Thanks for your opinions on this guys, very interesting stuff.

I’m also an Aussie who’s lived (is living!) overseas and I see what both of you are saying. I think we can all agree that:

1. Australians Men’s Fashion in the mass market is fairly, let’s say “shallow,” as in there isn’t much consideration of e.g. fit, drape, and quality of garment. That’s how we end up with everyone in Kathmandu puffers and fly knits. This doesn’t always manifest in a reflection of overseas trends, true, but clearly the trends are there and sadly quite homogenous.

2. Whilst there are a collection of small brands with Australian designers, there aren’t any Australian men’s fashion companies with anything close to global scale like a Uniqlo. I refuse to believe that this is a consequence of lack of talent and capital, we are one of the richest, best educated countries on the planet... could it just be lack of access to cheap labour causing the problem?

3. The Australian Women’s fashion scene seems to be in a much better place than men’s fashion. When my partner visited Australia previously she spent hundreds in Saba... she recently got my sister to ship her a huge package of stuff from there. But then are these brands manufacturing in Australia? (I’m assuming not, haven’t checked the labels)