Simon Lock - In the Front Row: How Australian Fashion made the World Stage

Simon P. Lock, owner and CEO of The Lock Group, is known for his key role in the implementation of international fashion week showcases in the Asia Pacific region. Founder of the Mercedes Australia Fashion Week, Lock currently serves as creative director of Dubai Fashion Week and acts as a creative consultant to fashion and retail brands including Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney. Credited as the Godfather of Australian fashion, in 2011 Lock was the recipient of the prestigious Australian Fashion Laureate award in recognition of his enduring contributions, marking the first time the award was presented to an individual who was not a designer. He has recently established ORDRE, a global online wholesale platform for the ready-to-wear fashion industry.

Simon P. Lock

MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited

1115 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

www.mup.com.au

First published 2015

Text Simon P. Lock, 2015

Design and typography Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2015

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Cover design by Emilia Toia

Typeset by Cannon Typesetting

Printed in Australia by McPhersons Printing Group

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Lock, Simon, author.

In the front row: how Australian fashion made the world stage/Simon P. Lock.

9780522867916 (paperback)

9780522867923 (ebook)

Mercedes Benz Australia Fashion WeekHistory.

FashionAustraliaHistory

Fashion showsAustraliaHistory.

Fashion designAustraliaHistory.

Fashion designersAustralia.

746.920994

In the Front Row is dedicated to my father, David Price Lock Senior, who passed away while I finished the final chapters.

He was and will remain the inspiration and the driving force for my ambition, enthusiasm and passion for life.

He taught me two things that have been guiding forces in my life: Dont be fearful of change or scared of failure.

He sat next to me many times in the front row and let me know how proud he was. These are some of the most cherished memories of my life.

W ELCOME TO In the Front Row. Im Simon. Simon P. Lock to many, SPL to the chosen few, Si to my closest family, and Lockie to my darling wife, Kirsten. Im the guy the Australian fashion industry still loves to hate all these years later for being the upstart outsider who dreamed of building an international fashion week in Australia and dared the world to come and see the talent of our best designers. Ive been tempted to write this book many times in the past. When I first thought I would, the title was going to be I Quit, because I thought after the book was released I would never be able to work in the industry again! A few years on, the stars aligned. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia, as the event is now known, will soon celebrate its twentieth anniversary and I feel what I am currently doing in fashion is going to help put into perspective a forward-facing vision of the industry instead of purely a retrospective one.

This is the story of the trials and tribulations of building Fashion Week, replete with intriguing insights into the Australian industry, its characters, superstars and supermodels, the dramas, the divas, the tantrums, the challenges, the failures and the traumas. This is also the story of a new beginning and the start of an equally exciting adventure. Coinciding with the anniversary of Fashion Week is the launch of our new business ORDRE, a world-first online wholesale platform. Simply put, it takes the best designers from the best fashion weeks around the world and shows their collections online to fashion buyers in over ninety-three countries and 543 cities around the globe. Its an additional channel for the fashion industry to sell its wholesale collections and it will sit alongside traditional fashion weeks. It will change the way our industry works forever and in many ways will put Australian designers on an equal platform with the best in the world.

I am writing this book while I travel the world with Kirsten as we launch this new business and youll soon see as you read that the similarities and relevance to what I did twenty-five years ago to launch Fashion Week are astounding. Only now Im doing it in a global context and it is fascinating.

I hope you enjoy being In the Front Row with me.

T ODAY WAS A pretty big day for our little business. It doesnt seem like over twenty years ago that I had the same emotions when the very first Australian designer committed to what was then known as Mercedes Australian Fashion Week (MAFW). I am in New York trying to get the most famous designers in the world to buy into something just as new and exciting to grow their businesses. The similarities between now and all those years ago are incredible. The feeling I have now when three of New Yorks most applauded designers join our new global wholesale platform ORDRE is every bit as sweet as when the designing duo Peter Morrissey and Leona Edmiston became the first Australian designers to commit to what was then just as radical an idea. The world of fashion has changed since I came up with the crazy idea to launch a new stop in Sydney on the international fashion week circuit, but in many ways its still the same. Its all about the designersyou cant live with them and you cant live without them!

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My mother says that I was a born entrepreneur. Apparently when I was about five and growing up in the Melbourne suburbs in the early 1960s I filled used jam jars with soil from the garden and sold them to the neighbours as special potting mix. Only a few years later I was running a bottle collection depot out of our backyard and going head to head with the local scout bottle drive. My business sense was always strong.

In later life this trait was to brand me as a megalomaniac of sorts in the fashion industry, especially when I established a range of marketing agencies around Fashion Week to capitalise on the investment I had made in the event. The truth of the matter is that at the time it was necessary just to survive financially. Still, my ever-present competitive nature didnt hurt. This inherent characteristic has always been coupled inside me with a feeling that Im not afraid to fail and that I can achieve anythingdriving forces I carry to this day.

If Im going to tell the story of Fashion Week I dont think I can do so honestly without explaining where my drive and passion come from. At the end of the day it has been this focused feeling, energy and attitude that has made the difference between success and failure. In my case it is all due to an incredible force of nature and human dynamo known as David Price Lock, my father and hero. Every designer who has ever launched a business through Fashion Week, or secured an international order, or a front cover of