Some of the nation’s experts in the fashion field have likened the Australian emerging retail market to the notoriously tough LA acting industry, and even high school peer group cliques.
The days and dreams of just talent being enough to carry you up the to the dizzying retail heights seem to be long gone, as business acumen and market knowledge appear to be just as necessary.
With fashion schools, scholarships, business courses and mentor programmes pumping out regular sprinklings of graduates each year, the game is a tough one, but is worth playing, according to head of buying at online fashion store The Iconic, Sarah Gale.
“On one hand we could assume it is tougher now for emerging designers when we consider the economic climate and the growth in competition in the market place, through the increased number of fashion graduates and also the expansion of the availability of the worldwide market through the online channel,” Gale begins. “However, on the flip side, this environment can be used as a positive as these conditions actually propel people into taking more care and doing more homework in preparation to launching their ranges.”
Gale, who is a judge for The Spirit of the Black Dress Awards this year, says there are many key points, such as finding the right supply chain and understanding the market, that are vital when designers plan an assault on the Australian retail market.
Prior to her role at The Iconic, Gale consulted within the fashion industry and mentored many emerging designers.
“I often found they had a great creative capacity, but little business knowledge or experience,” Gale explains. “I would always suggest that either they invested in up-skilling themselves in this area, or they partnered with someone who had a strength within this area. Without a good business acumen this business is tough and it is as much about commercial aspects as it is great designs.”
Operations manager and fashion buyer for The Old Scholar fashion website and agency, Micaela Nantes, echoes Gale’s thoughts and stressed that designers must, at the very least, get to grips with the business basics.
“There are people who are creative minded and people who are business minded, but you need to at least get a grasp of the basics, as it’s no use being creative and wanting to turn that creativity into revenue if you have no business sense,” Nantes says.
Nantes says the agency, which supports up-and-coming designers by manufacturing their collections, distributing them to wholesalers and assisting them with the selling process, says there can be problems with designers not being earnest.
“We have had to turn down a few designers as they were not serious enough - you can have talent, but if you are too interested in partying and stealing the limelight then we will politely decline,” Nantes explains. “Making it in this industry is very hard work and involves a lot of personal sacrifices. We are here to give young designers the opportunity to better their label and help them reach great heights in the fashion industry - it doesn’t work if the dedication from the designer is lacking.”
Nantes says she is all too aware of the lack of opportunities for those who want to reach the first rungs in the ladder, and says too few boutiques will not gamble on a new label.
She says, as the fashion industry is in a ‘precarious position’, a lot of boutiques or larger alternative stores will not take on designers if they are unknown.
As consumers tighten the purse strings, many want larger name designers and popular labels that are certain to sell - as opposed to taking a risk on a new designer who does not have a large following, says Nantes.
She says this only eliminates the creativity and options in the market as everyone starts wearing the same things, which in turn gets more people shopping online searching for something different.
“The fashion industry is a bit like high school. You have the cool kids, the mainstream sports stars, the alternatives, the nerds, and the majority of the times if you don’t get embraced by a ‘group’, it’s not impossible, but it is very hard to infiltrate by yourself,” Nantes added.
Nantes says although there are some ‘fantastic boutiques that really support the local scene’, the big brand companies such as David Jones and Myer need to dedicate a section to talented emerging designers to help the Australian fashion scene.
Cathy Gray from Gray Management Group, which markets and profiles fashion clients, says a brilliance at design does not necessarily translate into good solid business and recommends designers enrol in business courses.
“One of the toughest challenges designers will face is understanding and managing that see-saw of business and what they know and love, and what their business is all based on,” Gray explains.
“A business course is recommended – designers should immerse themselves so much in balancing books, managing marketing and PR so that they don’t lose sight of what they are in business for – or they should outsource these areas which are vital to succeeding in the fashion industry.”
As ‘every waiter is an actor’ in Los Angeles, many of Australia’s emerging designers are working in regular jobs while attempting to crack into Australia’s fashion market. Gray says their ambition makes early swift and aggressive competition great for the market, but challenging for individuals.
Program director for fashion design and marketing at Raffles College in Sydney, Robert de Giovanni, says the tools of thinking, imagination and of wonderment still remain the hardest ones to foster and improve upon in emerging designers.
“The biggest challenges we all face as creative people will always be the same - how to translate the innate gifts of the personality, inspiration and the like into a commercial reality,” de Giovanni explains. “The greatest designers all do this quite naturalistically (notice I didn’t say ‘naturally’), as those who learn to flip this primordial inner-switch will always be further ahead than those who learn how to operate CAD software, or balance the books.
De Giovanni says certain aspects of the college program have been updated to respond to market demands and more styling workshops and fashion buying electives were introduced last year.
A fashion journalism module will be added this year and Raffles has invested in the mentoring of postgraduates as well as new computer pattern making equipment.
De Giovanni says emerging designers need to be ‘devouring fashion’ in the myriad forms in which it manifests these days to ensure they are equipped ‘imaginatively’ with the right cognitive tools in order to compete in the world market.
“Originality and critical thinking will always be the key - if a young designer thinks in this way they can surmount all the challenges thrown at them, just the way designers before them, designing before or during world wars, or in the midst of world depressions, did,” De Giovanni says.
