With the Australian Fashion Industry Awards fast approaching, Ragtrader is taking a daily look inside each category — the finalists, the work behind the entries and the strategy that earned them their place.
Next up: Industry Collaboration Award, championing landmark partnerships across the Australian fashion industry. The six finalists are Akubra x DotCollective; Camilla x The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles x The Volte x Seamless x Dissh; Cotton Australia x The Woolmark Company; Leo Lin x Capella Sydney; Tommy Hilfiger ANZ x Cadillac F1; and Strand x Flight Centre.
Winners will be revealed at the AFIA Awards Lunch on Thursday 6 August at The Promenade Docklands, Melbourne. Tickets are on sale now.
The AFIAs 2026 are supported by Headline Sponsor The Retail Score, Gold Sponsors Better Packaging and ReStore, Silver Sponsors Apparel21 and Williams Logistics and Bronze Sponsor Afterpay.
Here's the work that got the finalists there in alphabetical order:
Akubra x DotCollective
In 2025, Akubra partnered with independent creative agency DotCollective to deliver a complete reimagining of the brand's digital experience — not simply a website redesign, but a project to digitally unearth the brand, reconnecting the online experience with the heritage, emotion and identity behind 150 years of Australian hat making.
Launched in March 2026, the new platform spanned UX, UI, creative direction, content strategy and ecommerce optimisation, drawing on archival brand cues for typography and art direction. The most significant creative shift was the introduction of lifestyle imagery featuring people wearing Akubra hats — a first for the brand's website — positioning the brand within real environments and narratives rather than product cut-outs. It landed alongside a full ecommerce architecture overhaul, refined collection storytelling and mobile-first optimisation.
Following launch, Akubra recorded 35% year-on-year online revenue growth, with improvements to navigation, mobile usability and conversion pathways lifting engagement across the funnel. The collaboration shifted customer perception of the brand online — from transactional platform to branded destination — connecting emerging audiences while strengthening loyalty among existing customers. It also established a scalable visual language and ecommerce framework for the brand's next generation of growth.
Camilla x The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In April 2026, Camilla united with New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in a first-of-its-kind collaboration celebrating fashion as wearable art — more than 5,000 years of art history meeting two decades of CAMILLA print artistry under a formal licensing framework.
Camilla Franks explored The Met's collections in person, translating historic textiles, decorative arts, porcelain and jewellery into six bespoke prints across womenswear, menswear and accessories priced from $600 to $6,000. The Met threw its weight behind the partnership — a campaign shoot inside the museum, co-branded PR, social amplification, email marketing to its database and a closed-door tour exclusively for Camilla clients. The launch was strategically phased from pre-launch buzz, including an AFR editorial exclusive and a large-scale Sydney PR event, through to conversion with a New York PR dinner and an exclusive Saks Fifth Avenue partnership including a 49th Street window takeover.
The collection generated $2.1 million in sales and 2,361 units over six weeks — Camilla's most successful collaboration to date, with bestselling print Museum Memoirs alone accounting for $709,000 and 729 units. The campaign delivered more than 560 social placements and 22 media placements with total reach close to 70 million, setting a benchmark for how cultural institutions and Australian luxury brands can partner.
Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles x The Volte x Seamless x Dissh
The Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion + Textiles — a collaboration between UTS and TAFE NSW — exists to support the industry's sustainability transition through education, research and advocacy, with collaboration built into its structure across five projects delivered in the past 12 months.
In 2025 the CoE trained more than 150 Australian fashion professionals in sustainability topics from strategy to CLO3D and natural dye, bringing total industry learners to nearly 500 over three years. Alumni are now in sustainability roles at brands including Alemais, APG, eBay and MJ Bale. A partnership with Dissh gave final-year students unwearable warehouse returns to upcycle into their graduate collections — so successful that Dissh is now running the project nationwide with fashion schools.
Research outcomes matched the education impact. The WORK: Fashion + Sustainability Jobs of the Future report, outlining 20 future roles, was launched by the NSW Minister for Skills and will inform curricula at UTS and TAFE NSW. A UTS lifecycle assessment for The Volte quantified carbon savings per wear across its rental model — earning WWD, Daily Telegraph and Harper's Bazaar coverage and a Vice Chancellor's Research Award — while a Seamless-partnered pilot with First Nations fashion practitioners is building trust and Indigenous design knowledge into circularity work.
Cotton Australia x The Woolmark Company
The 2026 Australian Natural Fibres Forum marked a landmark moment: Australia's two leading natural fibre industries united on a shared platform for the first time, with Cotton Australia and Woolmark contributing equally to strategy, agenda, speakers and storytelling.
The full-day forum brought together 255 attendees spanning growers, brands, retailers, manufacturers, researchers and sustainability leaders from Australia and international markets. Rather than separating the industries into streams, cotton and wool perspectives were integrated throughout — keynotes, panels, grower-led sessions, an interactive debate and even a pop quiz — addressing shared challenges around sustainability communication, traceability, consumer education and competition from synthetics.
Post-event survey results were exceptionally strong: an overall experience rating of 4.72 out of five from 94 responses, sessions rated 4.56 for informativeness and speaker engagement at 4.62. Attendees consistently identified grower perspectives as the most valuable element, with many reporting improved understanding of Australian farming systems, water efficiency and fibre production realities. Most importantly, feedback confirmed the forum's strategic achievement — repositioning cotton and wool as complementary natural fibre systems rather than competitors, strengthening the collective voice of Australian natural fibres in global sustainability and sourcing discussions.
Leo Lin x Capella Sydney
For the Year of the Horse, luxury label Leo Lin and five-star hotel Capella Sydney created the first collaboration of its kind in the Australian market — a fully integrated Lunar New Year cultural experience. It spanned a bespoke hotel package, a custom afternoon high tea three months in development, in-room Leo Lin amenities for suite guests, a signature cocktail and the global launch of the brand's first non-apparel product: a Limited Edition Mahjong Set.
The campaign ran digital-first from January through March 2026, building to a launch event apex: an intimate afternoon tea and roaming runway for 40 VIPs, media and KOLs including Lily May Mac. The in-room amenity package — available only through direct booking — became Capella's key commercial differentiator, drawing its highest-spending guest profile.
Results were exceptional on both sides. The Mahjong Set achieved 96% global sell-through in eight weeks, with US stock repatriated to meet demand. Leo Lin generated more than five million reach across 295 pieces of social content and Instagram grew from 280,000 to over 300,000 followers. Capella Sydney confirmed it as the best-performing Lunar New Year campaign in the hotel's history — revenue up 655% year on year, reservations up 417%, guest spend 46% above average and bookings paused within a week as demand exceeded capacity.
Tommy Hilfiger ANZ x Cadillac F1
The Cadillac Formula 1 team's global Tommy Hilfiger partnership was initially announced in August 2025. The Australian Grand Prix — the first race of the season and the first ever for the newest team on the grid — landed in March 2026. That left the Australasian team four months over Christmas to make an impact. The collaboration united Tommy Hilfiger global, Cadillac F1, Cadillac Australia and PVH Brands Australia — four partners and four agencies spanning media, PR and events.
Melbourne was transformed during Formula 1 week. An elevated showroom and consumer pop-up ran at Emporium Melbourne, headlined by a public appearance from driver Valtteri Bottas attended by more than 2,250 fans — with American actor Terry Crews among the celebrity talent — while an interactive race simulator generated over 2,200 consumer interactions. More than 60 out-of-home placements including a Melbourne CBD tram wrap amplified the campaign, while celebrity and influencer attendance on track included Cody Simpson and Gabriella Brooks. Seven Tommy Hilfiger stores nationally were activated with F1-inspired windows alongside Myer and David Jones executions and a capsule collection across DTC and wholesale.
The collaboration positioned Tommy Hilfiger at the intersection of premium fashion, entertainment and Formula 1 culture — delivering measurable retail, acquisition and engagement outcomes while strengthening cultural connection with next-generation consumers.
Strand x Flight Centre
Strand, with more than 250 stores across ANZ, entered a long-term partnership with Flight Centre — 760 stores and a loyalty base of 550,000-plus customers — built around a shared insight: meet the traveller at the point of highest purchase intent, the moment of booking, and convert travel excitement into retail spend.
At its core is a tiered voucher program embedded directly into the Flight Centre booking experience. Eligible customers receive a $30 or $60 Strand voucher on completing a booking, redeemable across brands including Nere, Antler, Samsonite and American Tourister — directing hot leads with confirmed travel plans straight into the Strand ecosystem. Activation across Flight Centre's full retail and digital network is projected to deliver 20 million brand impressions over the term.
The 12-month partnership is structured for accountability, targeting incremental revenue of more than $1 million at a 3x return on ad spend. Acquired customers enter the Strand database as a distinct cohort for lifecycle marketing through Strand+. For Flight Centre, tangible travel-adjacent rewards deepen loyalty program value at a moment when booking platforms are fighting for differentiation. The reach also supports Strand's House of Brands strategy, where own brands Nere and Antler are growing 22% and 38% year on year respectively and need demand creation earlier in the travel planning journey.