Fashion Exposed verses Fashion Week: Fashion Week insider Michaela Griffiths-Leese gives her verdict, as Erin O’Loughlin kicks off Ragtrader’s coverage of the Higher Learning seminar.
Two years into running her custom-made shoe business and Michaela Griffiths-Leese came down with a serious bout of “the shits”. So bad was the pain of living on $500 a week while trying to prop up her label that she folded the company, packed a suitcase and fled to Mexico, where the complexity of lodging a Business Activity Statement was replaced with the simplicity of bucket-flushing toilets.
Naturally, rudimentary amenities can also engender feelings best described by swear words, which is why Griffiths-Leese wound up back in Australia working on her own swimwear line, Sage&Sebastian.
In recent years, she has moved on to work as designer relations manager for Rosemount Australian Fashion Week (RAFW) organiser IMG Fashion before launching her new advisory service, Fashion Business in a Box (FBIB).
It’s been a circuitous career path but one that has equipped Griffiths-Leese with insider knowledge on how to tackle RAFW and its counterpart, trade fair Fashion Exposed.
“Obviously Fashion Week is about the smoke and mirrors, but the truth of it is it’s a business-to-business event,” Griffiths-Leese says. She concedes RAFW occurs late in the buying season but stresses it provides opportunities that rarely pop up elsewhere.
“A lot of designers, especially catwalk, are using it for a marketing purpose because you do really get the media outcomes.
“They’re also using it to make contact with international buyers because they do really push this international buyer contact and they bring a lot of people in from overseas. The other thing they do have which is worth its weight in gold and is worth paying for [is] a buyer list.”
Griffiths-Leese learned of RAFW’s international pulling power first-hand when Victoria’s Secret approached her at RAFW’s The Source show, now known as Emerge.
“They had a look at me first and said ‘keep in contact’, so I kept in contact,” she says. When they wanted to place an order some time later, she thought she’d “made it” – until she discovered that Victoria’s Secret wanted 100,000 units.
“I’m trying to fund the business on zero money; how do I find money for 100,000 units, get it to America, pay for all the customs, get all the tagging, get all the labelling?” she recalls.
In the end she had to pass up the opportunity. “It really was going to bankrupt me.” Which leads to her second pertinent point for those showing at either trade fair. “Can you actually produce the quantities the buyers are requesting? Can you deliver on time?”
Griffiths-Leese says designers must remember they need to part with serious money to cover things like care labelling, swing tags, business cards, line sheets, order books, look books, and – for RAFW especially – marketing and PR services.
“You’ve got to take all these things into consideration when you’re dealing with your buyers because if you piss them off, they won’t reorder, and you’ll get a reputation. It’s a small industry and bad news travels fast.”
On the upside, making a good impression at RAFW needn’t be hard work. “I’ll never forget [The Corner Store owner] Belinda Seper said to us when we first showed at Fashion Week: ‘send a gift’,” Griffiths-Leese says.
“Something that’s uniquely yours, something that’s the brand, something that’s completely your label. And they’ll go ‘I love that, I really must see this person’s label’.”
Griffiths-Leese believes the media are even easier to woo. “They’re not as hard as everyone makes them out to be. You get a couple of really key people, they’ll help you, they’ll use your stuff year after year.” Long after she wrapped production on Sage&Sebastian, Griffiths-Leese still gets media requests for her garments.
As for Fashion Exposed, the media is not the main game. “Fashion Exposed is a trade event and it is not about the smoke and mirrors and it is not about the catwalk. It is about sales.”
There are rarely international buyers at Fashion Exposed but there are plenty of serious locals. “In fact, you need to have an on-site cost machine because people buy on the spot.” Unlike RAFW, which this year showcased 180 labels, Fashion Exposed can showcase up to 500.
“Take the time to think about how the buyer comes in and what their experience will be when they come into your mini store,” she emphasises. And don’t hold back on the good stuff.
“You do need to market to your buyers. That could be a simple invitation again, a nice little gift. Don’t disregard them. Treat them exactly the same [as Fashion Week buyers]. They’ll appreciate it.”
Anyone who’s unsure of which trade event is for them should take cues from other exhibitors. If your competitors are showing, chances are your buyers will be there too.