Outgoing L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (LMFF) director Karen Webster has just one piece of advice for her successor. “Look after your team because they are passionate, hardworking and exceptionally committed.”
Webster will remain as festival director until the end of this month. She will then resume her former position as fashion program director at RMIT University in mid-June.
Webster said just 12 in-house employees were currently responsible for coordinating the annual consumer festival, which features over 300 fashion labels across 118 officially sanctioned events.
This is double the team Webster managed when she first assumed her position with LMFF in June, 2005. “Initially there were just six internal staff members. Even then, the scale of the event was enormous so it required a close-knit team. We always said, ‘we only work with nice people’.”
Webster was appointed to the role by Sussan Group chief executive Naomi Milgrim who, together with former Just Group head honcho Craig Kimberley, was successful in pitching LMFF to the Victorian Government in 1996.
A sponsorship agreement was clinched and a board of directors assembled the following year.
“I was part of that board for nine years before becoming festival director,” Webster said. “Some people say it’s akin to giving my baby away – but it’s more like a teenager now!”
Webster’s first responsibility was to build the festival’s annual business seminar program. Speakers at the event have since included former Topshop executive Jane Shepherdson, LVMH consultant Jean-Jacques Picart, H&M global creative advisor Margareta van den Bosch and designers Zandra Rhodes and Jasper Conran.
Webster said while organisers subsidised travel and accommodation costs for these delegates, no additional speaker fees were paid.
She has been described as “tenacious” in her approach to luring power players down under. “I don’t stop until I get a definite no,” she agreed.
As Ragtrader went to press, former Vogue Australia and GQ Australia publisher Grant Pearce was announced as the new LMFF creative director.
Assia Benmedjdoub