The tough stuff

With a rise estimated at 8.9 per cent over the next seven years in the denim market around the world, Samantha Docherty looks at Australian brands making an impact globally.

It was not until the 1960s, and the breakdown of traditional codes of dress, that a jeans culture, driven by rock-and-roll and popular culture, was born. Since then, jeans have been a constant part of the wardrobe, worn by an ever-increasing age-range and demographic of customer.

By 2014, jeans will genuinely be a global fashion statement according to a new report from the UK's leading apparel and textile industry online resource just-style, which predicts retail value will increase from $US51.6 billion ($A59 billion) to $US56.2 billion ($A64.3 billion) by 2014.

Partly due to jeans marketers incorporating concepts of authenticity, music, celebrity endorsement and product placement to drive sales, the battle to convince today's market consumer why they should wear jeans and whose jeans they should wear has never been fiercer.

Grabbing its customer's attention through thought-evoking advertising, denim veteran Diesel is a multi-national company with a sales increase of 10 to 15 per cent per annum and turnover of $US1.8 billion ($A2 billion) a year.
The sole importer of Diesel in Australia for more than 20 years, Mark Keighery, CEO of Diesel Australia, partly contributes the Italian label's success to always being one with the times and never alienating its consumers through advertising.

"The reason why Levi's lost its market share in the 1990s is [because it] only had one product - the 501. Diesel capitalised on that. We were the first fashion brand to directly engage the gay market. In the 1980s and '90s Diesel questioned what were to be the norms in society."

Adding that denim is a staple in the market because it's so practical, Keighery argues that whether dressed up or down, denim is the world's most functional fabric and garment.

"Technology in denim has opened the market up to clients who wouldn't usually wear denim. Stretch in denim is only a new thing in the past five to six years, as are washes and treatments. Fabric weavers have never had it this good. The demand for denim has never been so good. The market is much easier than it was. [Customers are] more sophisticated and willing to pay more if they are getting product that is individual."
One brand offering individuality is Ksubi, according to Keighery.

"Ksubi is the best marketed Australian fashion brand I've ever seen. They are very clever. The fashion industry is driven by product and perception, and the perception in today's market is that Ksubi is the grooviest brand."

Unavailable for comment at the time of press - with founder Dan Single about to leave on tour to play with rock group Daft Punk and his co-founder George Gorrow also away from the office - Ksubi incorporates music, celebrity and product placement.

Agreeing that with denim, brand kudos matters, denim queen Bettina Liano says in the past decade denim has been propelled from working class wear to high fashion, and cult denim labels are defiantly driving that.

"Australian fashion is great at the moment and denim is a huge component of that. I'm in a very fortunate position in that the celebrity endorsement of my jeans has grown organically. It has never been something that I have actively driven as the product has always spoken for itself. I have a number of international celebrity clients who have their personal assistants order jeans for them because they can't find a fit like mine anywhere else in the world."

Adding that trust, reliability and originality are what keeps customers interested in her denim line, Liano says she always tries to reproduce the same fit.

"It's not hard to come up with a new concept. Weather they sell or not is the hard part."
The explosion of Australian denim into the world's denim market (particularly the US) has for some boosted the global perception of Australian fashion.

Australian denim has a very different look to US denim according to Rachel Rose, owner of 18th Amendment.
"I think customers, particularly in the US appreciate that. Labels like Ksubi and sass & bide really opened the doors for brands like ours. Globally I think many buyers are now looking to Australian brands to provide a point of difference."
Exporting approximately 90 per cent of its business, 18th Amendment is one of the few brands left still manufacturing all its denim onshore.

"It is by no means at a low cost. In fact it costs as much as three times what it would cost to make in the US," says Rose.
"18th Amendment is now in 20 countries and is stocked in some of the most premium stores in the world. We have only been going for two years so to achieve this in this time frame has been amazing and reflects the seriousness the overseas buyers treat Australian brands."

Unable to contribute the growing popularity in denim solely to the emergence of cult brands, Rose says by applying a fashion mindset to denim there are endless possibilities.

"Obviously cult brands have enhanced the attraction of denim to the fashion forward crowd and certainly many of these brands are successful in developing new looks and wash techniques as they tend to take a more experimental approach to their designs in comparison with some of the older brands. [But] I think one of the main reasons denim has grown so much in popularity is that today we dress more casually both socially and professionally. Denim is the perfect answer; it's versatile and can take you from the street to a night out."

"At the end of the day girls want to wear a great fitting jean with a bit of an edge to it and this is what we try to focus our energy on. We believe our customer doesn't necessarily buy a fashion item just because they see a celebrity wearing a certain brand."

Agreeing denim is much wider and broader than 'cult labels', Nobody creative director Wesley Hartwell questions whether they alone are responsible for an overall growth in denim popularity.

Contributing Nobody's uniqueness to the brand's success, Hartwell says the popular denim label stands for and speaks for itself, in terms of quality, fit, manufacture, customisation, and most of all integrity.

"As we have our own laundry, we design and manufacture everything in Fitzroy (Melbourne). We make our jeans the way we do because it's important to us and they are priced as they are, because that's the cost. People that buy them get the best jean possible for the price we [sell] them [at]."

Having launched in 1999, today Nobody has grown to be stocked in the world's leading denim stores. In spite of the brand's success, Nobody prefers to be known as a 'Melbourne label' rather than an example of a "clichéd Australian attitude or style".

"Success is all about quality of product and it's slightly disrespectful to say that it's part of an explosion of Australian brands", says Hartwell.

"I give complete respect to every Australian label that is making it internationally. I think they must earn their place in [the] market, everyone's success is distinct. We are not sharing any PR teams, sales showrooms, or sharing any communal Australian vibe. We're proudly Australian, but not resting our laurels on that fact."

By Samantha Docherty