The house of Radford

I've only just found out that Toby Radford, long established fashion agent in Surry Hills is no longer that. Instead he's a real estate agent in Pennant Hills. Hills and agents seem to go together. Nevertheless his defection gave me a shock. Here was a man of impeccably pleasant demeanour who'd come from a fine old schmutta family (his father Ray was the mover and shaker in the once leading label Princeton) that I thought nothing would ever separate Toby from hanger and rack.
"There was no future," he told me. "An agent has virtually no chance of selling to the big retailers because of their direct importing. There's a bit of business if you happen to represent a hot designer label or a strong volume brand - but that's becoming rare among agents. What you're left with is low profile brands and a diminishing number of small retailers. There's no money in that."
Toby is now showing a nicely designed spring range of houses. He's with Century 21, phone (02)9980 1222.


Honey, I shrunk the trade

Maybe I've been a tad hasty in laying the Australian garment making industry to rest. After union official John Owen told me that there were 11,000 machinists still treadling in Australia, I went on a crusade to find out what these people could possibly make that would complete with imports.
The answer is that there is nothing that can compete with imports - except where imports can't be bothered to engage in niche market combat. In fact, I found many imports that were dearer than the comparable Australian-made, probably because their parents preferred a whopping margin on smaller sales to whopping sales on a smaller margin.
There is another, more subtle factor, too: it's where the goods are sold. Let me exaggerate a little to illustrate.
If you walked into the Christian Dior boutique in the city and found a pair of 'polyestaire noir pantaloons extraordinare' for $49 dollars you'd think they'd left off a nought and you'd be at the cash register like a rabbit escaping from a ferret. The same black pant in Best & Less would have you fuming in anger at being ripped off. The appearance of the $49 black pant in an upmarket suburban boutique would make you think it was attractively priced. Same pant, different environments.
I found pull-on polyester pants, adequately made by Essential Casuals, wholesaling for $20 in a range of sizes and colours, with stock service. If you wanted a zip and a covered button you went up to $25 for the Reno label. If you wanted nastier make with scratchy fishing line sewing thread you only had to pay $18. All of these were made in Australia, and keenly priced but they were never going to find their way to Noni B or Target. They are destined for small boutiques where shoppers are prepared to pay a little more because of their perceived higher class surroundings. These customers are not shopping for the cheapest black pant, but what seemed to them reasonable value for the shop - in which they wouldn't mind being sprung by a friend.
Let's move on to the Melbourne coat label Sabena with its topper coat (used to be called a car coat in my mother's time) in pure wool doveton, big deco buttons, 30 colours to choose from, and wholesaling between $65 and $75. All made locally and, when sold in a boutique, are seen as good value retailing around $149. If Noni B wanted to buy 5000 of them, Sabena could change it a little, buy it from China and wholesale to Alan Kindl for less than $40. If Alan took the trouble of sourcing them from China himself he could probably land them for $30 and sell them for $69. Same coat, different surrounds, and a satisfied customer at either location.
A very nicely made skivvy by Clifton was wholesaling at $11, a little under the famous imported Black Pepper, and seeming every bit as good. You can get a Geiger printed blouse in 'feathersoft' polyester wholesaling for $25. Similar price levels apply to suits by Yesadress and blouses by Tanner Street.
None of these labels would excite the editorial notice of Marie Claire magazine nor are they for the stand-out young market or for bodies that have remained unaffected by gravity. But they all offer Australian make at prices not bothered by imports - for the time being anyway. Some people believe they will never be bothered, because there will always be business to be done below the import radar, and that price expectations have mostly to do with where the goods are sold, not the absolute bottom money.
Nevertheless, everybody working in this twilight market must feel apprehensive. With the import duty at 17.5 per cent for garments from our biggest supply countries, the status quo might be maintained, but as new importers join the throng and as John Howard rushes about making free trade agreements wherever his 707 lands, the pressure builds against Australian-made.
The duty rate is eventually destined for five per cent and at that stage the price difference between imported and local will be so massive as to be unmanageable.

Peeping behind Figleaf

I've always been a great fan of Melbourne entrepreneur, Michael Francis, the man behind Figleaf. He tried to retire but his brain wouldn't let him, and neither would his staff, upon whom he lavishes the richest of superlatives. But his business has undergone a change of more than passing interest.
Figleaf operated a bit like Gordon Smith: a low profile but huge supplier to major stores achieved by almost Siamese twin attachment to their buying departments. Physico (now part of the new public company Brion Apparel Ltd), does something similar. The three of them have been cut back by stores trying to shake loose from outside suppliers; more, I suspect, by accounting theory than merchandising practicality.
Of the three, Figleaf has made the most radical change. It no longer supplies anybody, yet it still carries out its design and development work at the frenetic pace of yore. There is not really a satisfactory word to describe what it has now become. Certainly it is more than a consultant or a service provider because it is closer to its clients than either of those. And who are Figleaf's clients? Michael won't say, because that's part of the new order: invisibility. If I was trying to find out I'd be looking at Figleaf's former retail customers.
I believe we're seeing the birth of a new type of service business in garments. The companies I've mentioned (and to those I could add Andrew Michael's Apparel Group) each function in a different way but the end result is the intimate attachment of an external design and sourcing service to either a label or a retailer.
This new business category has not been a supplier initiative. None of the four wanted to lose their traditional role of design, manufacture and supply, even if the shadow of the occasional mahulla hung over them. It has been the lust of big retailers to cut out middle-people that has brought about the change. But in doing so the retailers have realised that they're not omnipotent at designing and sourcing - which has given rise to opportunities like those seized by Figleaf.