Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia has today announced that its 2016 event won’t go down as expected, with major changes in focus and timing enforced to better serve the Australian fashion industry and its global audience.
The highly anticipated event will now centre around resort collections rather than the Spring showcases of previous years, meaning Fashion Week Australia will become the first annual, organised presentation of resort collections.
The decision to become focused on resort collections was made in collaboration with local industry leaders, designers and the NSW Government, and the 2016 schedule will include our biggest fashion names to cement Sydney as a global fashion capital.
The timing of the event is also changing from mid April to May 15 to 21, which will also present new opportunities for designers. Dion Lee said in a news release, “MBFWA will now sit within a sales period for our business, which was a missed opportunity in the past. The April date has been too late to take fall orders and too early to present resort.”
He continued, “The change in dates will allow us to launch our resort collection in Sydney during the beginning of the global sales window for this collection.”
Photo: Josephine Willcox for theFashionSpot
With an increasing amount of global retail budgets now allocated to resort, it presents a huge business opportunity for export. Even Aussie designer Michael Lo Sordo decided against a Spring 2015 showcase at this year’s MBFWA in favour of Resort 2015, explaining to theFashionSpot that it was the best choice for his namesake label’s international focus.
Being trans-seasonal in nature, the ranges are also beneficial as they can see around a six-month retail life in the Asia Pacific market. Plus, fashion media are continuing to dedicate more resources towards resort coverage, so the press will be invaluable for every designer scheduled.
We love ourselves some resortwear, and are excited to see Australia set itself apart from the rest of the world with this strategic change. We can’t wait to see it all unfold next year.
