A guide to Australia's best fashion labels
Our go-to homegrown brands, part 1.
Did you know that homeroom first launched as a directory to Australia’s best fashion brands? We built it because we were both that friend to our network — the one who is asked where to find (x) item of clothing. Soph’s mega fashion brain was bursting at the seams with info, and me… well, I was just a very enthusiastic, curious accomplice.
Soph and I spent two years building an exhaustive resource of 300+ labels that could be filtered and explored according to style, occasion, values and more, so if you were looking for a label that catered to a minimalist looking for pregnancy-friendly clothing that was also B Corp certified, you could find it on our website. It was comprehensive but still curated, a real love letter to the breadth and depth of our Australian fashion ecosystem. We poured every spare minute into building it, so we feel uniquely qualified to share this guide to Australia’s best fashion brands.
The hallmark of “Australian style” is the relaxed, unpretentious way we wear clothes. We spend our childhoods barefoot under expansive skies — you just can’t be stuffy when your toes are sandy. Resortwear and athleisure are our categories of choice, and our designers do it (and export it) very well. And while that’s our ‘safe’ place, aesthetically, there’s also a (growing) crop of labels that are taking the best of our undone, effortless spirit and infusing it with a little more polish and edge. We have to give kudos to some of the labels who are no longer active — like Dion Lee and Ellery — who helped carve out this niche over the last decade in particular.
In 2025, there’s also no shortage of talented designers making interesting ready-to-wear like Amy Lawrence, Alix Higgins and Courtney Zheng — but, for the purposes of this guide, we’ve kept it narrowed in on established or emerging-established labels that have shown staying power. We’ve deliberately left accessories (jewellery, shoes etc) and swimwear labels off this list as, honestly, these all deserve their own airtime, and the list would be an ungodly length if we did include.
So here you have it! Part 1 of our Best Of Australian Fashion labels.
Annie
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P.S. We shuttered our directory in 2024 after realising we couldn’t maintain it to the standard we wanted to. We still hope to bring it back one day.
St Agni
St Agni is having its moment right now, loved by fashion girls for its minimalist aesthetic and simple-with-a-twist garments. Think resortwear-meets-tailoring in a monochrome, subdued palette. Eminently wearable garments that don’t feel ‘boring’. Prices reflect the label’s luxury high street positioning: a tailored wool blazer will set you back in the realm of $800, a trench sits just under the $1,000 price point. The brand was started by Lara and Matt Fels out of Byron Bay and now has boutiques in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The label’s trajectory has seen it become a favourite both here at home and internationally.
Camilla and Marc
Camilla and Marc is loved for its premium tailoring and accessories. Cult trench coats and a fondness for an exaggerated shoulder make the label a go-to for a certain type of fashion-attuned consumer (and one with money - the price point leans heavily towards the premium end). Co-founder Camilla Freeman-Topper (she started the business with her brother, Marc, in 2003) really is the Camilla and Marc customer — the quintessential ‘Fashion with a capital F’ girl. The label offers those ‘investment’ style pieces for the everyday shopper, like the perfect winter coat or a pair of interesting pumps that offer a more interesting POV than what you might find at a high street brand. Special mention goes to Camilla and Marc’s annual Ovaries campaign, which has been raising awareness and money to create an early detection test for ovarian cancer for the past five years.
Alemais
Lesleigh Jermanus has achieved a lot in the five short years that have passed since she started Alemais. In 2024, she was named designer of the year at the Australian Fashion Laureate Awards. In 2025, she was named one of Business of Fashion’s 500 People shaping the global fashion industry. And she’s grown Alemais into an internationally recognised label loved for its vintage-inspired silhouettes, whimsical prints and focus on sustainable craftsmanship. The label is now stocked in hundreds of stores around the world. Alemais favours working with natural, durable and organic fibres like hemp, ramie, cotton and linen, and a tree is planted with every garment sold in a bid to reduce the carbon pollution in our atmosphere. An Alemais garment is hard to miss and with an accessible luxury price point, often sell out.
Zimmermann
Zimmermann is the only Australian clothing label to have achieved a billion-dollar valuation, which is remarkable given its humble beginnings at a Paddington market stall in 1991, founded by sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann. Known for its maximalist resortwear, particularly extravagant, floaty gowns and dresses that, for a time, captured the very essence of Australian luxury, exported to stratospheric success in markets like the US and, more recently, China. Given the price point (a dress might set you back between $1800-$3500), Zimmermann’s garments have become status symbols for an overt, loud sort of luxury that doesn’t always sit comfortably on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, but is right at home on the event circuit.
Christopher Esber
Christopher Esber is something of a master of sensual eveningwear. His talents, apparent early on in the piece when he launched his eponymous label in 2010, have earned him an international following — he’s one of the few Australian designers invited to show at Paris Fashion Week by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (historically, this is a rare feat for Aussie labels, think Collette Dinnigan, Maticevski, Ellery). There’s a real artfulness to Esber’s designs that blends hard and soft, feminine and masculine so well. You know you’re doing something very right when Law Roach and Rihanna are fans.
Beare Park
Beare Park takes a leaf out of The Row’s ultra-minimal, quiet luxury playbook, offering precise classics like suiting, denim and impeccably considered eveningwear. Founder Bella Pereira got her start in wealth management, which is befitting of Beare Park’s status as an IYKYK sort of label (there are no flashy logos or obvious trademarks). Hints of 90s design motifs (low-rise trousers, ultra-simple scoop neck silk dresses, oversized silhouettes) bring a more contemporary edge to the label’s ready-to-wear pieces. Coveted by industry insiders and consumers who want an alternative to the skin-baring, aggressively form-fitting or noisy design cues that punctuate modern dressing.
Lee Mathews
Lee Mathews started her eponymous label 25 years ago, which is partly what puts her in the iconic, ‘stalwart’ category of the Australian fashion ecosystem. It also helps that she has a totally singular perspective that translates to clothes that aren’t derivative or remotely ‘trendy’ (the Lee Mathews customer evolved past trends a long time ago). Lee Mathews is one of the few labels in Australia with a clear, confident understanding of who their customer is — someone who values craftsmanship above all, and isn’t interested in dressing-by-algorithm. Loose, relaxed silhouettes and natural fabrics are hallmarks, as is the label’s utility-focused, evergreen Workroom collection.
Romance Was Born
An inimitable powerhouse of the local fashion industry, spearheaded by creative duo Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales.
Romance Was Born is the work of renowned creative duo Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales. The pair met while studying fashion in 2005, quickly establishing creative common ground before starting their inimitable label. Today, Romance Was Born is a true icon of Australian design known for blurring the line between fashion and art and bringing some much-needed levity and whimsy to Australian fashion. Collections transcend trends and gender binaries, taking a more thematic approach to design that draws on random inspirations. The label is held in costume and textile collections around Australia, including at the National Gallery of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria and the South Australian Museum. Collaborations with artists such as May Gibbs and Jenny Kee, and with brands including Disney, Marvel and Lego, have catapulted the label into a class all of its own.
E Nolan
Melbourne-born womenswear label E Nolan has rapidly built a loyal following for offering serious tailoring in the most gloriously unserious way, challenging stuffy norms and making every Naarm girl covet a classic wool tailored suit. No easy feat. The label’s signature playfulness is matched by a refined, Savile Row technique instilled in founder Emily Nolan by her grandmothers, her time spent at Whitehouse School of Design, and her career working in menswear. Offering more than 600 Italian, Japanese and British suiting cloth varieties, E Nolan also offers a small ready-to-wear collection of tailored shirts, knitwear, tees and accessories, including cigarette lighters and blowfly pendants.
Albus Lumen
Albus Lumen is a Sydney-based fashion label founded in 2015 by creative and stylist Marina Afonin. The brand offers a glamorously undone take on resortwear that feels somehow infused with just the right amount of rock and roll. Think: crystal-embellished gauzy dropped-waist gowns; polka dot silk chiffon undies. Everything is sort of flimsy, deconstructed and opulent — this is what you want to wear when you don’t have much to do except be beautiful somewhere warm.
Bassike
Consciously crafting clever apparel since 2006, Bassike is a legacy label with seemingly unwavering appeal, best loved for its organic cotton wardrobe staples (and the thin black stitch line that makes them recognisably Bassike). Founder Deborah Sams has built a highly successful, recognised brand that can chalk up its wins thanks to a singular focus on its customer: what they expect, what they want, what their life requires from their wardrobe. In recent years, the label has taken a more directional, high-end approach (with prices to match), widening its lens on ready-to-wear with streetwear-inspired separates while keeping its excellent cotton basics for women and men.
Matteau
Matteau is a minimalist resortwear label founded in 2015 by Sydney-raised sisters Peta Heinsen and Ilona Hamer, who have a distinct knack for making extremely simple clothes extremely covetable. Probably best known for their very simple and elegant swimwear, Heinsen and Hamer have quietly cornered the market for unfussy, simple and timeless warm-weather staples. A perfect cotton button-down, a slinky silk slip dress, a pair of billowy, comfortable trousers? Yes, all at Matteau — along with a black summer dress that you’ll wear for years. Real clothes for real life (provided you live above the VIC state borderline).
Friends with Frank
Melbourne-born label Friends With Frank was founded by Julia McCarthy in 2012. The label’s philosophy is simple: timeless cuts and shapes, a wearable colour palette and high-quality materials. When designing, Julia and her team consider the lifespan of each garment, avoiding trends that might become obsolete in a season or two. After creating the bestselling Frank Jacket — a hand-woven rabbit fur jacket in a classic cut — Friends With Frank has become a go-to Australian label for timeless winter coats. With the launch of its Spring ‘20 capsule collection, Friends With Frank expanded on its reputation for covetable wool, cashmere and fur outerwear with a wider range of ready-to-wear that regularly sells out.
P. Johnson
P. Johnson got its start in 2009 is a made-to-measure men’s tailoring house but has since become a formidable ready-to-wear label for both women and men known for perfecting the ‘classics’, be it a black shift dress, a cotton shirt or a silk scarf. Founded by tailor Patrick Johnson, the brand has showrooms in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, London and New York, and its own atelier in Tuscany. Patrick carved his niche for creating suiting that was suited to the Australian climate and sensibility — relaxed, light and a little bit undone. Today, the label’s collections read as distinctly European with a reverence for traditional sartorial values: buy once, wear a long time. And at these prices, you’d sure want to. Special mention goes to the label’s very fun range of tees, which co-opt iconic brand logos (Nintendo, New York Post etc).
Up next, our favourite NZ designers!
xo