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“There are some really big high street brands that are trying to get into it, but I think it’s going to be very difficult to do that,” she said. “There aren’t many brands our size that can continue to operate here, there’s such a skills shortage here to be honest.”
The EY Australian Fashion and Textile Industry Survey 2021 found that 88 per cent of local fashion businesses design their products in Australia, but only 29 per cent source some of their materials from local suppliers.
The Fashion Council of Australia has identified a “major opportunity” for more local sourcing and production.
Vicki Nicola, lead lecturer in fashion and millinery at the Kangan Institute, says fashion manufacturing has played an important role in Melbourne’s history.
“Post-Covid, we can see a return of more and more brands appearing on the beach,” she said.
Nicola In the heyday of Melbourne’s rag trade in the 1950s and 1960s, Flinders Lane was a manufacturing hub, she said, while Collingwood and Richmond were also important locations for the fashion industry.
A prosperous trade: the Flinders Lane rag trade district in 1965.Credit:The Fairfax Archives
“I’ve seen the industry go from everything that was made in Melbourne until the early 2000s when everything went offshore and was made in Melbourne,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to be like it used to be, but I definitely feel like there’s a little bit of a vibe coming back.”
Nicola said the new wave of fashion producers are spreading across Melbourne and the key areas are Collingwood, Sunshine, Abbotsford and Richmond.
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“There are more and more companies manufacturing locally, but we have to deal with a huge shortage of workers and materials and a demand for domestic products that exceeds supply,” she said.
Woods and Nicola are both speaking at this week’s Melbourne Fashion Week event for “Make it Melbourne”, a three-part documentary of the same name that focuses on Melbourne’s emerging clothing manufacturing hubs.
Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Cupp said the fashion industry was big business for Melbourne and manufacturing was an important part of the whole process.
“It’s a cycle of communication from the designer’s creation to the work, to the runway show to the retail experience,” she says.
“I’m the grandson of a milliner from Flinders Lane and I feel a great personal connection to that and how important it is. We don’t want to lose; We want to show it to flourish.
Do It Melbourne is taking place at ACMI on Thursday 13 October at 11am in Federation Square. Melbourne Fashion Week runs from October 10 to 16.
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