Australia's fashion exports

A Helping Hand

Through AusIndustry, the Australian Government provides the following grants and concessions for businesses in the textiles, clothing and footwear industry.

Textile, Clothing and Footwear (TCF) Expanded Overseas Assembly Provisions (EOAP) Scheme

The TCF EOAP provides duty concessions to firms who assemble garments and footwear overseas from predominantly Australian fabric and/or leather and then import them back into Australia for local consumption.

Textile, Clothing and Footwear Post-2005 Strategic Investment Program (TCF Post-2005 SIP) Scheme

The TCF Post-2005 (SIP) Scheme aims to foster the development of a sustainable and internationally competitive TCF manufacturing industry and TCF design industry in Australia by providing incentives which will promote investment and innovation. It is an entitlement program which provides incentives in the form of reimbursement grants, paid annually and in arrears. The program will run until 2014/15.

Textile, Clothing and Footwear Product Diversification Scheme (PDS)

This scheme is designed to assist clothing and finished textile manufacturers located in Australia to internationalise their sourcing arrangements and complement their product range. It will do this by providing duty credit that can be used to offset duty payable on qualifying finished clothing or relevant finished textile articles.

Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business Program

This program provides grants to improve the business enterprise culture of TCF small businesses. The program is specifically aimed at TCF small businesses unable to receive assistance under the TCF Post-2005 (SIP) Scheme. It is competitive and merit-based with a maximum grant of $50,000 provided to each successful project. Funding of $2.5 million is available per year over a 10-year period (from 2006/07).

Tradex

The Tradex Scheme provides relief to people or organisations via an up-front exemption from Customs duty and GST on imported goods intended for export or to be used as input for exports. The scheme removes the need to 'drawback' these charges after export.

Source: www.ausindustry.gov.au

Fashion Faux Pas

•    Shorts, skimpy t-shirts or other ‘immodest’ clothes are considered inappropriate for many Middle-Eastern women.

•    In Ecuador, it is a faux pas for men and women to wear short pants in townships.

•    In Mexico the colour purple is associated with funerals.

•    It is a faux pas to give a married Chinese man green-colored headwear as a gift. The Chinese saying ‘wearing a green hat’ means that someone's wife is unfaithful. For Cantonese speakers, this connotation extends to hats in general.

•    In Europe, white socks, including the style associated with athleticism in the US, are widely regarded as inappropriate for adult men.

•    Wearing real fur clothing is a taboo in the UK, especially among the young. Fake fur however, has no taboo there.

•    One-piece swimwear doesn’t sell well in Italy.

Top Tips

“There’s a lot more to learn than you first imagine. There are also a lot of different import requirements into the various markets and lots of paperwork, which we underestimated in the beginning, so beware of that.”

—Lydia Pearson, co-director and designer, Easton Pearson

“Do your homework and research on distributors and agents. Look at the brands in Australia that you like and admire and who are having success overseas—look at who they’re using as agents or distributors, and have discussions with them. Get people’s feedback.

“Don’t wait too long. I thought I’d just be doing business in Australia for five years and really ground this down before I took the step to export, but I started it after a year and I’ve had way more success overseas than I’ve had here.”

—Lucy Hosken, founder, Nearly Nude