Australia imports almost​​​​​​​​ one and a half billion garments every year, but only 3% of clothing sold is actually made here. 

In light of this imbalance, what can be done to help Australian designers achieve their dreams locally?  

In this episode, Harriette talks to Julia van der Sommen, the Director of Sample Room. Based in Collingwood, Julia and her team help designers launch their labels with a range of domestic services — from pattern making to manufacturing.   

Show notes: 

Sample Room’s website 

Sample Room on Instagram 

Tickets to the ‘Start Your Fashion Business’ workshop 

Welcome to season two of the Critical Fashion Studies Podcast!  

This season is all about celebrating Melbourne’s fashion community — the practitioners, entrepreneurs, historians, and activists shaping the future of Australian fashion. 

Over the next 10 episodes, you'll hear conversations about queer fashion history, Indigenous fashion design, tailoring for diverse bodies, the lost art of bespoke shoe making, and much more. 

Every episode has been recorded on the unceded lands of the Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung language groups of the Eastern Kulin nation. We pay our deep respect to First Nations Elders past and present, not only here in Naarm but across the lands and waters of Australia where listeners may be tuning in.  

This season is brought to you by the Critical Fashion Studies Research Group with generous support from Creative Victoria. 

Show notes: 

The Critical Fashion Studies Research Group on Instagram 

Harriette and Natalya return to discuss some of the exciting conversations they attended at this year’s Melbourne Fashion Week.

Show notes:

Melbourne Fashion Week

The National Gallery of Victoria has one of the most extensive fashion and textile collections in the southern hemisphere, holding over 8,000 works by Australian and international designers.

In this season's final episode, Natalya Lusty and Britt Craig talk to the NGV's curator of international fashion and textiles, Paola Di Trocchio, about the gallery's collection and recent exhibitions, as well as how fashion shapes our social and cultural worlds.

Show notes

The NGV's fashion and textiles collection

Have you ever seen a label for Ethical Clothing Australia attached to a garment and wondered what it means?

In these week's episode, Harriette and Natalya interview ECA's national manager, Amanda Bresnan, about labour exploitation in the fashion industry and helping consumers make informed decisions about the clothes they buy.

Show notes:

ECA’s Digital Shopping Map

Earlier this year at Melbourne Fashion Festival, Nina Fitzgerald curated Thread Count, a multimedia installation of handwoven baskets and bags from Arnhem Land and the Daly River Region of the Northern Territory. 

Exhibiting the objects in a fashion festival highlighted the functionality of a beautiful Indigenous craft that has gone overlooked for too long.

In this week's episode, Harriette talks to Nina about her exhibition, Australia's recent embrace of Indigenous fashion, and the most constructive ways to support First Nation fashion workers.

Shownotes:

Nina Fitzgerald on Instagram

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, over 55,000 refugees fled their country to start a new life in Australia.

Many urgently needed jobs to support their relatives back home, and went on to play an important but overlooked role in our fashion industry as outworkers, employees who worked from home instead of at garment factories.

This week’s episode is about the stories of these Vietnamese outworkers in the history of Australian fashion.

Shownotes:

Emma Do's Instagram

Kim Lam's Instagram

Working from Home

We hear a lot about ethical fashion, but what does this mean in practice?   

In this four-part series, co-hosts Harriette Richards and Natalya Lusty interview Australian fashion experts about how sustainability and diversity are shaping our local fashion industry.