Australian Fashion Week Hits 30 With First Nations On the Front Row

Thirty editions in, and AFW has finally stopped pretending the most interesting clothes are an afterthought. The First Nations slate at Carriageworks this week sits squarely on the marquee days, not buried at 9am Friday like it would have been in 2019. There’s a Vogue Vintage Market on the schedule for the first time. The runway count is down again. Hold that thought, I’ll come back to it.

The Australian Fashion Council confirmed the program in late April. Year two as custodians and they’ve doubled down on the Indigenous Fashion Projects partnership, with Lazy Eye, Liandra and Ngali woven into the seven-day calendar instead of corralled into a single afternoon. A council program lead, speaking on background (naturally), put it like this: “This is no longer a side stream. It is the program.” Which is the kind of line you only get to say once you’ve actually built the schedule that proves it.

Smaller. Again.

RUSSH ran the full schedule on April 22. Monday to Friday at Carriageworks plus a few off-sites, COMMAS opening at 7am (because of course COMMAS opens at 7am), Romance Was Born closing on day five. Roughly fifteen percent fewer shows than 2024.

Not a new story. AFW has been quietly shrinking ever since IMG handed the keys back in 2022, and the run of brand collapses since (Sass & Bide, the Camilla and Marc wholesale arm winding down, that whole tier of mid-market labels that couldn’t survive a third rate hike) has just thinned the calendar further. What’s actually new is that nobody at the council is bothering to spin it. Smaller. Fewer shows that matter more. That’s the line and they’re sticking to it.

Fashion Journal counted nine debuts on the official schedule. Ahkeel Mestack, the South Sudanese-Australian knitwear label, is showing what organisers want you to call a world-first knitted puffer. Sure, why not. Alice Van Meurs out of Canberra is collaborating with Gurindji Waanyi artist Sarrita King for the emerging designer slot, and the look book on that one had teeth.

The vintage thing

A public-facing market, on the official schedule. Not bolted on the side. Actually inside Bay 17. The Vogue Vintage Market presented by eBay runs two days mid-week. Christine Centenera framed it as a nod to the secondary market, which is the polite way of saying Vogue has finally clocked that resale is where the eyeballs are. THE ICONIC’s resale numbers and eBay’s own AU figures back it up. Pre-loved buying outpaced first-hand growth among Australian women 18 to 34 last year.

Five years ago this would have read as heresy. A vintage market, on the AFW calendar, in the middle of the working week. The fact it now feels obvious tells you a lot about where the industry actually sits, versus where the press releases used to pretend it sat.

Where the money comes from now

Shark Beauty back as presenting partner for a second year. Beauty by Rosh, the Sri Lankan-Australian house, picked up dual sponsorship across the official backstage room and the First Nations showcase. Cosmetics underwrites this whole event now. The spirits brands, the German luxury sedans, all the old Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week era money: gone. Whether you read that as growth or contraction probably says more about you than about AFW. The audience has changed.

Melbourne, again

Every year, this conversation. The Age reported on April 23 that Caroline Ralphsmith had stepped down as head of the Melbourne Fashion Festival, and you could set your watch by the takes that followed about whether this country can really sustain two flagship weeks. The AFW response is roughly: silence. Doesn’t have to engage. The schedule is in Sydney, the venue lock is in Sydney, every headline sponsor cheque clears in Sydney. That’s the whole argument, really.

What I’m actually showing up for

COMMAS at 7am Monday is the buyer barometer, it always is. If Richard Jarman’s commercial book holds up against the macro pressure, that tells you something about the state of high-end Australian menswear, which (let’s be honest) has been on life support for a minute. Beare Park at the MCA does a similar job on the women’s side. And then Romance Was Born to close. Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales have rebuilt that brand more times than I can count and it’s still one of the only AU houses with a genuine international wholesale book. They earn the slot.

But if you only get to one show this week, make it the First Nations showcase on Wednesday afternoon. It was the single most-shared runway moment of last year’s week by a mile. The council obviously knows it. They’ve quietly built the rest of the calendar around protecting that runway, and you can read the entire program shift through that one move.

Doors Monday. I’ll be backstage by Tuesday. More as it lands.