Is Australian Fashion Week and Rosemount on the same catwalk?

This year naming rights for Australian Fashion Week have gone to Rosemount Estate Wines, but is there might be a perceived misalignment between the two brands.

With Mercedes surrendering rights to Rosemount, DIFFUSION would have thought that there would have been a natural synergy between the brands as there was with its predecessor's long association.

Sure, Rosemount positions itself in the US and other markets as "The Prestige Wine of Australia" or so it's 2006 website proclaims and Australian Fashion Week, under the aegis of Simon Lock and now IMG, has successfully grown a new fashion event brand in a highly competitive but small market.

But anyone taking a trip down to their local liquor store or bottle shop will see that the "Prestige Wine of Australia" sells for less than $10 in its country of origin.

While for some this might indicate a high level of accessibility for a great wine, "prestige" and low prices seem somewhat incongruous with an international event that has helped launched the careers of such notable Australian designers as Colette Dinnigan, Akira Isogawa, Sass and Bide and Tsubi/Ksubi.

Rosemount might be repositioning, and this is understandably a long process that requires years of work, but the Fosters' owned brand also needs to translate its brand and marketing efforts to the product side, particularly in the Australian market. Sponsorships and naming rights are usually local affairs and work best when there is a perceived and actual alignment between the brand and the sponsor, not when it's merely exercising a proposition and a tagline. Even Rosemount's website makes no mention of Australian Fashion Week, an embarrassing oversight and yet another indication that the brand doesn't appear to have its brand and marketing act together in Australia.

Locally any brand that can offer itself to consumers at a range of price points below $10 (Rosemount's Diamond Range) and up to $30 for it's sparkling is not really competing with the likes of Grange or Giaconda or estates like Cape Mentelle, Domaine Chandon or Cullen.

For IMG and Australian Fashion Week, it will need to work harder to convince people that their names are synonymous, particularly as Mercedes remains a sponsor for other international events, particularly in the US. There's no details on the monetary cost of naming rights for the even but it's obviously a lucrative arrangement as the cost of showing skyrockets and major fashion names decline to appear.

Hopefully, Australian Fashion Week invitees will be supping on some of Rosemount's more pricier vintages.

Stella McCartney gives Target some relief from cultural cringe.

Target, the Coles Group owned version of their American counterpart, have finally gotten a little design-savvy with the launch this week of internationally renowned designer Stella McCartney's winter collection.

The McCartney collection is part of a project, called "Designers for Target, style by design'' which has previously featured collections from Australian designers Melbourne's T.L. Wood and Sydney-based Alice McCall and Tina Kalivas. Unlike Target USA, this is a one-off project which illustrates some of the problems associated with the hero branding exercises like this.

Target USA are more design focussed than Australia with designers like Alessi's Michael Graves, Reidel and Isaac Mizrahi always in stock. The latest Target "Design for All" includes entire women's collections (not 14 pieces from Stella's atelier) by famed New York designers Proenza Schouler.

So why should we feel lucky we get this collection from Stella McCartney? After all she's been designing for Puma recently and the collection has been heavily featured in David Jones. And why is it only Qantas First and Business class passengers will get the benefits of design supervision by Australians Mark Newson and toiletries courtesy of Akira Isogawa and Colette Dinnigan? It all smacks a little of the old Australian cultural cringe. It's only acceptable for most people if its an overseas designer and has a premium attached to it. Here at DIFFUSION we believe good design should always be cheap and accessible. The Coles Group has had the opportunity to do this for a long time now. So let's see something from the likes of Akira, Colette and even Stella EVERY time we visit a Target Store.