Forget Shane Warne, here's the true king of spin

Simon Lock, founder and former CEO of Australian Fashion Innovators (AFI) may just be the most famous unfamous person I've never met.
In neither my former incarnation writing about advertising for AdNews nor now in my present vocation sitting at the helm of this prestigious publication, have I had the chance to cross paths with this mysterious man of fashion folklore. Despite the fact the marketer-cum-entrepreneur is equally at home in both industries.
While it may be overstating it to credit him with reinventing the rag trade wheel, 46-year-old Lock is certainly an important cog.
He is the majority shareholder of multimillion dollar fashion marketing and event collective The Lock Group, which among other things includes AFI and the aptly-named advertising agency Spin, home to fashion clients Jacqui E, Portmans and Icon Clothing.
Yet it is for a little idea he had way back in 1992 for which he is best known. Like most great ideas, his idea for a homegrown fashion week stemmed from frustration. Then, as is the case now, his company had a number of fashion clients. Frustrated clients, whose designers had little access to international wholesale markets in which to ply their wares.
Never one to lack a bit of mettle, Lock decided to put his money where is mouth is and do something about it.
Through sheer persistence and nugget, Australian Fashion Week was born in 1996 with 25 designers, showing in just two rooms at Sydney's Fox Studios. Nine years later, with Lock still offering more than his pound of flesh, it is an enterprise that, according to him, attracts more than 180 overseas buyers, orders in excess of $60 million and generates more than $125 million in international and domestic media coverage. Well aware of, as his former partner Sam Elam describes it: Lock's ability to "move mountains verbally", industry insiders tend to view these figures as somewhat overstated. They argue MAFW has done little for the coffers of the industry as a whole, and the only real person to make any money from an event of this nature is its former owner.
What is not in dispute, however, is the very real truth that MAFW has a major sponsor in the form of prestigious car brand Mercedes-Benz and is one of a very few private enterprises ever to attract government support.
Admittedly the event has been credited with launching the careers of many Australian designers - not least Sarah Jane Clark and Heidi Middleton of sass & bide fame and more recently Rowena, Juliana and Angela Foong of High Tea with Mrs Woo. But the small signs of discontent have begun taking some of the gloss off Lock's shiny possession.
If you believe reports in the media, complaints after this year's installment in Sydney's Circular Quay were varied and vocal. They ranged from angry buyers and media frustrated at being kept waiting up to two hours for shows that ran over time to exhibitors at The Source who, so disgruntled by the space available to them at the event, allegedly took to packing up their stands and exhibiting from their hotel rooms. New generation designers dipped out on attracting the attention of international buyers after being placed at the end of the events program. General exhibitors failed to escape unscathed. They were none-too-excited upon learning they would not receive an invitation to the MAFW after party unless they had signed up for a stand at next year's event.
A good time then, for Lock to take the - what can I only imagine is not an inconsiderable - sum of money offered by AFI's, and therefore MAFW, new owners IMG, and run.
Only he didn't.
Lock has agreed to stay on as managing director of the newly formed company, henceforth to be known as IMG FASHION Asia Pacific. Whether that means he will remain at the helm of MAFW or look for fresh opportunities elsewhere in this silly game is anyone's guess.
What is fact and what is fiction about Lock's version of the truth and others' reality has yet to be decided. But I figure anyone with enough balls to keep giving it a crack when others would go for the easier option surely deserves a bit of slack. If only we offer it begrudgingly.