Thirty years ago, one man and 33 designers put our homegrown fashion on the world stage. As Australian Fashion Week enters a new phase, we look back at three decades of glitz and grit. Plus, Australia’s incredible fashion innovators who found global fame in the aftermath of Fashion Week.
In the mid-1990s, Australia was pulling international focus on numerous fronts. Our film industry was ablaze with creativity. Titles such as Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert were winning big at the box office. In tandem, names like Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe and Toni Collette were taking up screen time and column inches, following in the designer-clad footsteps of Nicole Kidman. Preparations were well underway for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. And our fresh approach to food was gaining attention thanks to chefs including Neil Perry and Bill Granger.
But Australian fashion hadn’t yet cut through on the global stage. That was about to change.
In 1996, the first-ever Australian Fashion Week (AFW) was held. It was an event that would change the landscape for local designers and introduce our sartorial talents to the world.
The first Fashion Week in Australia
On May 7, 1996, Wayne Cooper’s catwalk show kicked off proceedings at Sydney’s Fox Studios. He was one of the Australian designers who had prepared collections for the inaugural event, along with 32 others, including Akira Isogawa, Zimmermann, Alex Perry and Morrissey Edmiston.
Nobody knew if the gamble would pay off, including the man who had been driving the establishment of the event for five years, whipping up interest from government to media, corporate sponsors to retail buyers.
PR and marketing genius Simon Lock knew that Australia had the talent, but he also understood the barriers that our designers would have to overcome to play in the global marketplace.
“Australian fashion, in a general sense, apart from a few skyrockets, had no reputation, no credibility internationally,” Simon tells The Weekly of the challenge that lay ahead when he founded the event.
Australian fashion was an isolated affair in the early ’90s: government tariffs had shielded the local industry from international players in the market, and without the internet, many established designers had been protected from criticisms of plagiarism of international designs, a common practice for decades.
“But there was a core of designers back in the early ’90s who were fiercely independent,” he says. “And for anyone ambitious in the fashion industry, having an international footprint was going to be very important. There was a group of us at the time that started to ask the question, why couldn’t there be a fashion week in Australia? And so I became absolutely beyond obsessed with that question.”
Launching Australia’s Fashion Week
“It was truly, overwhelmingly fabulous, that first one,” says Judith Cook, who had been fashion director of Vogue Australia when AFW launched before stepping into the style director shoes of The Australian Women’s Weekly. That first year, she styled three shows, for Robert Burton, Jodie Boffa and Marcs, by Mark Keighery.
“People were bold and brave and did wonderful things. A show is a show, so you have to have people sitting on the edge of their seats and thinking, ‘This is amazing’.”
There have been plenty of moments in the past 30 years seared into the fashion consciousness – whether for the exquisite fashions themselves, the spectacle surrounding them, or the models wearing them. Sometimes it was a combination of all of these things – or simply the element of surprise. “You had to pull rabbits out of hats,” says Judith. Or, perhaps, rats.
Animals on the Fashion Week runways
No AFW show has become as infamous as the 2001 Tsubi (later Ksubi) outing, where the renegade group of surfers let loose 169 rats onto the runway, to the absolute horror (and some amusement) of those in attendance. With a Perspex lip running around the catwalk, the rodents ran into corners, piling on top of each other and threatening to spill over into the audience, until rat wranglers dispersed them. Judith remembers it well. “That was really divisive, but that’s what made it exciting. There were no rules.”
Rats weren’t the only creatures to end up on runways in the first half of fashion week’s history. In 1999, Alannah Hill sent out models carrying baby goats. Then, in 2004, Leona Edmiston had people source a selection of perfectly groomed Afghan hounds, which were led around by models in ’70s-inspired jersey maxi dresses.
(Credit: Getty)
(Credit: Getty)
To follow up her 2000 show, in which global supermodel Eva Herzigová took to the catwalk in a pearl-encrusted bikini, swimwear designer Jodhi Packer (now Meares) decided to raise the bar in 2001 for her label, Tigerlily. Not only was Kristy Hinze sporting a bikini covered in diamonds worth $1 million, but she also had to contend with an increasingly constrictive diamond python draped around her shoulders.
Terry Biviano’s 2003 show
But for many, it was shoe designer Terry Biviano’s 2003 show that was a masterstroke in theatricality – and animal husbandry. Part of a rebel, off-site group of designer shows, Biviano’s show had an acrobat suspended in a hoop, dancing girls in huge taffeta skirts and seven dressage horses with models posing like Lady Godiva – dressed only in stilettos and skin-toned swimwear.
For the event’s creative director, Tony Assness, there was a moment of doubt during the dress rehearsal, when all of the horses left a reeking mess that had to be cleaned up in a hurry. Come performance time, there were no accidents to be dealt with.
“Those horses were showgirls,” says Tony. “The minute they heard the music and the crowd, they were like, ‘We’re ready.’ It was the most incredible thing, but the rehearsal could not have been worse.”
International supermodels walk Australia’s Fashion Week runways
Much more accustomed to the catwalk were the international models that hit the runway of the event during its first decade. The sight of reigning supermodel Linda Evangelista closing the Alex Perry show in 1997, wearing a white ballgown with a strand of pearls slung across her shoulder, was one that few will forget.
International legends Jerry Hall, Lily Cole, Jade Jagger and Sophie Dahl were all brought to the event by designer Charlie Brown. Meanwhile, Erin Wasson walked for Ksubi, Georgia May Jagger catwalked for Camilla, and in 2016, a young Bella Hadid opened the show for Misha Collection.
Australian models such as Sarah O’Hare (now Murdoch), Anneliese Seubert and Emma Balfour were the big names in fashion week’s infancy. But the event was also a training ground for our up-and-coming names.
A 15-year-old Gemma Ward made her catwalk debut in the Wayne Cooper show in 2003. “That show had a huge LED screen [as a backdrop],” says Tony Assness, the show’s director. “And I’d briefed the cameramen to just go in on the models’ faces. So when Gemma stepped onto the catwalk, there was just this incredible shot of her face.” Months later, Gemma made her international catwalk debut for Prada in Milan and returned as a global star.
Fashion Week locations around Australia
As a city, Sydney has never lacked spectacle. The year after his debut in a gritty Kings Cross carpark in 2009, Dion Lee showcased his structural tailoring within the vaulted lines of the Sydney Opera House, offering a stylish synergy between fashion and architecture. Manning Cartell’s 2016 show beneath the Harbour Bridge was a moment of pure serendipity. The sound of the trains overhead synced perfectly with the soundtrack, and shafts of light shone through the pylons at the perfect moment, capturing the bold colours in the collection.
“We didn’t know that the sun was going to come out at that moment,” says Tony. “It was this magic moment – you couldn’t have planned it.”
The raw sandstone surrounds of the cavernous Cutaway in the city’s Barangaroo contrasted beautifully with the luxurious fabrications and extravagant volumes of Toni Matičevski’s Resort 2016 collection.
“The scale of that show really felt truly international,” says Kellie Hush, Creative Director of AFW. “But there have been so many amazing shows. I used to love when Lisa Ho did shows at the Art Gallery of NSW. They always seemed quite special.”
When Kit Willow presented her Willow lingerie label at a Gothic mansion in exclusive Darling Point, Kellie recalls marvelling at a couple of models wearing her designs while on swings, “like birds in a tree”.
Making an impact
Camilla Franks has always understood the appeal of the theatrical, with shows ranging from an early-morning boat trip on Sydney Harbour through to an explosive Japanese-inspired closing show in 2018 featuring drummers and cherry blossom confetti covering the catwalk – and not a signature kaftan in sight.
In 2021, the first all-Indigenous catwalk production was presented by First Nations Fashion + Design, featuring the work of seven designers, including Grace Lillian Lee and Aarli. Models took their final turn to a performance by Electric Fields of the Paul Kelly classic From Little Things Big Things Grow. The show received a standing ovation.
Australian fashion designers establisha global reputation
While the bells and whistles, rats and supermodels have always added a certain frisson to fashion week, mostly the clothes themselves actually make the biggest statement. From the artisanal craftsmanship of Easton Pearson to the modern romance of Collette Dinnigan, the elegance and sophistication of Carla Zampatti to the slick and sexy styles of Morrissey, Australian designers were building up global reputations thanks to the buyers and media that were coming to the event.
Even with the theatricality of Romance Was Born’s 2009 show Doilies and Pearls, Oysters and Shells, Fashion Wire Daily’s Godfrey Deeny wrote that this was “the closest collection outside of Western Europe to reach the technical heights of a Paris haute couture show”. And this from a show that included a dress inspired by an Iced Vo-Vo and a crocheted octopus hat.
While Akira Isogawa’s first show in 1996 is still remembered for the models in red socks (except for the final “bride”, who wore white ones), it was his second catwalk collection that was picked up by legendary fashion buyer Joan Burstein of Browns boutique in London.
“They bought pretty much every single look from that collection,” says Akira. “I think I delivered it in November, and then just before Christmas, I received a photograph of the window display from Browns for Christmas. It was my collection. I was so amazed that they displayed an unknown designer for such an important time. From there, my business went forward internationally.”
Australia’s Fashion Week legacy
Today, if you walk through any global department store, you’ll see racks emblazoned with Australian designer names. Over the years, AFW alumni, including Sass & Bide, Aurelio Costarella and Jayson Brunsdon, paved the way for a new generation of designers, such as Christopher Esber, to make the leap from Australian Fashion Week to show on international catwalks. Our most successful Australian brand of all time, Zimmermann, is now celebrated on the runways of Paris Fashion Week.
And while a brand can now build a business from the swipe of an app, the glamour and groundwork put in over the past 30 years of AFW has been integral in Australian fashion’s standing on the world stage.
“Now, when Australian designers turn up in Paris or New York, you’re welcomed with open arms,” says AFW founder Simon Lock. “There’s a reputation there for an industry which has credentials, which has had huge forefathers from Akira through to Zimmermann who have broken the ground for any designer trying to get on the circuit.”
What’s next for Australian Fashion Week
Simon sold AFW to US management company IMG in 2005. It remained in their hands until November 2024, when they dropped the event without warning. The Australian Fashion Council immediately stepped in, pulling the event together in less than six months in 2025.
This year, Australia’s Fashion Week event will have a new base at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sydney’s Circular Quay, with the Bridge and Opera House in full view.
“It makes sense that if we’re hosting Australian Fashion Week in one of the most beautiful, iconic cities in the world, that we showcase it with iconic Australian backdrops,” says Kellie Hush.
And in its new not-for-profit model, she says the industry was very clear about what it wanted from the event going forward. “It’s about the brands, it’s about sales, and it’s about media. This is the start of the next phase.”
And it’s beginning in style.
This article originally appeared in the May 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
Find out everything you need to know about 2026’s Australian Fashion Week, here.
