On the hunt for suppliers?

As a small business, sourcing suppliers can be quite the time wasting affair, let alone the costly with trips back and forth to China to try and find the right quality supplier for your budget. Imagine if you could go to a trade fair where all the suppliers were at your fingertips and you get to look at their work, the quality, colour and material selection as well as ask about minimums, delivery schedules etc. Imagine if you could do this in MELBOURNE?

Excited yet? Well, Australian Exhibition & Conferences (the team behind Fashion Exposed) are offering local wholesalers the chance to source new suppliers at the Australian International Sourcing Fair for fashion, accessories and home. Held in conjunction with the China Clothing and Textiles Expo 2010, the AISF will provide a forum where international companies can establish and consolidate enduring business partnerships with Australian organisations.

So if you're looking for Bags, Beads, Buttons, Childrenswear, Eco Materials, Fabrics, Jewellery, and Leather goods, Menswear, Publications, Scarves/Shawls, Shipment, Trims, Womenswear and Workwear, don't forget to save the date.

Date: 17-19 November 2010
Where: Melbourne Exhibition Centre
Register: here

Behind the Scenes of State of Design

So, its that time of year again.... July = Design, State of Design. A period of twelve days of non-stop creative stimulation, inspiration and networking is just what the doctor ordered in the middle of winter I say! Rather than talk about all the wonderful interactive experiences to enjoy and participate in, I've decided its time to shine a spotlight on the folk behind the scenes who make this festival happen. Meet Kate Rhodes, Curator of State of Design Festival.

Q1 Describe your role as curator of Design Made Trade and Design for Everyone? What does your role entail?
The Festival is brought into the world with a tiny team of incredible people – some of the best I’ve worked with, I’m happy to say. Each of our roles bump and connect into one another regularly so we find ourselves doing all kinds of things. As Festival Curator, it is my role to help form the public program side of the Festival – this is the part of the program that is that for everyone. Individuals, organisations and businesses have contributed exhibitions, workshops, screenings and activities that explore and communicate the importance of design. The resulting program is carefully assembled to pull and push our theme so that everyone who visits a Festival event can grow their own ideas for generating change by design.

Q2 Design Made Trade (now in its 3rd year) has gained quite the name for itself by supporting emerging talent and taking them to the next level. The mix and quality of brands across design's many platforms is always inspiring. How do you achieve this?
Design can be though of as an almost unheard of connection between needs and desires. The exhibitors at Design Made Trade make the event the place to uncover objects, ideas and systems developed and produced both here and away to make life better, and potentially greener. The idea behind Design Made Trade is to make it the place to meet the people, and the people who know the people, behind great design.

Q3 What kinds of trends are you seeing from Victorian designers? Obviously sustainability is the focus this year for State of Design, but aside from that, what other commonalities are you seeing?
This year there is a section of Design Made Trade dedicated to green design businesses and other sections include: furniture, fabrics, small objects and a section of the Fair dedicated to what might be described as the more crafted end of design. A great mix.

Q4 This year Design Made Trade is incorporating workshops and talks as part of the mix. What was the motivation behind this initiative?
There is so much activity going on at the Royal Exhibition Building that it is a real hub for the first four days of the Festival. On both the trade days and the public days there are back-to-back talks, workshops and exhibitions. We really want these first days to be very dynamic, here are some of the events: Design Victoria Amphitheater for business talks; Lightsource – a commercial lighting exhibition; Materia – a hands-on materials library from the Netherlands; the Melbourne Design Embassy – a place for networking and blogging, Idealand – a community of hand-crafted hexagon spaces for professional design bodies and The Long Table – a table running the length of the Royal Exhibition Building for meetings, design speed dating with architects to green your home and a number of family-oriented making activities. We also have great exhibitions from the Australian Graphic Design Association, the Design Institute of Australia, Green Magazine and Monash University.

State of Design runs from Wednesday 14 - 25 July 2010. Click here for more info.

LMFF opening party

It seems that the fashion world has gone gaga for Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton must be so proud)! The mix of fairytale whimsy, fantasy and over the top costumes has captured many a fashionista heart, including Harpers Bazaar it seems!

So when this little Alice turned up to the Government house yesterday on a fine and sunny Sunday afternoon it truly felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole into a world of decadence, whimsy and fantasy fashion blurred into one!
The parade curated by Harpers Bazaar featured Colette Dinnigan, Akira Isagowa, Dion Lee and Sass & Bide (to name a few of the fabulous Australian designers involved).  Each designer took fairytale heroines as muses for their creations from Ali Baba, Snow White, Minnie Mouse and of course Alice in Wonderland!

The fashions were (as you would expect) a mix of sophistication (Emma Van Handaal, Rebecca Twigley) high glamour (Lindy Klim’s gold brocade ensemble) and costume fun (Richard Nylon, Gail Sorronda and Romance was Born).  Black was the order of the day (although held in Melbourne, I was surprised to see so much of it) with cream textured layers a close second and many a stylish ankle boot was chosen avoiding a stiletto sinking into the government house lawn!

On a sentimental note, the acknowledgement and significant contribution of Karen Webster as Festival Director (who is finishing up her role with LMFF after this festival) was moving and heartfelt and she will be sorely missed!

Fashioning Melbourne

On Thursday 4th March, I attended the Fashioning Melbourne forum which is part of the LMFF 2010 Cultural Program. It was held at the State Library and a sell out event. Robert Buckingham was the moderator and the panel featured The Age fashion editor Jan Breen-Burns, Bec Cole (stylist and co-creator of Madame Virtue & Co), Sener Besim (GM of Scanlan & Theodore) and Debra Mar of Blacklisted. The forum was a discussion about retailing in Melbourne and what makes Melbourne unique. Here are some edited highlights discussed throughout the night:

Melbourne’s Patchwork of Retail
Melbourne is a ‘gorgeous soup of retail’ according to Jan Breen Burns; from Bourke Street’s home of the flagship/mega stores (Sportsgirl, Forever New, Supre and General Pants) to the many twisting historical arcades, to the destination designer boutiques found hidden away up flights of stairs to the mix of cluster villages in inner city suburbs to the mega retail shopping centres of Westfield and Chadstone.

Exciting Retail Experiences
* Captain of Industry – offering a modern day version of the tailored bespoke service of yesteryear.
* Le Louvre – the new home in South Yarra offers the ultimate retail experience of surprise, delight and prestige mixing exclusivity with accessibility.
* Sportsgirl – for a hit of fun, fast fashion with a fresh, must see approach.
* Thousand Shop – honest, genuine retailing with a lifestyle approach and strong personality.
* Shag – for an injection of vintage storytelling and nostalgia.

Role of Customer Service
• Creating a calm but stimulating environment for customers to feel a sense of belonging (in Scanlan’s case up to 3 hours in the Armadale store at times!)
• Having knowledgeable staff that understands the difference between pouncing, educating and allowing some good quality browsing time, but also offering genuine advice.
• Involving the customer in the process – showing them how, where and why the product is made locally by creating a retail experience that shares the creative process (having a store front in the actual workroom like Blacklisted in Easy St Collingwood)

Pioneering Retail
• Le Louvre have always been the first to start a trend with their retailing – first in Collins Street before it was the Paris end of Collins St and now with their new store in South Yarra where there is no other fashion retailing.
• High Street Armadale – When Scanlan & Theodore moved there it was largely an art gallery community, however it’s become a mix of fashion, food and art now and this leads to a great overall experience.
• Madame Virtue & Co is in Crossley Street and one of the few fashion retailers inhabiting this area, instead preferring to be amongst the melting pot of food and art mixed with history.
• Blacklisted moved its premises from South Yarra to Easy St Collingwood as all their suppliers were located there and it made the experience for customers an all encompassing one.

Interesting bits & pieces
• Robert Buckingham is working with The Future Laboratory on a retail strategy for the City of Melbourne about evolving Melbourne as a city.  Can’t wait to see what comes of this association and props to City of Melbourne for engaging a trend intelligence agency to help their plans!
• Sener Besim is waiting for the dust to settle with DJ’s and Myer’s new department store re-births in Bourke Street before reviewing their next Scanlan & Theodore business development move within the CBD.
• Jan Breen Burns is curious to see how the new Department stores will change the consumer buying behaviour outlook in the CBD, given the success they are experiencing with “The house of brands” philosophy.
• Online retailing is a must do if you have a bricks and mortar store, but you need to be clever about the approach and mimic the real time experience as best as you can online to have any sort of longevity or business success!

Sportsgirl embraces Bloggers

On Monday 8th February I was invited to attend the Sportsgirl Roadshow parade for Autumn Winter 2010. Primarily, this is put on for the Sportsgirl retail team, however this year, they invited a few Melbourne Bloggers to attend to take a sneak peak at the action. It’s an interesting strategy on Sportsgirl’s behalf. The bloggers feature their own reviews and photo’s from the parade, and share this with their communities.

Jade Roberts (PR Manager) said she has been working with bloggers for 2 years and finds they are effective for reaching out to potential/existing Sportsgirl customers because of their strong community followings and unique perspectives on fashion. It’s also helpful due to the fact that online is immediate and Sportsgirl is all about fast fashion.

Whilst at the parade I chatted with Kate Elton, Online and Events Manager whose position was created to cater to the new Sportsgirl community website some 8 months ago. Kate's role varies from updating the website daily with product, blog posts and articles to managing the social networking community (twitter, facebook etc). Kate has found Twitter has been incredibly popular in the last year and uses it to offer sneak peek's to their twitter followers. She finds the website sections that are most popular are to do with 'style advice' i.e. Style Snaps and Style Me.

The parade was a high-energy event with a Circus/ Moulin Rouge/ Vaudeville theme and featured smiling models (a refreshing change that epitomised the perfect Sports-girl)! The audience gasps, laughs, claps and general buzz was a combination of lust (for the pieces they have yet to own) and $$ signs clicking over in their heads (as they saw what would sell in their respective Sportsgirl stores)! This roadshow was a great way of inspiring the Sportsgirl staff about what's coming in store as well as offering the wider Sportsgirl community the opportunity to share the night through the bloggers attending.

Like your cinema underground?

Remember those random nights out when anything can happen, you're surrounded by a group of crazy, creative types and you trawl through the city discovering new nooks and crannies? If you've forgotten what this is like, you need to thank Secret Squirrel Productions for their new initiative "Underground Cinema".

This group is hell bent on creating a good time and keeping things undercover. Mysterious locations throughout Melbourne will play host to monthly cinema screenings with live music and acts showcased in a different venue each month.... be it a warehouse, a forgotten ballroom or even a carpark! Its all about the mystery, so don't expect to know what film they're playing, where its going to be or any other details other than what date and approx what time the secrecy will be revealed!

I'm going to be interviewing the Secret Squirrel team about their production company, what their motivation is and why the secrecy in the coming weeks.... so stay tuned, but in the meantime, get clicking to buy tickets to their first Underground Cinema night on Friday 2nd October in Melbourne.