 12 May with the opening Carla Zampatti showcase at 6pm, followed by a party. The show schedule begins on Tuesday, with four full days of programming from 13 to 16 May. The week will platform a mix of established Australian designers like Lee Mathews, Aje and Bianca Spender to emerging talent like Amy Lawrance and Common Hours. While, in past years, AFW held a First Nations group show, this season, three First Nations designers — Ngali, Liandra, and Joseph and James — will show individually after expressing their desire to do so. Hush anticipates these to be stand-out shows.
This year, AFW includes 30 on-schedule brands, 320 buyers and over 1,300 registered industry delegates. Over 2,700 consumers are registered for the Fashion Pass, which allows the general public to visit the AFW site at Carriageworks in Sydney to experience the activations and watch the runway shows via live stream. (The shows are invite-only.)
Designers are optimistic. “It was really important to me to be a part of AFW this year,” says Amy Campbell, who debuted at AFW last year as part of the New Gen group show. “I am really hopeful for the future of Australian fashion design and manufacturing and I see this new iteration of AFW as an opportunity to set the tone for the coming years.”
Courtney Zheng, who is an AFW newcomer, agrees. “There’s a clear shift this year towards a greater focus on design integrity,” she says. “When the garments are conceptually and technically strong, they hold their own and there’s no need for excessive theatrics. For us, AFW remains the most significant event on the calendar — it’s a moment where designers, creatives and stakeholders come together to celebrate our shared commitment to Australian fashion.”
The blueprint
At the end of 2024, the AFC conducted an industry survey to establish what designers want most from a revamped fashion week. The overwhelming consensus? For it to go back to a “business-generating” fashion week. “The industry felt the event had started to lean further into fashion entertainment, a consumer-focused event, not a sales event dedicated to generating new wholesale accounts domestically and internationally,” Hush says.
Australia’s fashion and textile sector currently contributes AU $28 billion to the economy, exports over AU $7.2 billion annually (more than wine and beer combined) and employs 500,000 people (more than mining and utilities combined). Women make up 77 per cent of the workforce. Hush is confident that, with targeted support like that of AFW, the sector can grow to AU $38 billion over the next decade. “An industry-focused AFW is a very important part of this projected growth,” she says.
This is the first time in AFW’s 30-year history that the event has been not-for-profit. Whereas past iterations veered towards a focus on making money — not always with designers’ best interests at heart — this year’s event is squarely focused on platforming Australian talent. “The schedule this year features brands that are ready to wholesale as we want buyers to be at a show and know that they can invest in what they are seeing — which wasn’t always the case in the past,” Hush says.
To get more brands on board, with the help of Robyn Catinella, founder and managing director of PR firm Catinella, organisers put together a group show titled The Frontiers, featuring Amy Lawrance, Courtney Zheng, Common Hours, Esse, Matin, Wynn Hamlyn and Paris Georgia — all brands Catinella believes have scope to sell internationally. Because it’s a group show, costs including production and models are covered by AFW, lowering the barrier to entry for designers who otherwise might not have shown this week.
AFW is an essential launch pad for emerging designers — but showing on-schedule is expensive. Many are deciding whether to stay or go abroad.
“Group shows have traditionally struggled with perceptions of being overly commercial or lacking refinement or commercial viability,” Catinella acknowledges. “We saw an opportunity to shift that narrative and not only offset the high costs of showing at fashion week, but present a curated, elevated experience that celebrates individuality over uniformity.” She’s confident that it will be a win for AFW’s renewed focus on wholesale and international exposure. “Commercially, the model’s efficiency is compelling: presenting the region’s leading talent in a single, well-considered setting captures the attention of time-poor international buyers and press,” she says.
Zheng hopes that the international focus will attract the attention of global press and buyers ahead of international showings in Paris in June.
This season, there are 11 international buyers in attendance, from retailers including Ssense, Moda Operandi, Net-a-Porter, The Rosewood and Harvey Nichols Kuwait. Catinella, who was also tasked with the international buyer strategy, says the focus was on expanding market representation to growing regions (like the Middle East). “We’ve also begun to diversify the wholesale strategy, exploring partnerships with luxury hotels and non-traditional retail environments where the brand stories can live more experientially,” she explains.
The response has been positive, Catinella adds, acknowledging that this season gave organisers less time to prep than is typical. “Several international buying directors who couldn’t make the trip this season have already expressed interest for the next edition, including some who’ve never previously engaged with Australia in a wholesale context,” she says. “That signals a significant shift, which is exciting.”
Hush is confident that this year’s “stepping stone” fashion week will be a marker of bigger things to come. “We know that we need to get Australian Fashion Week back on the international fashion calendar,” the executive says. “Our job at AFW is to ensure that we put on the best showcase of Australian resort collections so it becomes a must-not-miss every year.”
Clarification: Updated to reflect that Albus Lumen is showing off-schedule this season.
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