Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts.
The National Gallery of Australia and Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum are great places to view art. But they’re not your usual fashion stockists. Both, however, are where you can go to find pieces from Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, the art-meets-fashion label of 29-year-old Jordan Gogos.
Yesterday, Gogos put on his fourth consecutive Australian Fashion Week (AFW) show. The Greek-Australian designer is a rare case in Australian fashion: he wound up on the schedule by accident. After studying industrial design (with one fashion class, on denim) at Parsons, Gogos had done the set design for Vogue Australia’s Creativity Issue cover when AFW invited him to do a runway show in 2021. He couldn’t say no.
Since, he’s taken off, garnering fashion and art industry attention for his larger-than-life, sculptural garments, on which bright, patterned fabrics are woven together with such force that he’s almost broken many a sewing machine. The National Gallery focuses on work that crosses the bounds between art and fashion. “Jordan’s work does this perfectly,” says Simeran Maxwell, associate curator of Australian Art. “I was drawn to his boundary-pushing work in felting and embroidery.” Plastic surgeon and contemporary art collector Dr Terry Wu owns look 32 from Gogos’s Resort 2024 collection. This season, Wu walked in Gogos’s show.
The support of galleries and collectors, Gogos says, is how he stays afloat. He doesn’t get how others do it. “I would never be able to run a business from selling a shirt and making $100 profit,” he says. “I don’t know how people do it. I worked out that, for the amount I make from one piece, I’d have to sell like 120 T-shirts.” Iordanes Spyridon Gogos runway pieces sell for a minimum of AU $7,500, and AU $15,000 for a full set.
It’s a twist on a challenge many designers face. Where many yearn to create more avant-garde, conceptual pieces — but need to make tees and tanks to bring in cash — Gogos has carved out a niche that enables him to support a fashion business with garments that wind up in galleries.
Five years in, the self-funded brand is making revenues upwards of AU $250,000 a year, and growth has been steady, he says, after hitting its stride in year three. Now, Gogos is figuring out how to continue to develop his art-fashion practice, while elevating his name as a capital-F fashion designer.
Support systems
“In Australia, everyone thinks that if you’re a talented designer, it equals success,” Gogos says. In reality, it takes a lot more than talent. Gogos is constantly navigating a lack of financial support, recalling, comparatively, the resources he was able to access in New York, even as a student at Parsons School of Design.
Gogos now sees many of his Parsons peers reaping the benefits of the awards and incubators on offer overseas that aren’t accessible in Australia. Jacques Agbobly, for instance, was a classmate and friend. He’s participated in Fashion Trust US (where he won the Inclusivity Award) in 2023 and the 2024 LVMH Prize. “That’s not even something I can consider from Australia,” Gogos says. “Maybe I can apply for the Woolmark Prize.”
Instead of relying on incubators, Gogos looked to existing Aussie talent to align with. To date, he’s worked with OG Australian designers Jenny Bannister, Akira Isogawa and Jenny Kee. This season, he collaborated with Aussie fashion mainstay Linda Jackson. Gogos doesn’t understand why more people — media and designers — haven’t paid these local legends more attention. “I just think one day they’re gonna be like, ‘Why the fuck didn’t I email them?’”
It’s a smart move. It was Gogos’s collaborations with Kee and Isogawa that drove Wu to keep an eye on his practice; Wu’s interest was piqued by the designer’s cloth work and furniture pieces.
The designers’ willingness to collaborate with Gogos was a welcome change from an industry he wishes was more open to collaboration. There’s a need to share resources, he says, referencing with glee Beare Park designer Gabriella Pereira’s recent Vogue Australia video in which she introduces viewers to her cutter, Berty Maries. Sharing resources isn’t typical of Australian fashion, he says.
It is, in part, why he set up the Feel-Good Fashion Fund with Australian bank Ubank, which will offer emerging designers financial support (an annual $30,000 grant) and mentorship. With Ubank, Gogos produced 1,500 pieces. And he could only do so because they paid for the whole batch upfront. The bank isn’t Gogos’s only commercial partner. For years, he’s worked with whisky brand Glenfiddich, hosting a Sydney pop-up bar together last month.
Gogos is acutely aware of who his supporters are — and they’re the ones he puts time back into. “There are probably 10 people in that room that actually keep my career afloat,” he says. “It’s like: that person puts a roof over my head. That person archives my work. The Vogue Australia team have been there since day one.” These are the ones who he ensures get a good seat at the show.
Putting on a show
Showing at Australian Fashion Week has clear perks, Gogos says. For one, it’s a guaranteed period of coverage from fashion media. For another, the provenance of association with AFW adds value to the garments that he goes on to sell to galleries. Non-runway pieces are a lot harder to move.
It’s a smart move. It was Gogos’s collaborations with Kee and Isogawa that drove Wu to keep an eye on his practice; Wu’s interest was piqued by the designer’s cloth work and furniture pieces.
Though shows are key, Gogos says, don’t ever expect to see ready-to-wear on a Iordanes Spyridon Gogos runway. Instead, it will always be about building out the brand world and identity.
“Even when I do go commercial, I don’t want the runways to be the commercial thing,” he says. “The runway for me is where you sell the vibe and the energy. I’m like, ‘Do you actually think if I put a T-shirt on the runway that that’s what’s going to translate to sales?’”
But are his collections a tough sell for buyers? Gogos credits his outlandish approach with grabbing the attention of his first (and only) stockist, Sydney boutique Parlour X founder Eva Galambos. “It was only because, from day dot, my first runway show was completely bananas. She put it all in her windows.”
Rethinking RTW
Iordanes Spyridon Gogos has been around for five years, but only launched ready-to-wear last year. It’s down to cost, the designer says. “If you’re not making ad hoc, but producing, that is access to money. How good the clothes are is creativity and talent.”
Even now as he embarks on RTW pieces — with irregular cadence — it’s not with the vision of making money. Any Iordanes Spyridon Gogos RTW at this stage is to give his audience access to the brand. “I totally have ambitions to do very small batches of styles to sell independently with no schedule and no real means to make money,” he says matter-of-factly.
With Parlour X, Gogos is adopting a new approach. When the store says it’ll buy the commercial pieces, he makes them — but never before.
Based on this, he is proposing a radical new RTW model, one that will rely upon deeper-than-usual collaboration with buyers. “The only way moving forward I see fit to make ‘productions’ would be to create strong, authentic relationships with buyers,” he adds. Gogos wants to work with them. “I don’t think I’ll produce what buyers want. It would need to be developed together. It also allows them to build an understanding of what they’re selling rather than ticking a box on a line sheet.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
More from this author:
Who is Australian Fashion Week for?
Australian breakout star Alix Higgins on selling the dream
What Walmart selling luxury says about the state of e-commerce
