Melbourne Fashion Festival: Enjoy fashion

At half past six in the evening, more and more vehicles are parked at Nicholson Street in the heart of Melbourne. As long as you stop for a while, you can see all the dressed up guests coming down from the car. The men in suits and suits are a bit boring, and the dressing of young girls is more worth seeing. Some of them wear printed suit suits, some wear black polka-dot dresses, and some wear off-the-shoulder dresses. In mid-March, Melbourne is entering the autumn season and entering the most comfortable season of the year.

If you didn't confirm the invitation information in advance, you would never have thought that the guests who seemed to go to the Judy party actually went to the Royal Melbourne Exhibition Hall. This building, built in 1880, was once the venue of the International Exposition and the only building in Australia that has been included in the UN World Heritage List. Today, it is the host of the 23rd Melbourne Fashion Festival.

The Melbourne Fashion Festival is Australia's largest and most influential fashion event. It is so special that the cognitive experience established by industry insiders to participate in other fashion weeks is almost inapplicable here.

In addition to buyers, retailers and the media, the main audience for the Melbourne Fashion Festival is the local average consumer. Secondly, the 10-day schedule of the Melbourne Fashion Festival is almost entirely concentrated in the time after 7pm, and all the shows are still open for sale. At a price of less than 500 yuan, the audience can buy a show ticket and see a collection of fashion shows containing the latest collections of designers.

If it's in Milan, London, New York, and especially Paris Fashion Week, all the brand shows are almost exclusively invited to the "most important" industry insiders and big customers worldwide. And because the show of different designers is often held in different places, the audience often has to fly from the end of the city to the other end within an hour. Therefore, the requirements for physical strength and energy are very high. Most of the time, I really don’t talk about it. "Enjoy".

Melbourne Fashion Festival CEO Graeme Lewsey explained this arrangement, all in order to make the working hours most of the nine-to-five office workers more comfortable and enjoyable to come to the show. “We want consumers to spend a lot of money on money. If they dress up and want to have a great night, I better give them a lot of brands and let them enjoy.”

Unlike the audience's dress, the industry insider is wearing a lot of "cool". But he doesn't look like those in the industry who are familiar with other fashion weeks – he wears a pair of twilight sunglasses, and the white T-Shirt in a blue linen suit says High Hopes, it looks like It’s quite like coming on vacation.

At 7:21, the first show of the night finally began. The show included a total of nine women's brands. Looking at the top ten models walking the T-stage, one of the most intuitive feelings is that many models don't even have the glamour of the audience.

Many of the models still wear off-the-shoulder tops and dresses that have been on fire for a few years; the straw elements that only appear in the big-name holiday series also appear on the T-stage on a large scale; the high-heeled shoes are almost without traces, Converse, sandals and Dr.Martens Martin boots are the most popular models on the streets of Australia. It is probably only the enduring and often reincarnation of animal prints that can be a fashionable bridge between Melbourne and Paris.

"Tu O"

When chatting with several Chinese students studying in Australia, more than one of them mentioned that Australia has a local name in the local Chinese community: “Tuao”.

Bai Yu, who has been studying in Australia for 4 years, said that she feels that Australians are not affected by the world's fashion. Just as the young people in the world who are pursuing trends are using small pockets, young Australians still insist on using big shopping bags. And straw bag.

Miranda, who has been immigrating to Sydney for five years, said his own "industry observation." She studied in New York and had an internship in fashion magazines. She ran through New York Fashion Week and currently works for a jewelry company in Melbourne. In her view, the Melbourne Fashion Festival is not meant to set the trend. "The international trend is not necessarily popular in Australia, even if it is popular, it will be slower in the first half or one year."

This is not deliberate. The delay and even disconnection of Australian fashion has both geographical and historical reasons.

Due to its location in the southern hemisphere, Australia and Europe, North America and Asia have the exact opposite seasons. When the new summer dresses in the mainstream fashion market in the world, Australia is wintering, and the fashion trend is naturally half a year here.

In addition, compared to Europe, the Australian fashion industry started a lot later.

Jennifer Craik, a professor at the Queensland University of Technology School of Design, wrote in the article "Challenges for Australian fashion" that since the British colonies were established in Australia in the 18th century, the demand for textiles across the continent has been high for a long time. Relying on imports, almost all fashionable clothes are here before the sea, local tailors make clothes completely mimic the design of other regions, especially Europe.

Moreover, Australia is sparsely populated, with a small and scattered plain area, making “shopping shopping” – looking at shopping information brochures, picking up postal orders, and waiting for mail to arrive – becoming the most common shopping method in early Australia. This limits the possibility of local residents catching up with the trend.

It was not until the 1990s that the Australian fashion industry was alive. The government really began to see the fashion industry as a creative and cultural industry, and introduced a series of policies to train local designers. Well-known Australian designers such as Alex Perry, Nicky Zimmermann and Simone Zimmermann have emerged since then.

“exquisite casual feeling”

However, until today, it is not easy to find some “shocking” designers or very successful commercial brands in Australia. Most Australian designs are not as "tidal", nor sharp or sharp, and even some slightly tough silhouettes are rare. What they are best at is about simple, comfortable and even dull designs. And this is the portrayal of the daily life of Australians.

Walking on the streets of Melbourne, it is almost impossible to see people wearing high heels and shoes. Both men and women prefer sandals, flip-flops and a variety of sneakers; even at noon on weekdays, passing through the Federation Square in downtown Melbourne, where More than 20 canvas lazy couches have been lying on the sun-baked people, it seems to be nearby students and office workers; every time at sunset, the street bar starts to open early, wearing a black rivet leather vest in the bald head The man and the young man in a blue linen shirt sat together at the bar facing the street while drinking and looking at the pedestrians walking slowly on the road.

The New York Times columnist Bari Weiss wrote in the "Australians Have More Fun" that most people can only chat with friends for 7 hours on the beach when they are in college, or what to lie on. Don't do it, but Australians can spend that every Sunday.

This lifestyle is largely due to the comfortable and pleasant climate. The average temperature of the hottest month covered by the ocean is about 25 degrees, and the coldest month can reach 5-15 degrees.

“The weather is especially good in summer and autumn, when the most popular among Australian girls is a variety of skirts, lace and tulle everywhere.” Maddy Philips, who is still in college, also participated in the Melbourne Fashion Festival that night. On the day she saw her, she didn't wear a skirt, but a tight-fitting white blouse reveals the entire back, and the long sleeves and the bow on the back make her dress still ritual.

As a native of Australia, Maddy's favorite local brands include C/MEO Collective, Alice McCall and Elliatt. Coincidentally, these brands have gained increasing popularity in China in recent years. Take a look at Weibo or Xiaohongshu's discussion of these brands and find that "Xian" is their common keyword.

For "Xian", Maddy was a little embarrassed when he first heard it. She insisted that she never thought about using the word to describe the brands that she liked. But after a while, she said, maybe Australian women's clothing really has such qualities.

In fact, Australian men's clothing also gives a softer aesthetic that is less grounded. It is not appropriate to describe it with "Xian". In Lewsey's words, it may be more accurate. It is a kind of "exquisite casual feeling" - this is In his view, Australia is a place where people are born and unique fashion styles.

It’s too late to think more, at 7:51, when the women’s show is over, the crowds that leave the scene are automatically formed, and the arrows point to a single, from the Royal Exhibition Hall to the rest area outside the hall.

At this time, there is still some time for the men’s show that starts at 8:30. It is a good time to have a glass of champagne. The people around have already started to push the cup and talk and laugh. Australian menswear designer Christian Kimber also joined. A men's show for a while, his eponymous brand will also participate, will release the second series since its inception.

Kimber is 30 years old and has just won the National Designer Award in Australia. Born and raised in the UK, he studied business at Queen Mary College in London and later studied fashion design at night school because he likes fashion. In 2011, he moved to Melbourne with his Australian wife and began to get involved in menswear design from the beginning of 2018. Prior to this, he founded the same name footwear brand.

He believes that Australian men prefer clothing styles in the middle, and there are not only beach shorts but also formal suits in the closet. Only they will wear a colorful shirt in their suit. Therefore, he positioned his brand style as “between leisure and formality”.

“I hope that Christian Kimber can be the brand that defines how Australian men dress.”

In Australia, ambitious new designers like Kimber are emerging. At least half of the Melbourne Fashion Festival designers have just entered the business, and the T-station is an important opportunity for them to reach consumers.

The collection of the show objectively helped many young designers to realize the vision of running a show. It dramatically reduces the cost and time cost of each designer. Lewsey said that the designer's participation in the Melbourne Fashion Festival is only paying 1300 Australian dollars (about 6188 yuan).

It can be a big show behind the scenes, and the cost is at least several hundred thousand yuan. If the scale is huge, spending millions of dollars is not new. The payment by the designer is far from enough, and the big head still needs to be borne by the brand sponsor.

There are many sponsors at the Australian Fashion Festival. Visa, the payment technology company, sponsored the event for the first time in 2018. Jac Philips, who made the sponsorship decision, is the general manager of marketing for Visa Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Maddy is her daughter. Before 2017, Visa has been known for sports marketing and has never sponsored fashion events. Philips said she found that more and more young Australians are passionate about fashion festivals and fashion, and there are huge marketing opportunities hidden in them.

Look at the audience around, how much can feel the enthusiasm she said.

Like now, many viewers are chatting with friends while drinking the Italian San Pellegrino soda for free. There are also many young girls who are carrying a gift bag worth $100 from the local drugstore chain Priceline. Some people talked about the fashion show that will be launched after the sponsorship of Visa, Shop The Runway, want to try the "T shop shopping" fresh; and just in the show, all the audience follow the music The writhing, jumping, and even many people cheered when they saw the models and clothes they liked. No one will doubt that this is a carnival.

This relaxed atmosphere is also a microcosm of the Australian fashion industry.

Kimber came to Australia from Europe. One of the biggest feelings is that the Australian fashion industry is relaxed and open. The industry insiders will not only support him because the designers are doing well, but they also hope to tap potential talents and help him grow. During the day without a formal fashion show, the Melbourne Fashion Festival hosted an informal open-air fashion show for designers who had just entered the business and didn't have much budget, just to give them the opportunity to get in touch with consumers.

“The great thing about the Melbourne Fashion Festival is that it is nurtured and created on the basis of local culture and local style, and it is very supportive of local businesses and local designers,” says Philips.

But for Australian designers, especially emerging designers who are eager for more opportunities, one of the unavoidable disadvantages is that the Australian fashion industry still has a limited position in the global fashion landscape and is far from the fashion mainstream market.

According to data cited in a report by the Australian media's Dialogue website, Australians spend A$28 billion (about 133.5 billion yuan) a year in the fashion industry, of which A$15.2 billion is used to purchase high-value designs. According to the brand products of the division, the export value of Australian fashion products is only 6.1 billion Australian dollars. If you look at the data of France, which is currently recognized as the most developed fashion industry, France's export of fashion products can reach A$14.6 billion a year, of which 70% to 80% of the export share are high value-added luxury goods.

As far as Australia is concerned, the space for development is still large. Based on the same set of data, the current number of fashion workers in Australia is about 37,000, but in fact the number of jobs that have been supplied by the entire industry has exceeded 220,000.

Fortunately, Australia's desire to expand its fashion influence is not without its advantages. At least in China, this increase in influence is visible to the naked eye.

Australia’s highly developed tourism industry is one of its strengths. In 2018, 8.4 million people flew overseas to the southern hemisphere, and 1.3 million of them were Chinese tourists. They may come to see kangaroos and koalas, perhaps to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef to see the corals under the sea. For whatever purpose, they probably want to go to the local shopping malls. Australia's David Jones and Myer department stores have a large number of Australian local brands. Visitors from other continents have brought high traffic to these department stores, and also bought a lot of local designer clothes.

There are also many immigrants and international students from all over the world in Australia, especially Chinese. In 2017, Australia's CBD News reported that nearly 40% of residents in the Melbourne CBD are Chinese, and a quarter of them are born in mainland China, many of whom are international students.

In addition to how many Australian brands they buy, many of them will bring Australian brands back to China. There are 35,000 notes on Australian fashion brands on Xiaohongshu, many of which are written by local students or immigrants. Under these illustrated Australian brand introduction notes, the most common comments are “Where to buy” and “How to buy”.

The development of social media and e-commerce has further narrowed the gap between Australia and the world's mainstream fashion markets.

In the summer of 2018, the hottest leopard print skirt on Instagram is a good example. This skirt is found in almost every net red wardrobe. This dress comes from the Australian brand Réalisation Par, which is sold all over the summer and is constantly out of stock and then out of stock. The sales range is global. Maddy complained that he did not grab it as a local, and finally had to buy a copy of the imitation every day.

In addition to single items, more Australian brands are also becoming "net red." Designer brands Elley and Dion Lee have nearly 300,000 fans on Instagram. And their brand is already available in the world's most famous buyers and fashion shopping sites.

Kimber is also diligently running his own Instagram. His brand is also starting an international journey. The Chinese market is his first stop. In May 2018, the boutique retail department store Lane Crawford launched the Creative Call Out competition in Sydney, and came to Australia to explore new designers. Kimber and 11 other designers stood out among more than 300 candidates. The winner, and got the order of Lane Crawford. His brand will be sold in Lane Crawford, Shanghai in April 2019.

Kimber's grand plan has not been finished yet, but the men's show is about to start. The audience re-entered the venue, and many people held the champagne that had just been renewed.

Before the separation, he went on to say that his next goal for the brand was to work with department stores in the United States, then go to the UK and Japan, and open five brand flagship stores around the world within five years.

I still have his words in the ear, I sat in the last row of the show, in order to better see what will happen in a while.

Kimber was sitting in the first row on the north side of the show, not far from here. His brand was in the fifth appearance, and after the last model turned around, he could see that he had some relaxation. Soon, the music sounded again. He also swayed with the crowd and was quickly "flooded" in a crowd of people who were disappointing.