Metalicus: singing its way around the globe

MELBOURNE: Bodywear label Metalicus has a big - but enviable - problem.
Celebrating its first decade of exporting, the Melbourne-based label has elected to mark the occasion in style, Antipodium director Geoffrey Finch, who acts as the brand's UK agent, said such had been the success of Metalicus' London assault for the northern hemisphere autumn/winter season, it was now able to pit big-name stockists against one another.
"We have had the department stores fighting over them. We've just settled with Harvey Nichols and Liberty and unfortunately had to cut Selfridges out for the moment."
Online store My Wardrobe and US chain Nordstrom were included among the new accounts Finch said the label had also received favourable press attention with coverage in several fashion titles including the UK editions of Harpers Bazaar and Tank, while British Vogue touted it as a "brand to watch".
Metalicus director Melma Hamersfeld said the international success of the label, which was originally founded in the 1970s but has only been designing bodywear since the 1990s, had been the result of sound strategic planning.
"Has it come as a surprise? No. We've been investing and researching for a long time. We spend a lot of time researching and observing the market and travelling."
Targeted at women aged between 15 and 40 and renowned for its ability to layer, the label also sells across South Africa, Japan, the US, Italy, Spain and Holland.
Hamersfeld said the brand, whose camisoles, cardigans, jackets, tanks, skirts, pants and dresses sell at price points of between $49 and $200, had no plans to radically alter its ranges to cater for the different markets owing to the trans-seasonal nature of the product.
She conceeded domestic fans of the ranges would have lots to look forward to with the brand opening a new retail store - in Melbourne's Chadstone - later this month.
Plans were also afoot to launch a new basics range to complement its fashion ranges. The basics range, will boast price points upwards of $49 and will be in-store from October, Hamersfeld said.