The Australian Fashion Council (AFC) and Creative Victoria have partnered to deliver ‘Make It Melbourne,’ a three-part documentary series centred on the local manufacturing industry.
The first video in the series features designer brand Viktoria and Woods, which creates merino knits through production house and training facility Kangan Institute.
The Kangan Institute knit machine can knit a whole garment in one piece without any seams.
Founder Margie Woods believes that more support is needed to train highly skilled technicians to use unique pieces of machinery.
“I think we are one of the very few brands that do fully fashion knits in Australia”, Woods said.“It’s not the machinery that's limited, it's actually skilled technicians. There's only a few that can do what they’re doing.”
The Sample Room founder Julia Van Der Sommen, who works with a variety of brands including Ihraa Swim and Kerrin, said there are benefits to manufacturing locally.
“Between the designer and the shop there’s a huge bustling industry of highly skilled people, and I think we need to bring that back - to showcase to the consumer and people interested to working in the industry that it is a real industry, and a real job and an amazing career."
In line with the series, the Australian Fashion Council has encouraged Melbourne manufacturers to list their business in the AFC Directory.