Following IMG’s Exit, Australian Fashion Week Locks In 2025 Dates

Australian Fashion Week’s resort 2026 showcase will take place from May 12 to 16 at Sydney’s Carriageworks venue.

The announcement on follows weeks of turmoil for Australia’s most high profile fashion showcase, after IMG revealed in November it would be exiting its Australian fashion events business.

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The Australian Fashion Council subsequently pledged to ensure the 2025 event would proceed regardless. But the organization only recently managed to secure the NSW Government funding to ensure this could occur. Although the government had already allocated budget to IMG for the 2025 event, the AFC had to reapply for the funding.

Joining AFC chief executive officer Jaana Qaintaince-James, AFC chair Marianne Perkovic and NSW Minister for the Arts, Music, Night-time Economy and Jobs and Tourism John Graham for the announcement at Carriageworks, were several industry members who have been part of an interim working committee. They included Simon Lock, founder and chief executive officer of fashion technology company The Ordre Group, who founded AFW in 1996 before selling it to IMG in 2005.

Lock is due to play a “crucial” governance role in the team that delivers the 2025 event, the AFC said.

“I’m excited to be back and more importantly play a part in fashion week returning back to its core focus,” Lock told WWD. “While I’m working on the finer details with the AFC which we will soon announce, I’m looking forward to contributing my experience to help ensure that Australian fashion is recognized globally for the powerhouse that it is and bringing the event back to its core focus – an event that drives industry, for industry, and for it to return back to its strong commercial outcomes for Australian designers.”

Earlier last week Sydney fashion agent Jenny Nakkan also said she would be staging an Australian edition of the Paris-based luxury resortwear trade showcase Splash from May 12 to 13 at the Walsh Bay Arts Precinct overlooking Sydney Harbour.

Nakkan had originally developed plans to bring Splash to Sydney to coincide with AFW 2025, in discussion with IMG.

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