Decjuba reclaimed its place in the denim conversation with a full-funnel platform anchored by The Denim Studio, a first-of-its-kind in-store activation at its Doncaster flagship. Online denim sales rose 166% and UGC surged 204%, while launch event tickets sold out in three minutes and fifteen seconds.

H&M reignited its ANZ presence by returning to the brand's heritage connection between fashion and music, fronted globally by Charli XCX and brought to life locally with pop star Benee. Fashion perception among women aged 16 to 25 lifted 30% year on year, online traffic grew 34% and earned media value increased 347%.

Honey Birdette took its everyday basics to the streets of London to prove that everyday lingerie need not feel basic, shooting on location with four international models. The campaign generated more than 3.5 million in owned social reach, lifted full-price mix within basics to 92% from 67% and earned a 4.9 out of 5 review rating.

Peter Alexander built on its position as Australia's Christmas gifting destination with a premium, nostalgia-led platform designed to stay engaging across a nine-week trading period. The campaign drove growth across both retail and online and improved sell-through across the Christmas collection.

Sheike turned Black Friday into a loyalty growth engine by placing its offer behind a Sheike Society sign-up wall, reframing the discount as a members-only privilege. Membership grew 9% in a single week, launch day sales exceeded target by 34% and average online member spend rose 169%.

In its 18th year, Witchery reimagined its purpose-led White Shirt Campaign through a St. Agni collaboration and a collective of 33 Australian ambassadors led by Phoebe Tonkin. The campaign surpassed 501 million total reach and $47 million in combined PR value, selling 4,580 units and raising $544,816 for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.

Akubra expanded into the summer market with a premium straw range made from 100% Fine Palm Leaf, hand-woven in Mexico and hand-finished in Australia with UPF50+ protection. The hat collection delivered strong commercial and brand results, including healthy sales, an uplift in website traffic, and a strong return on digital ad spend, alongside strong social engagement.

Hommey's first multi-category lifestyle launch united bedding, bath, robes and sleepwear under a single Scandinavian Living direction, brought to life through a full location shoot in Copenhagen. The Versa bedding range grew 645% year on year and the launch event delivered a 514% return on investment in entirely organic creator content.

Honey Birdette elevated Halloween lingerie beyond novelty by engineering first-to-market glow-in-the-dark yarn directly into its embroidery and elastic rather than applying it as a surface print. The collection sold through 84% overall, with the hero bodysuit reaching 91% and the matching Glow in the Dark Venus toy hitting 94%.

Peter Alexander reimagined the world of McDonald's through its own design-led lens, translating iconic brand elements into original products including French fry box pockets and burger box packaging. The hero paper bag backpack generated viral traction and sold out rapidly, with overall campaign sales growing year on year.

Rip Curl's collaboration with Farm Rio fused surf heritage and technical performance with vibrant Brazilian design, integrating custom textile artworks into its most technical women's franchises. Built with recycled fabrications, plant-based rubber and UPF50+ protection, the range resonated across more than 15 countries and exceeded wholesale forecasts by 30%.

Sheike's autumn winter collection reinterpreted romantic femininity through corsetry-inspired seaming, elevated denim and blurred painterly florals across mesh and taffeta. Key styles including the Aloha Fur and Jules jackets, the Broadway denim set and the Indiana dress achieved sell-throughs above 60% within five weeks, with some styles recut to meet demand.

Akubra's cross-functional leadership brought Digital, Ecommerce, Marketing, Product Development, Fulfilment and Wholesale together to manage rapid growth and digital transformation in step. Their successful launch of a new ecommerce website and Shopify POS rollout strengthened conversion and operational capability across every channel.

The 30-person Bonds team across Melbourne and Bangkok delivered its most ambitious year yet, taking an iconic Australian brand global through the Made for Down Under US launch. Men's underwear market share grew and the debut sports partnership generated 3.67 billion total media reach, the largest media result in SailGP history.

A lean team of eleven drove 39% year-on-year ecommerce growth while expanding US wholesale into Free People, Nuuly and Anthropologie. When a factory fire destroyed the entire jewellery collection a week before the Tide show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the team recreated it in time and delivered the runway on schedule.

Across 37 boutiques, Honey Birdette's retail team rebuilt culture from the inside out through peer-led Venus Awards and the Pillow Talk Survey, where 88% of members said they are proud to work there. By the end of FY2025 the team delivered record sales and trading weeks that beat the broader Australian retail market.

A cross-functional team of twelve led by CIO Sarann Ryan executed the A Plus and Flanagan's schoolwear acquisitions, delivering work in a week that should take six months. The A Plus deal added 26,000 new customers whose average spend lifted from $110 to $250, with more than 90,000 SKUs RFID-tagged and transferred in a single week.

With more than 60% of the leadership team new in role and a new buying capability introduced, Witchery navigated a major transformation without losing momentum. The team accelerated chase capabilities, strengthened engagement and continued to grow sell-through and profit through a difficult trading environment.

A B Corp since 2015, Bellroy achieved its highest certification score yet last year and has moved its main body fabrics and linings to 100% recycled materials. To date it has upcycled 24 million plastic bottles and 397 tonnes of combined waste, extended warranties to six years on bags and ten on luggage and eliminated intentional PFAS use across its materials.

Decjuba embedded circularity directly into its customer account, letting shoppers resell, repair or donate garments through a technology-enabled platform. In 2025 more than 3,000 items were recirculated, contributing to an estimated 50 tonnes of avoided CO₂e and driving measurable behaviour change toward circular consumption.

Kowtow's Regenerate programme transforms worn-out natural fibre garments into biochar through pyrolysis, creating a closed-loop pathway from seed to soil. Early trials converted 160 kilograms of garments into 40 kilograms of stable, carbon-rich biochar, independently tested to the ANZBIG Code of Practice for safe return to the earth.

The Queensland-based brand launched a 100% GOTS-aligned organic cotton underwear collection to tackle the chemical, water and microplastic impacts of everyday intimates. Since October 2025 it has sold 4,489 pieces, each replacing conventional or synthetic underwear using up to 91% less blue water.

The Iconic brought resale, repair, donation and rescued faulty stock into a single customer-facing circular hub, becoming the first multi-brand online retailer in Australia to do so at scale. More than 1,400 unsaleable items were diverted to repair partner Revibe with a 52% average sell-through, while launch activity generated 11.5 million reach at 100% positive sentiment.

As a Foundation Partner of Seamless, The Sussan Group embedded product stewardship across design, sourcing and operations while lifting responsible fibre use from 24% to 42% in two years. Distribution centres achieved an 84% waste diversion rate and rescued 469,803 cartons, with the first circular design garments scheduled for 2027.

The bond-eye Bleecker Street store brings the effortless energy of Bondi Beach to an elevated New York retail experience, complete with a private outdoor courtyard for community events and gatherings. Total US revenue rose 37% in May following the launch, with the store achieving an average order value of around USD $280 against USD $232 across US ecommerce.

By Charlotte's QVB boutique moves beyond a transactional jewellery store into a sanctuary designed to engage all five senses, with a material palette of travertine, timber and raw stone evoking the brand's lotus pond origins. Sales tracked 16% ahead of the previous pop-up on a like-for-like basis, alongside a measurable surge in website dwell time through the opening.

Part of the Store of the Future strategy, the Chatswood Chase refurbishment is built around community, editorial and theatre, introducing personal styling suites, luxury beauty treatment rooms and The Apartment for private events. More than 50 new and exclusive brands joined the mix, with personal styling suites now the highest performing in the network.

Kathmandu's Little Collins Street store redefines outdoor retail through reduced stock density, activity-based storytelling and life-size digital mannequins positioned at the lease line. Built with recycled plastic panelling, bamboo joinery and 3D-printed light fittings, the concept was found by independent Kantar research to outperform comparable retail environments tested in recent years.

Designed by Tamsin Johnson as a series of curated residential rooms rather than a sales floor, P. Johnson Armadale embodies an anti-retail approach that hides the mechanics of commerce entirely. The residential design has driven consultations lasting 45 to 90 minutes and a higher average order value than digital-only sales, appearing frequently in publications including Vogue and The Local Project.

Developed with Arent + Pyke, the Saba QVB concept flagship draws directly from the brand's minimal, tailored DNA while repurposing existing tenancy elements to minimise waste. Sales are tracking 12% above forecast post-refurbishment, with a 76% increase to forecast on in-store conversion and a 10% lift in average transaction value.

Akubra connected ecommerce, pop-up retail, metro expansion and event-based commerce into a single feedback loop, shifting from calendar-based stock planning to responsive, signal-led allocation. The model contributed to a 35% year-on-year increase in online sales while strengthening the brand's relevance across both regional and metro audiences.

Working at the invitation of the NSW Arts Minister, the team developed the first fashion sector strategy in Australia's history, a package of six priorities now adopted and funded by the NSW Government. The priorities support the full lifecycle of Australian designers from training through to an Australian Fashion Hub, a Paris showroom and collection by the Powerhouse museum.

When US-China tariffs spiked toward an effective 172.5%, City Chic treated the shock as a volatility event rather than a pricing event, pulling forward inventory and resetting to a variable cost base. The disciplined approach protected liquidity and enabled a controlled re-entry that delivered $2.1 million in net sales when a tariff reprieve arrived.

David Jones launched a digitally led loyalty program with a landmark Qantas partnership, giving customers the choice to earn David Jones or Qantas Points. In six months the program drove more than 410,000 new sign-ups, a 117% uplift in member revenue and a 168% incremental sales uplift against non-members.

Vintage 2025 reframed fashion as a story-led ecosystem, integrating Riverina winemakers as collaborators across a runway presentation and a 72-page publication in regional NSW. The event drew 200 attendees and generated more than 300,000 digital impressions, evolving into a larger multi-designer platform called Citrus Threads.

Peter Alexander sustained post-Covid momentum through a store network strategy focused on expansion, optimisation and brand evolution rather than store count alone. Sales grew from $428.5 million in FY22 to $548 million in FY25, with regional openings in Albury and Wagga Wagga reaching new customer groups.

APG & Co pioneered CLO 3D design in Australian fashion, beginning its journey in 2019 and reaching 100% of development styles on the platform across Saba, Sportscraft and Jag. The eight-year adoption has delivered an 80% time reduction on print strike-offs and a 50% cost reduction on development and fit sampling, with the business now championing the technology to the wider Seamless network

Aur Oceà tackled the sizing uncertainty that drives swimwear returns through Project Confidence, pairing Magic Fit size recommendations with Try with Mirra try-at-home functionality. Try with Mirra attracted 85% first-time customers at an average order value more than 60% higher than standard purchases, while Magic Fit drove a 20% conversion rate.

Built in honour of the late designer, Carla AI Mentor draws on more than 8 million words of curated entrepreneurship knowledge to give every woman in Australia access to on-demand, privacy-first mentorship. The platform attracted more than 70,000 visitors in its first six months, double its 12-month target, and hosted 1,092 conversations with aspiring female founders.

PVH ANZ ran a customer data platform and CRM transformation on Salesforce Data Cloud, unifying fragmented data into a single first-party view across Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Van Heusen. Delivered within 2025, the program brought core lifecycle marketing live across acquisition, retention and reactivation, and now serves as the test case informing the group's global rollout.

Sheike architected a fully custom loyalty and commerce ecosystem across Shopify Plus, CEGID and Klaviyo, extended in-store through LiteCard digital wallet integration. The ecosystem surpassed 231,000 members, lifted omnichannel shopping to 37% of members and delivered around $100,000 in annual operational savings while improving customer experience.

Akubra's culture is built on a legacy workforce where tenure ranges from two years to more than 40, creating deep mentorship and shared knowledge across the brand. As one of the few remaining large-scale handcrafted hat manufacturers in the world, the business is committed to passing its specialised craft through the next 150 years of generations.

With 20,000 team members across 20 countries, Cotton On invests in wellbeing through its Healthiest YOU program, onsite childcare and the Returnity program that supported more than 350 parents back to work. Around 75,000 learning courses were completed last year, 60% of leaders are female and the business maintains a zero per cent gender pay gap for like-for-like roles.

Petal & Pup sustained an employee engagement rate above 90% and a 93.44% retention rate through people-first initiatives including its new Talent Matrix framework. Clear internal pathways saw 16% of the permanent workforce promoted in the most recent cycle, with 12% of head office roles held by team members who began in the warehouse.

Philosophy Australia has maintained 100% staff and contractor retention over the past seven years, a rare outcome grounded in a this-is-our-business mindset and a couture-style production model where one machinist completes each garment. A predominantly female workforce is supported through flexibility, monthly family gatherings and genuine shared ownership.

Anthem was created for a new generation of tradespeople who train before work and bring an athlete's mindset to their craft, built on the philosophy “from the workout to the worksite”. The brand has scaled from 30 retail partners to more than 180 stockists nationwide while doubling its direct-to-consumer channel year on year.

Aur Oceà redefines swim and resort wear as trans-seasonal rather than holiday-driven, built on an elevated haute bohemian aesthetic and responsible production. Within 18 months of launch it achieved more than $2 million in annual turnover, an average order value of around $519 and a network of over 60 boutique and resort partners alongside David Jones and The Iconic.

Being Wear designs sensory-first, gender-label-free underwear for people often overlooked by the category, using eco-conscious modal and bamboo.The brand is reporting strong revenue growth, healthy repeat purchases, and strong organic engagement, with the business now eyeing the UK for growth.

Hyde & Stone is an Australian luxury womenswear label centred on natural fibres, refined tailoring and enduring design, built through intentional capsule releases and limited production runs. The brand won the People's Choice Award at the 2023 David Jones National Designer Award, featured in the print edition of Vogue Australia and designed uniforms for The Calile Hotel and Raes on Wategoes.

Parq introduces a fashion-led perspective to women's golf, delivering performance apparel designed to move seamlessly from course to everyday life. The brand achieved an average order value of $252.46 and grew its returning customer rate 134%, with an Instagram-led strategy driving an 879% increase in revenue contribution and organic adoption by figures including Molly Picklum.

Van Brussel challenges the pace of modern fashion through a small-run production model built on premium designer deadstock fabrics and local Australian manufacturing. The ungendered label won the National Designer Award for Sustainability at Melbourne Fashion Festival 2025 and was selected to present at Australian Fashion Week 2026 as part of the DHL Next Generation showcase.

Akubra partnered with creative agency DotCollective to reimagine its digital experience, modernising the brand's ecommerce presence while preserving its heritage and craftsmanship. The relaunch introduced lifestyle imagery for the first time and delivered a 35% year-on-year increase in online revenue.

A collaboration between UTS and TAFE NSW, the Centre of Excellence demonstrated its collaborative nature across five projects spanning industry training, undergraduate learning, research and reporting. In 2025 it trained more than 150 fashion professionals, published the WORK jobs-of-the-future report and delivered environmental analysis for peer-to-peer rental platform The Volte.

The 2026 Australian Natural Fibres Forum united Australia's two leading natural fibre industries on a shared platform for the first time, attracting 255 attendees from across the global textile value chain. Rather than separating the industries, the forum presented cotton and wool as complementary systems, earning an overall experience rating of 4.72 out of 5.

For the Year of the Horse, Leo Lin and Capella Sydney co-created a fully integrated Lunar New Year experience, from a bespoke hotel package to the global launch of a Limited Edition Mahjong Set. The set sold through 96% in eight weeks and Capella confirmed the campaign as its best-performing Lunar New Year, with revenue up 655% year on year.

Timed to the Australian Grand Prix, Tommy Hilfiger partnered with the new Cadillac Formula 1 team on an integrated brand platform spanning experiential retail, out-of-home and a dedicated capsule collection. The activation reshaped Melbourne's F1 week presence through a pop-up showroom, race simulator, tram wrap and national retail rollout.

Travel retailer Strand entered a long-term partnership with Flight Centre, embedding a tiered voucher program directly into the booking experience to meet customers at the point of highest travel intent. The collaboration is forecast to deliver more than $1 million in incremental revenue across a combined brand reach of 20 million impressions.

Akubra has supported the Kempsey community for more than 50 years through sponsorships, donations and long-term local employment tied to its workshop. Its continued presence sustains 125 local jobs across 51 years of continuous manufacturing, preserving traditional craftsmanship while backing regional sporting clubs, charities and events.

Bonds launched a two-year partnership with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation to champion community-led storytelling and equity of access to culturally relevant books in remote communities. Rather than a one-off gesture, the partnership uses Bonds' scale to move First Nations storytelling from the margins into the everyday, supporting the co-creation of stories in First Languages as part of its reconciliation commitment.

The Cotton On Foundation raised a record $20.2 million in FY25, contributing to more than $200 million since 2007 across education, mental health, environment and First Nations initiatives. Its work spans 25 school builds educating 14,500 students annually, one million trees planted and a place among the top ten global givers to youth mental health.

The Decjuba Foundation was built to redefine how a retail business contributes to society, setting a target to positively impact 25 million lives by 2025 that it achieved in September 2025. To date it has contributed more than $15 million across 36 charity partners, including a $3.6 million multi-year investment scaling Smiling Mind's schools program.

Elk partnered with Surfrider Foundation Australia on the Save the Southern Seas campaign, mobilising public participation against offshore gas exploration during a consultation period that fell over the holidays. The brand installed interactive donation devices across nine stores, contributed match-giving and educational resources and supported a paddle out attended by 1,500 people.

The Social Outfit's Community Print program creates a genuine creative platform for refugee and migrant women, translating their artwork into textile prints sold to the Australian public. In 2025, 21 women were represented in the print design and production process, with the Governor-General wearing a custom gown made from one of the community prints at a Royal Reception.