‘It makes no sense': The young designers pushed off the runway
On the television show Project Runway, former host Heidi Klum summed up the challenges of being a fashion designer with the catchphrase: 'One day you are in, the next day you are out.'
For the first time in 26 years, the Fashion Design Studio is out of Australian Fashion Week, which begins today.
The new operators of AFW, the Australian Fashion Council, delivered the verdict in March, denying the application from TAFE FDS in Sydney, which helped launch homegrown labels Zimmermann, Akira Isogawa and Christopher Esber.
'The AFC made an early decision to do fewer showrooms and focus on a wholesale showcase, meaning student showcases were paused for 2025,' says AFW chief executive Kellie Hush, who added a book launch for Ksubi co-founder Dan Singl e, a dinner party for Vogue and a closing party for Ksubi to the schedule.
'The industry values the work we do, so the decision was surprising,' says Andrea Cainero, co-head of the FDS. 'This has always been a platform for the next guard of designers.'
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Rather than accept the 'out' verdict, four designers from the FDS program are staging a rogue runway show, hours before the main event launches with the latest Carla Zampatti collection.
'We had to pivot and make sure that the designers are put first,' says co-head Laura Washington.
Cainero and Washington called on supporters to organise the last-minute showcase at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay. Turning the other cheek for an air kiss, invitations were extended to Hush and AFC staff to see the work of Eidan Ceilidh, Emily Misaki Hon, Daisy-Rose Cooper and Shiva Yousefpour.
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