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Digital Exposed Seminar

Wondering what “checking in” is all about? Wondering why people and not birds are tweeting? Do you know that your business needs to sell online but don’t know the first thing about it?

Digital Exposed is a seminar…

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Crop to it in a modern-day midriff…




Images via Stylebistro and Pinterest.

Are you having a mid-90′s Versace flashback?

Yep, we are too. No longer just a teen trend or festival fashion, the midriff, crop top, bandeau, bralet and other belly-baring styles are officially back in vogue.

We predict this look to be one of the biggest trends for SS14. It has always been around, we agree, but designers at the recent Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia proved it’s here to stay.

Ginger & Smart paired bralets with tailored, high-waisted pants and blazers nonchalantly thrown over the shoulders heralding a new style of power dressing for the noughties.



Candice Lake translated the look street style, but this is certainly a bold look for anyone to pull off.


But if this is too daring for you, don’t dismay. The modern interpretation is super subtle with an air of sophistication.

How is that possible? Well for starters, the less is more rule still applies to this look. That means when baring your flesh, we should only ever see a hint of tummy.

Make like Diane Kruger below, who showcased the modern midriff with her class still firmly in tact. And the key to pulling this off with elegance is pairing the crop top with a mid-calf pencil skirt, floor length maxi skirt or tailored high-waisted pants.



See more ways to wear this tummy-baring trend below or head to our Crop it Pinterest board;

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FOAH – Flower of an Hour



FOAH Flower of an Hour, is the fruit of the friendship between two flowers who met on a bench of the Parisian Sorbonne university, one from the Indian Ocean, the other from the Balkans.

One is Myriam Cazal, a fashion designer from Reunion Island, trained at the ESMOD International School of Paris. The other is Simona Stoeva, a young French-speaking and French-loving Bulgarian girl seeking to create bridges between dancing and architecture, and developing commercial skills working as part of the DIM company.


With a degree in Art History and a solid professional experience, the two friends come together with a common will to stand on their own feet. The love of style and their complicity add up, to give birth to an ambitious, joyful project.

The French designer and the eastern-European ambassador weave their web with determination and decide to create their brand, with their diverse cultures and inspirations, to bring every woman of this world with a glamorous, elegant and sexy product, at a reasonable cost.

FOAH Flower of an Hour debuted their range at the recent Fashion Exposed Sydney.

For more information and stockist inquiries, email Simona Stoeva; [email protected]

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VM EXPOSED: Attract, Engage & Motivate Sales


Fashion Exposed chats with Megan Tregilgas to re-discover the art of visual merchandising and discover how to attract, engage and motivate your customer to maximise sales.

Megan Tregilgas of Visual Metier presents the key principles of VM at Fashion Exposed, shares common mistakes and shows how to execute stimulating VM displays on a tight budget, based on her own fashion retail background.


Her are her top tips;

1. Know your brand – Ensure you and your team understand the brand and it’s message and Visual Merchandising will come easily.

2. Plan – Planning your windows and store layouts in advance will allow you to put together a marketing calendar and make the most of seasonal events.

3. Educate and motivate you team so they are confident in changing displays to maximise sales

4. Customer Service – Visual Merchandising is good customer service. Clean well laid out stores, clear signage and pleasant looking accessorised displays all act as silent salespeople. Not only is it effective, but it can be cheap! Present your merchandise in a pleasing way and customers will be more tempted to spend.

5. VM 101 – Less is more – keep displays simple. Find a system that works. Use odd numbers opposed to evens. Even numbers cause symmetry which causes the eye to stop and not take in the whole picture. Repetition using identical elements repeatedly creates a powerful display.

6. Texture – Contrasting materials and interesting props stimulate your display into life. Attention to detail is key.

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BUSINESS EXPOSED: Engaged staff sell more


Marguerite Bell of Retail Doctor chats with Fashion Exposed on how to build a great sales force, establish goals, train a team and develop effective selling techniques.

Here are her top tips:

1. Celebrate success – Tell your team what they’re doing right, not what they’re doing wrong. Reward your staff for high achievement with prizes for sales, average sale, items per sale and conversion rates.

2. Communicate – Make it clear that you have an `open door’ policy and welcome your team to come to you with any problems or concerns.

3. Lead by example – We see truly `fit’ retail CEO’s visiting stores and speaking to customers. How can you expect others to follow your rules, if you don’t follow them yourself?

4. Be positive – The positivity of your team will be felt by your customers and generate results so have fun in store and be positive at all times!

5. Empower them – Staff who are given responsibility will step up to the mark. Keep them trained and informed to empower them to make decisions on the shop floor.

6. Promote continuous improvement – Staff training should be an ongoing process linked to individual and team KPIs and measured by sales results. Coaching your staff is the key to improvement. Help them grow with your business and lift the cycle of continual improvement.

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TRENDS EXPOSED: Global Retail Trends with Westfield’s Jack Hanrahan


Westfield Retailer Relations Manager, Jack Hanrahan uncovered the latest trends in retail from enticing shop windows, unique installations and inspiring visual merchandising techniques from an international perspective at Fashion Exposed, Sydney.

In this chat, we discuss why customer service is crucial to the new retail experience, training your staff to become part of the retail `family’, and the power of visual merchandising.


Here are his top tips.

Implications for retailers

1. Have a reason for Being – why buy from me
2. What is your Sustainable Competitive Advantage
culture; experience; curating; value; people; product
3. What are the consumer trends
first; newness; customisation; authenticity; value
4. Experiential retail – total immersion
5. Congruence with the virtual/physical
6. Retail technology – critical success factor
7. Service as a product – great opportunitites for differentiation too

“EST Retailers – all retailers should be at least 2 of the following;

Lowest prices
Highest quality
Best value
Easiest to get to
Hottest fashions
Broadest assortment
Fastest service
Friendliest Associates
Nicest layout and design

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BUSINESS EXPOSED: Case study – Le Black Book & Her Fashion Box


Online retailing is now a mainstream sales channel with new technology changing daily to meet the needs of the competitive consumer.

Discover how online entrepreneur, Kath Purkis of Le Black Book & Her Fashion Box used regular data analysis and sell-through reports to continually adapt and change her e-tail model to exceed consumer expectations and flourish in a highly competitive market

Kath Purkis top tips:

1. Know your customers – Do your research and know what problem you are solving.
2. Be your brand – Be the face of your brand, have all employees as brand ambassadors & create a positive company culture.
3. Be the trend setter – Set the trends and take a risk, lead the pack and don’t follow the crowd.
4. Minimal clicks mean maximum sales – keep it clean and simple, don’t over-complicate the conversion funnel to sale.
5. Disrupt or be disrupted – Don’t get left behind, take risks and create as opposed to replicate.

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DIGITAL EXPOSED: Connect with your customer


Tim Kortitis of Social Media Servants spoke at Fashion Exposed Business Seminar today about the power of social media and the ways in which you can connect with your customer using the facebook, blogs, instagram, twitter and pinterest platforms.

How to connect with your customers using Facebook, Blogs, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest

1. Decide on your brands strategic position
2. Use each different platform to reinforce this position for customers and your community
3. Pre-plan all social media updates and content a month ahead of time
4. Avoid using social media as just a selling tool (build high trust first)
5. Build relationships with other networks to leverage reach

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Onto a fur thing



Discover your Wild Side in the lush fur print hoods with paw gloves from Wild Hoodz.

Looking for innovative apparel that doubles up as more than just clothing?

Wild Hoodz are the next big thing! They incorporate a hood with scarf and mittens, creating a functional, comfortable and stylish item of clothing.

Each Wild Hood product is made to the highest standard from premium quality synthetic furs that are an incredibly soft acrylic/polyester blend.

They are lined with a soft fleece and have embroidered paws with a pocket in the sleeve deep enough for a phone. They also boast a button and loop feature enabling the wearer to wear the hood in a scarf fashion.

Each product comes packaged in its own custom-designed reusable backpacks, eliminating unnecessary landfill.

They also have matching leg warmers and short hoods and will be expanding the brand into handbags this year.

Wild Hoodz Australia was formed in July 2012. With years of experience in the retail, fashion and marketing industries, this business became a natural progression for founder Christine Gradinger. After seeing similar types of products overseas, she saw great potential in creating the Wild Hoodz range for the Australian market.

Wild Hoodz made its debut with a range of animal print faux fur hoods and then expanded the range from 10 to 20 styles and also included short hoods and leg warmers.

Winter 2012, she took Wild Hoodz products down the East Coast of Australia to a number of Trade, Royal and country shows, receiving an overwhelmingly positive response. Wild Hoodz products exceeded sales expectations and forecasts, with many of our customers being NRL Supporters.

Wild Hoodz celebrates ones inner wild side and provides a practical and refreshing twist in design to rugging up for the cold. This year will see further additions to the collection including our new range ‘Illuminate’, led lighted hoods.

Each item is subject to stringent quality control before being dispatched from our warehouse on the Gold Coast and we currently have the capacity of supplying over 20, 000 hoods per month.

Currently Wild Hoodz products are being stocked in several stores in Queensland and New South Wales and have orders from more stores in Tasmania, Victoria and New Zealand for the coming winter. They also have an online store.

At the heart of Wild Hoodz’ vision is the commitment to promoting creativity and delivering the highest level in design, service and quality to each of their customers.

See the Wild Hoodz range on stand 4438 during Fashion Exposed from Sunday March 10-12 at the Sydney Exhibition Centre.

For more information or to register, visit fashionexposed.com

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Fashion Exposed in Ragtrader



Don’t miss the March issue of Ragtrader with a feature on Fashion Exposed exhibitors and the WGSN trend report on which looks will translate down under for SS13/14…

Pick up a copy on site during the 3-day event from 10-12 March at the Sydney Exhibition Centre.



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Alice Sutton: Emerging sustainable fashion designer turning moths into butterflies


Written by Clare Kennedy of State of Green

It’s designers like 2011 fashion graduate Alice Sutton, 23, who give me hope for the future of the Australian fashion industry. Not only are her designs beautiful and wearable; her work is driven by a passion for sustainability.

And for lovers of history and nature, there’s another hook in this yarn. Each garment is woven around a story that’s been inspired by her travels. As Sutton explains: “Our pieces have meaning for the wearer… it’s not just fast fashion to wear for a season, it’s a piece that you would want to wear throughout your whole life.”




This marriage of beautiful design and sustainability has caught the eye of industry observers and Sutton has been chosen to present her collection “Until We Arrive” as one of eight designers to compete this Sunday at Sydney’s trade fashion event Fashion Exposed for the coveted Debut award.

“When I thought about submitting for fashion Debut, I thought my point of difference is that I often explore a place – usually somewhere in Canberra – that has a lot of history. That’s where my collection comes from. I started looking at insects, the Bogong moth and its journey to and from Canberra, and then start looking at its texture and life cycle. The collection all stemmed from that.”

View Alice Sutton’s designs first hand in the DEBUT finalists display area of Fashion Exposed from Sunday March 10-12 at the Sydney Exhibition Centre.

Head to State of Green to read more of this article, visit stateofgreen.com.au

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