If you wanted to sell fashion in Australia in 1996, you needed to know the right people. A designer's fortunes rested on getting their collection in front of a select handful of wholesale buyers from David Jones or Myer, or cultivating relationships with the boutique owners who held the keys to discretionary spending in Double Bay or Toorak.
For those outside that rarefied circle, the options were markedly humbler: a market stall at Paddington or the Vic Market, perhaps, selling direct to whoever wandered past on a Saturday morning. Just like Zimmermann did in 1991.
Fashion's gatekeepers were few, their favour precious, and the pathway from sketchbook to shopfloor ran almost entirely through their hands.
But now? You just need a few hundred dollars and an internet connection. The distance between a designer and their customer has collapsed. And nowhere is that collapse more visible than at Australian Fashion Week.
Fashion Week boss Kellie Hush calls this the democratisation of fashion.
"When you went to the fashion shows 30 years ago, it was still very traditional media. Fashion used to be a closed door to the public. Very specific people would go a couple of times a year to Paris, Milan, New York, London, to see fashion shows, and it was invitation only, and no one could see it until it was printed in magazines and newspapers."
But as social media took over the world, you didn’t need to wait for the next print edition. Soon, you could see the looks coming down the runway in real time, on your phone, while lying in bed at home.
And with that, Fashion Weeks globally had to change, including our own. The shift was structural, not merely cultural. No longer a trade event for buyers and editors, Fashion Week began to evolve into a brand activation platform – an Instagram backdrop, a TikTok soundbite.
Audiences who had never held a buyer's order book began to watch runway shows in real time, to form opinions, to share, to influence. The idea that fashion's value flowed top-down – from editor to reader, from buyer to shopfloor, from designer to consumer – began to look less like an immutable law and more like an artefact of the pre-internet age.
Phoebes Garland, founder of fashion consultancy Garland and Garland, frames this transformation in terms of a fundamental renegotiation of value itself.
"Right now, the market feels intensely value-driven, but 'value' has taken on a very different meaning than it did in the past. It's no longer just about longevity, craftsmanship, or the story behind a garment – it's often about immediacy, price accessibility, and constant novelty, particularly under Gen Z."
The retail landscape that underpinned the original AFW model has also shifted dramatically.
"If you look back 30 years, the retail landscape was far more contained and curated," Garland observes. "We didn't have the saturation of global chain stores, nor the relentless pace of fast fashion cycles. There was also a natural limitation in access – without the internet, discovery was slower, and brands had more space to build identity and loyalty.
“Designers and labels could communicate value through quality and consistency, rather than through volume and speed. There was an excitement about exclusivity."
But now, the operating environment is completely different. Fast fashion giants like Shein can sell t-shirts for $10. The usual Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer ranges have given way to weekly and sometimes daily drops. And we are fast becoming overwhelmed with choice.
Garland says there is a growing disconnect – particularly among young people – when it comes to understanding heritage and appreciating workmanship.
“It’s not necessarily that this new generation doesn’t care – it’s more that they’ve been conditioned to engage with fashion in a different way. When everything is immediate and disposable, it becomes harder to recognise the value of something made to last. That’s the real challenge now: not just selling clothes, but rebuilding an appreciation for what goes into them and also for brands to re-educate value.”
Another key driver in AFW’s shift to include consumers is that the top-end buyer market they have been selling to has been slowly shrinking over the last decade or so, all thanks to the surge in online shopping. We’ve seen major department stores globally collapsing or downsizing.
Saks in the United States recently collapsed into bankruptcy, and has come out a lot leaner. Debenhams in the United Kingdom wound up its entire store portfolio and now only sells online. And in New Zealand, Smith & Caughey’s shut its doors completely last year after 145 years in business.
And that’s not to mention the challenges faced by Myer and David Jones, both of which have diversified their business models to survive. Many players in the market expect to see less physical department stores over the next decade.
In fact, many market analysts think the wholesale fashion market in Australia overall will get smaller in the next few years.
This is the landscape into which the 2026 edition of AFW arrives. After IMG dropped the event with little warning in late 2024, the Australian Fashion Council stepped in, pulling the event together in less than six months. Under AFC stewardship, and supported by Destination NSW, the 2026 event has introduced a structure that attempts to serve both its traditional trade constituency and an increasingly clamorous consumer audience.
The format is deliberate. Daytime shows, from the first runway through to late afternoon, remain firmly trade-focused — buyers, media, industry. Consumer-facing shows take place in the evenings, positioned after many consumers are finishing work.
And yes, being sponsored by Destination NSW would require the AFC to help drive visitors to the state, but Kellie Hush says this is the commercial reality of running an event like this.
“If you look at the models overseas – Paris, Milan, New York, and London to a certain extent – they're not underwritten by a not for profit organisation,” she says. “Chanel, Dior, Gucci – they put on their own shows. They're fully funded by the brands.”
In the grand scheme of things, the Australian fashion industry is not as big as markets overseas. A lot of brands here don’t have millions of dollars to put on a show. For AFW to be successful, it needs sponsors. And that means aiming for KPIs, including increased visitation.
But, despite the tension felt across the industry about the rise of consumer runways, the brands expanding into the consumer runway model see the opportunities.
Carla Zampatti is one of a few brands who have opted to include a consumer runway at AFW this year. The designer label has been showcasing its styles at the yearly event even before IMG took over operations in 2005. In fact, the brand’s CEO Alex Schuman said his Mum, the Carla Zampatti, worked very closely with Simon Lock when AFW was established 30 years ago. In the years since, she only showed infrequently, every five years or so.
“Now 30 years later, Carla Zampatti has become something of a regular on the AFW runway,” he says. “This is our third consecutive year at AFW, after a hiatus following Mum’s passing in 2021.”
This year, Schuman says it's all about giving back to the brand’s consumers and showcasing Australian fashion to an international audience.
“At its heart, Australian Fashion Week is a trade show, offering designers a stage to showcase what’s ahead in the year,” he says. “That makes it different from other fashion weeks, but we don’t want to forget the importance of our Australian audience.
“So we’re doing both, one show for industry and media, and a second show open to the public to purchase tickets. I really hope this is a direction that other brands follow so that we bring the energy and excitement to the city for this important event.”
The other designers presenting both a consumer runway and a trade runway include Mariam Seddiq, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, Hansen & Gretel, and two Edit shows on Thursday night that feature a raft of designers such as Aje Studio, Anna Quan, Bec + Bridge, Bondi Born, Effie Kats, Friends with Frank, Henne, M.J. Bale, Romy, Silk Laundry and Two.One.
Founder Mariam Seddiq, who is marking her 10th year showing at AFW, matching 11 years in business, says the consumer approach is about opening up the brand’s world.
“Showing both consumer and trade allows for deeper engagement while still maintaining strong industry relationships,” Seddiq says.
“Whether it works for every brand depends on their goals and resources. For some, it’s a powerful way to build community and accessibility; for others, the traditional trade-focused model may remain more effective.”
For Phoebes Garland, the consumer revival is a natural evolution. She says this doesn’t change the ultimate goal of Australian Fashion Week, which is to essentially drive commercial outcomes for brands.
“I don’t think the focus will shift away from trade,” Garland says. “That priority has been clearly reinforced through industry consultation prior to the transition under the Australian Fashion Council.
“Instead, opening the doors to consumers acts as a complementary layer – one that serves as a powerful marketing channel. It creates excitement, builds brand awareness, and fosters a more immediate connection between designers and their end audience.
“In turn, that engagement can translate into stronger retail demand, ultimately supporting the same designers at AFW.”