I have been asking, talking, speaking, writing about representation and what it actually means for a long time. In 2025 I find myself without new words. The words I wrote in December 2016 for another publication remain as relevant.

 

Published 9 January 2017 on SBS.com.au

Read full article here.

Images taken by Dusk Devi Vision for Ethnic Model Management, featuring some of the EMM models.

 

I live for the day when I see a group of four models in an Australian brand’s fashion campaign and only one is white. THAT is “multicultural norm”. That is our reality. We need to see the ‘us’ in Australia.

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They cite “buyers’ market” as their reasons but fail to actually look at who their buyers are.  The Australian fashion industry is too scared of designing for its population and too lazy to feature diverse collections, resting on the laurels of ‘urbanism’.

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In a world of “ethnic” majority, why is fashion still a western world directive? Australians are girt by fashion parades, […] but very few of these shows reflect the truth of what Australia’s population looks like.
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Australian Fashion Week will spend ridiculous amounts of money to import international designers, models, bloggers, media, with considerable help from the NSW government, yet Australian Indigenous Fashion Week [AIFW] struggled to secure funding and government help, to create a legacy. 

Alas, 2014 saw the last of Australian Indigenous Fashion Week, it fell victim to its deliberate lack of wider support.

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In a coup for one demographic, Pacific Runway, Australia’s most prestigious platform for designers of Pacific origin is now on the official calendar for Carriageworks, which is a big deal when it comes to industry recognition. Carriageworks is the home of Australian Fashion Week and Pacific Runway has been held there for the last two years as a featured event. 

Now it is part of the program.

Pacific Runway’s designers are from all over the Pacific, not just Australian based, and demonstrating again the Australian Fashion Industry’s insular viewpoint. […] 

 

The Pacific is ripe with design talent. So many of its countries have fashion weeks and established fashion industries and brands, yet undiscovered by its biggest neighbour. Pacific Runway was started by Jannike Seiuli in 2012 to address this ignorance. 

Her mission was to create a bridge between Pacific design talent and Australian style connoisseurs. […] The event’s triumph and official acknowledgement proves that Australia is ready to experiment with style and that Australia’s style is not defined by fashion. It is determined by people. 

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REPRESENTATION matters. But we shouldn’t rely on others to tell us what that representation looks like. Seize it. Wear it. Own it.”

 

– Sandhya Nand

 

PS: I have changed my mind about AIFW being separate from AFW.