Make it Melbourne
Australia’s garment manufacturing industry, including pattern making and cutting, tailoring, garment tech and machining, is on the cusp of a renaissance. The 1970s is often touted as the “decade that fashion forgot,” but it also became the decade that Australia forgot its local textile manufacturing industry, which waned when offshoring of textile weaving and garment production became an economist’s standard solution to improve the bottom line.
Making in Melbourne.
At the cutting table.
Happily, value paradigms are being recalibrated, and more consumers today care deeply and consciously about how their clothes are made, where they are made and by whom. Certainly, many of our customers want to put faces to the hands that make our garments and to celebrate their skills and craftsmanship. Behind the scenes, it is important to us that we know where every element of a garment comes from and have involvement in the construction process. It is key to our design method - that every garment feels right to wear but also sits right with soul. What we intend to get better at, is shouting out about that publicly.
In a three-part documentary series called ‘Make it Melbourne,’ the Australian Fashion Council, supported by Creative Victoria, puts the local manufacturing industry in the spotlight.
The team at Kerrin is thrilled to be highlighted as one of the Melbourne-based labels tapping into local manufacturing. In her interview for ‘Make it Melbourne,’ owner and CEO of small scale manufacturing studio The Sample Room, Julia Van Der Sommen, highlights that there is a bustling industry of highly skilled people here in Melbourne. And while there is still a shortage of skilled makers, due in part to the increased demand by labels such as Kerrin to make more of their ranges locally, there are so many advantages to onshore manufacturing.
View the film: Make it Melbourne
Read the Article: Make it Melbourne
