Australia’s fashion industry has long been a cradle of talent, but a new analysis reveals a troubling trend: of the 19 Australian Fashion Foundation (AFF) scholarship winners between 2009 and 2019, only three now hold design roles within local fashion businesses, and just one has launched her own label. Nine are still working in fashion capitals including New York, Paris, London and Milan.
Vlad Kanevsky, a senior designer at Thom Browne in New York, is one such export. After studying fashion at RMIT in Melbourne, he says opportunities abroad have made “things that didn’t seem possible in Australia” a reality. “I love Australia, but being so geographically far away and isolated, there aren’t that many career options, which is why I haven’t considered returning yet,” he explains.
Australia’s outward-looking fashion heritage dates back to the 19th century, when David Jones imported Parisian garments. By the late 1940s, the department store was recreating couture onshore, and a vibrant local industry later produced brands such as Collette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Zimmermann and Sass & Bide. However, in the early 2000s, a mix of political, digital and market forces caused the local industry to struggle, pushing millennial graduates to look abroad.
Established in 2009 by Australians-turned-New-Yorkers Malcolm Carfrae and Julie Anne Quay, the AFF scholarship offers $20,000 and an internship at a luxury fashion house. Carfrae says the foundation’s philosophy is to “help young Australians gain world-class, hands-on international experience”, but acknowledges the low rate of return is due to a “scarcity” of design jobs. The Australian Fashion Council estimates 364,000 people work in the $27.2bn industry, yet only about 3,700 (roughly 1%) are designers.
Some, like Georgia Lazzaro, the first scholarship winner, eventually return. After internships at Narciso Rodriguez and Calvin Klein, she spent 15 years in New York before taking a design role at Matteau in Sydney this year. Others, such as Talisa Trantino, a 2013 winner who has worked at Celine, Bottega Veneta and Loewe, feel unable to return because of limited manufacturing and artisanal capabilities. “I don’t know if there is an opportunity that could excite me enough to bring me home,” she says. The scholarship paused in 2025 but is set to resume in 2026.
