Designers Cut It Overseas

Designers Cut It Overseas
When the Australian fashion labels Country Road and Saba launched their international expansion strategies in the late 1990s they made the same mistake.

They tried to replicate their successful domestic retail strategies in the higher-cost United States market.

By early 2000 both had withdrawn from the US.

But where they failed, lower-profile fashion designers, such as Tsubi, Sass & Bide, Leona Edmiston and Easton Pearson are succeeding.

Rather than develop retail operations with high start-up costs, the next wave of fashion exporters is building exports through wholesaling.