The new designer playbook
Ragtrader teamed up with St.George to talk trade at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia. The sold-out gathering dived into the new playbook for fashion brands. Here are the highlights.
A new age for designers
Australian fashion businesses are navigating one of the most demanding trading environments in decades.
E-commerce has reshaped margin structures and customer expectations, wholesale terms remain a pressure point for independent labels and digital infrastructure and cash flow management have become as critical to survival as the product itself. Yet plenty of operators are getting it right — growing across online, department store and export channels at once.
The insights below draw on the experience of five operators who have built fashion businesses across e-commerce, wholesale and retail: online retailers Sara Donaldson, Nadia Bartel and Jasmin Howell and designers Johnny Schembri and Nicola Finetti. The session was moderated by Ragtrader's Assia Benmedjdoub.
"Everything on the site is picked by me, backed by me and worn by me."
Sara Donaldson — Australian eCommerce entrepreneur
Prove demand with data before you carry a single unit of stock
One of the sharpest e-commerce launches on stage was a data decision, not a leap of faith.
Sara Donaldson built one of Australia's most recognised fashion platforms in Harper and Harley before making the jump to retail with The UNDONE, an online store built around minimal wardrobe essentials. Before self-funding the launch, she tracked sales attribution through affiliate platforms rewardStyle and ShopStyle, watching her content convert directly into transactions for the brands she featured.
Combined with e-commerce experience in Westfield's digital division and a marketing and sales role running a label's online store, the numbers told her a curated offer under her own name would move product before she committed capital.
"I could see the impact my outfit posts had on sales. You can actually see the sales come through from a blogging endpoint, and so I knew that I could back myself putting my name on something for it to move on an e-commerce platform," she said.
The execution followed the same discipline: no investors, stock warehoused in-house and a tightly edited buy where every product is personally selected to keep the offer consistent. "Everything that is on the site is picked by me, backed by me and worn by me," she said.
Ten months post-launch the store had repeat weekly customers and strong industry response. "So far so good. We've had an amazing response from both the industry and consumers and we have wonderful customers that come back week on week. It's been a really exciting journey — terrifying but rewarding," she said.
The takeaway for any founder eyeing retail: validate conversion through third-party sales data first, then take on inventory risk.
Own your platform and your data — or lose a year of your business
Digital infrastructure can make or break an online business — and few know it better than Nadia Bartel.
The Connection — the multi-brand online store she co-founded — launched on a custom-built platform developed by an independent web developer rather than Shopify or Magento.
The decision was driven by ambitions to build at Net-a-Porter scale from day one. The cost: the business operated for an entire year without back-end access, unable to view sales, update stock, load new deliveries or mine customer data. Google Analytics was not available until 12 months after launch. The customer-facing site worked; the business behind it was flying blind.
"We didn't actually have access to the back end of our site for a whole year," she said. "We only got to see Google Analytics a year after we launched. It's been very hard in that sense, but I think it's a great learning experience as well."
Bartel's diagnosis was that the developer took on work beyond his capacity and failed to communicate it. "I think it teaches you, as you do with any business or any relationship, that you have to just trust your gut. If it was just communicated that he couldn't do it, we would have then gone to someone else. We should have just been a little bit more firm and said can you do it or not," she said.
Her reassurance for anyone mid-crisis: several established designers stocked on her site admitted to identical re-platforming failures, and even major retail groups routinely miss launch dates when changing platforms.
The structural lesson extends beyond the tech stack. Jasmin Howell — who launched Friend in Fashion in 2009 and now consults to brands on digital strategy — argued brands must be "asset rich". This means owning their website, customer data and content rather than renting reach from platforms that change overnight.
"Instagram now is very much the flavour of the month, but it wasn't around when we started. I often think, what happens if your Instagram disappears tomorrow? What have you got as a brand? What is your legacy? If it all leads back to your website — something that you own — I think that's where the true value is," she said.
“I think it teaches you, as you do with any business or any relationship, that you have to just trust your gut."
Nadia Bartel — eCommerce entrepreneur
E-commerce is the margin engine and the growth lever
Online sales are no longer a side channel for wholesale labels — they are the margin engine of the modern fashion business.
Designers Johnny Schembri and Nicola Finetti both built their businesses on wholesale — yet now treat their online stores as the most strategically important channel in the business.
Schembri started By Johnny selling party dresses at Sydney markets and has grown the label over eight years into Myer, David Jones and international stockists including Revolve — all without investors. He was explicit on the economics: the label's online store sells at retail margin rather than wholesale, making it the label's most profitable channel — and one that can be grown in-house without the capital demands of physical stores.
"As a designer, it's not online for wholesale, it's online for retail — so there's a bigger margin and you can reach a larger audience overseas. We're currently seeing bigger growth overseas, which is great. That's something you can grow in-house and it doesn't take too much," he said.
With no standalone stores, the site doubles as the single place customers experience the brand on the label's own terms. "It's the one place our customer comes to experience the brand and understand what we're doing for the season. Having that opportunity to tell that story and create your own content and your own message, your way — I think it's vital," he said.
Finetti has run his label for more than three decades, cycling through boutique retail, wholesale, Myer and David Jones along the way. He called his online store the most important part of the business for one reason — reach. It sells to customers his boutique and department store footprint could never service, expanding the addressable market without expanding overheads.
"I think it's the most important part of the business, because you can sell to everywhere in this country — people from Darwin, from Perth or further into the country. You have a much bigger audience with the website," he said.
Engineer your cash flow: the monthly drop model
Seasonal trade creates a structural cash flow problem — long gaps between deliveries where wages, production and marketing still have to be paid.
Schembri restructured By Johnny's entire range architecture to solve a cash flow problem. The label abandoned the traditional two-season model — where a collection sits on the floor for months and ages — in favour of segmented monthly drops: Autumn delivered across February and March, Winter across April and May, with July and January reserved as sale months.
The result is new product in store every month, fresher floors and revenue landing evenly across the year instead of in two seasonal lumps with long payment gaps between them.
"There was a time when I was doing summer and winter, and then you'll have a collection that's on the floor for months and it's old. Now basically every month there's something new in store and there's cash flow. You don't have a lull in payments — it's spread across the year," he said.
The model also solved a growth trap. "For the last three years I have literally been treading water — we've got the great orders but we need hands. It's only up until now where I'm sitting back and realising okay, that wasn't actually enough, even though it was amazing. I've needed all these extra people and now they're all in jobs and I have to pay these wages. So now, what's the next step? And the next step for us was more doors, international growth and building online," he said.
The model also solved a growth trap.
"For the last three years I have literally been treading water — we've got the great orders but we need hands. It's only up until now where I'm sitting back and realising okay, that wasn't actually enough, even though it was amazing. I've needed all these extra people and now they're all in jobs and I have to pay these wages. So now, what's the next step? And the next step for us was more doors, international growth and building online," he said.
"We feel confident in our team now that we can take those challenges on."
Johnny Schembri — Australian designer
Export is a logistics game — and concentration is the hidden risk
International wholesale rewards preparation and punishes concentration.
Finetti's most expensive export lesson: a full shipment to a New York account was returned from the dock over a delivery roughly two weeks late. US retailers, he warned, operate delivery windows as tight as an hour and will reject or demand deeper discounts on anything outside them — making an experienced customs broker who can stage stock ahead of the window non-negotiable for the American market. Asia, Europe and the Middle East are more forgiving entry points.
"America is like that — if you don't deliver on time, they will send it back. Everything has to be perfect or they want more discount. It was the problem of the broker, that I didn't engage properly with them. The broker will hold the stock the day before and they are prepared — they know what they are doing," he said.
Schembri is sequencing By Johnny's export push deliberately — building confidence through Revolve and select boutiques before taking meetings with Saks, Shopbop and Dubai-based partners. His reasoning is risk management as much as growth.
"Those agreements can be quite intense, from a contract perspective and also logistics. I think we've done it enough now that we feel confident with our team that we can take that on. It's easy for an Australian department store to become a big fish in your business, and it's about ensuring there's a great mix — so if anything was to pull out, you're still okay," he said.
Payment terms decide who survives — and department stores pay best
In wholesale, the sale isn't the win — the payment is.
Finetti's core survival mechanic is negotiating when he gets paid, not just how much. His playbook: offer department stores a small early-settlement discount to secure payment within 14 days, against boutique terms that stretch to 90 days — and sometimes never, with independent accounts occasionally failing to pay at all. That reliable fortnightly cash cycle, established when he entered department stores in the mid-1990s, is what he credits with keeping the label solvent across three decades.
"It's very important to have somebody that will pay you in the right way, and really the department store is the only one that will help you in doing that. You give a percentage of discount and you can get all the money back in 14 days. With the boutique instead, sometimes you have to wait 90 days — or sometimes they don't pay," he said.
The fine print matters as much as the terms. Early in his department store history a buyback clause on unsold stock left him owing roughly $40,000 — repaid at $500 a month over two years. "They wanted all the money back and I didn't have it, so I paid $500 a month — for two years," he said. His fix: contracts with no return provisions, so stock bought is stock sold. He also warned the channel's economics cut both ways — department stores enforce weekly sell-through percentage targets, and product can underperform not because it is wrong but because no one on the floor is selling it the way a boutique does.
Schembri's parallel advice for designers entering department stores: build in your own protections and negotiate brand-level support — ambassador dressing, spring racing programs and show inclusion — rather than settling for shelf space. "They've got a lot of processes in place and it can get scary if you don't perform — they could ask for money back. There's a lot of things set to protect them, but you need to make sure you're protected as well," he said.
"It's logic. You buy $2000 worth and then want exclusivity?"
Nicola Finetti — Australian designer
Exclusivity is earned with a minimum spend — territory has a price
Boutique territorialism came with a clear commercial answer from both designers.
Schembri's rule: exclusivity is only granted against a minimum spend. A boutique wanting to lock out a neighbouring suburb on a three-dress order does not make sense; a $10,000 commitment that properly services the territory's customers does. Where he sells to adjacent accounts — a Double Bay and a Paddington boutique, for instance — the buys are differentiated so each customer base sees a different edit.
"Sometimes they want exclusivity but they want to buy three dresses, and it just doesn't make sense. If you want exclusivity there's a minimum spend, and if you want to own that area you need to then service that customer," he said.
Finetti mapped the geography behind the negotiation: Sydney's village structure means suburbs like Paddington, Double Bay and Bondi effectively share a customer and force a choice between accounts, while Melbourne and Perth support multiple stockists across the city and inner suburbs without cannibalisation. His warning was about supplier greed rather than retailer demands — overselling a territory to chase orders is what erodes the wholesale relationships that fund the business.
"It's logic — you want exclusivity and then you buy $2,000 worth? In Melbourne it's different, you can sell to people in different parts — one in the city, one in Toorak, one here, one there. But when you start to get greedy, that you want to have more boutiques, then that's the problem," he said.
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