Assia Benmedjdoub gets the official line on the new Mercedes-benz fashion week australia.
Where does Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia sit in terms of IMG showcases across the world? Is it in the top three markets, for instance?
IMG owns or represents many of the major fashion weeks around the world, of which Sydney is a key player and major pillar. There is a tremendous breadth of talent in Australia and a group of fantastic designers and brands based here. Our ultimate goal will be to identify those opportunities with the industry, hearing what their needs are, and then designing solutions for them across our events.
The managing director, founder, event manager, marketing head. Some very senior and long-serving members of the local team have left in the past year. What is the reason behind these departures?
Simon left a couple years ago but really these are the kind of staffing changes you see over time in a company. A lot of the colleagues that came over with the AFI acquisition have done a great job making the event fit within the IMG structure and have now moved on to explore other opportunities. It’s an opportunity for IMG to look at the strategic direction of the events and of the team structure and make some changes, in concert with the industry’s needs.
There’s been some speculation about what this will mean for the event moving forward.
The nature of the beast is that there will be a lot of speculation about these things. Reality is though that staffing changes happen all the time and these are no different. We’re taking it as an opportunity to look at the strategic direction of the events and of our team and make some decisions and announcements in the coming weeks and months. We’ll be engaging with the industry in a variety of ways before the end of the year and discussing everything from the location to the timing of the event for 2012 and beyond. Certainly the event will go on as planned next year. We have tremendous local and global resources to put towards this project and are very excited to do so.
There are rumours IMG will appoint a new managing director and contract all other key positions out?
We are in a strategic review of the structure, but like any event company the team will remain a mix of full-time, freelance and agency staff. We’re actively looking to fill a few roles, and we’ll make some announcements about those positions when we’ve identified the right candidates. We’re certainly excited by the events in Sydney and the amazing designers that work here in Australia and want to provide them the best global platform possible. Mercedes-Benz returning is a great thing for all of our partners and designers. I guess the real message is it’s business as usual for us and we’re certainly excited to engage the industry in a new way to elevate the event and continue to bring it in line with the industry needs.
Can we expect any other changes here?
We are very seriously exploring the events strategy and making some key changes, looking at location, dates, venue options etc. We will be engaging designers and the industry as a whole in a conversation about what they need in the coming weeks/months and the team is really looking forward to hearing what the industry wants and responding with creative, dynamic solutions.
Will these departures affect the corporate sponsorship agreement with Mercedes-Benz in any way?
Not at all. IMG is a large company with a lot of resources both in Sydney and globally, which are all aligned and committed to the event.
With the core team out and the event set for May, can we expect the event to be postponed to a later date or are you confident of meeting the deadline?
If anything we are looking at how to bring the event forward either in 2012 or 2013 to be more aligned with the industry’s needs. We’re working out timing right now but we are most likely at [event venue] Overseas Passenger Terminal for one more year.
Are there any particular challenges you see in the Australian market? For instance, that local designers are struggling to meet payments?
Ultimately our goal as a services provider in the fashion industry is to take the challenges designers face and provide solutions for them. They would be the best to articulate though what challenges they face currently.