Press Releases
The Australian Trade Commission Hires ERA404 to help Promote Designers Down Under
ERA404 produces Australian Designer Collections Lookbook for Australia Week Fashion Event in New York
NEW YORK — G’Day USA is a major promotional campaign undertaken in the US, to celebrate Australian commerce, industry, culture and history and highlighting Australia’s vitality as a place to visit and do business in the 21st Century. G’Day Australia showcases all things Australian from food and wine, film, arts, lifestyle, trade and investment to indigenous culture and tourism. Promotions were carried out in Los Angeles and New York.
The Australian Trade Commission worked with the Australia Week Committee (comprisingTourism Australia, QANTAS, the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade and Austrade) in organizing a fashion event in New York in January 2007 to showcase a number of market ready Australian designers.
This year, the Australia Week Committee joined forces with the Ford Modelling Agency to deliver the Ford Models Supermodel of the World event, featuring Australian Designer Collections. This prestigious event has an established place on the New York fashion calendar, with a long history of launching global modelling careers, and of commanding the attention of fashion editors, buyers, designers and influencers.The January 2007 Supermodel of the World event will exclusively feature Australian designers.
In the recent past quite a few Australian Designers have been successful in the US. They include both well established and emerging designers such as Sass and Bide, Collette Dingen, Easton Pearson, Jayson Brunsdon, Lisa Ho, Zimmermann, Kit Willow, Alice Mcall, Josh Goot, Ray Costarella, Toni Maticevski, etc.
As the idea for the Australian Designers Collection gained momentum, Senior Trade Commissioner David Howard, and his team at Austrade New York, contacted ERA404 Creative Group about designing a printed a designer booklet featuring Australian Designers for distribution during, and following, the event.
“We were seeking a company that was professional and is known for providing quality services,” said Austrade, “and ERA404 came highly recommended by a third party.”
“Though we haven’t had much experience working with government agencies, we were still pretty excited to speak with Austrade,” said ERA404 Creative Director, Don Citarella. “They mentioned that the project was for the printed promotion of a NYC fashion event and we knew we were interested.”
Over the past six years, ERA404 has worked with a number of event producers, includingPhoenix Event Productions, LDJ Productions and Michelle Rago, Ltd., as well as NYC PR powerhouses Bismarck Phillips Communications and Media and Williamson PR. Close experience with these businesses and the fashion and PR industries has led to the primary work in ERA404’s portfolio: environmental and event design, and printed production and promotion pieces. ERA404 has even been offering an online contact and events management system catered to the fashion and PR industries (Lyrek CEMS) for the last four years.
“The Austrade Team noted that they primarily develop pieces internally, so we talked with them about the discovery and concepting processes we use to best create pieces that reflect the culture of clients and their events,” said Citarella. “As far as government agencies go, they were amazingly open to exploring different ideas to make this an elegant, creative piece.”
The lookbook includes fifteen designers, bios and signature photography from their work, combined with imagery of the peacock feather—a symbol of the cultural richness of Australia—with the eye in the shape of the continent. Inside pages were layered with vellum, translucent stock repeating these elements, with white-on-black design showing through. “The concept was to emulate the elegance, palette and layers of the fashion inside.”
ERA404 collected a number of estimates from printers all over the country for this project and Austrade selected Hudson Printing in Long Island City to produce the work.
“We have worked with Adam Blum at Hudson on a variety of jobs in the past and we were happy when Austrade selected them as the preferred printer based on their experience,” said ERA404’s Mike Citarella, who assisted in production management for the work. “We knew they’d take good care of Austrade and this project.” Hudson Printing and ERA404 won the Association of Graphic Communications’ prestigious Showcase Award for a 2004 project for Sanrio/Hello Kitty.
Despite time zone differences, changes to participating designers and production through the holiday season, the project was delivered ahead of schedule and surprisingly free of obstacles.
“ERA404 was a delight to work with during this entire project,” said Austrade. “They showed professionalism, creativity, flexibility and attention to high client satisfaction throughout the assignment. Their work was exceptional.”
When asked if he thought the project was a success, the Creative Director smiled. “David andPrashanti gave us a lot of freedom, opportunity for creative development, and hired us to sort through pictures of gorgeous women all day. What more could you ask for?”
Recommended Links
- See the Lookbook in ERA404’s Portfolio
- Australian Clothing and Fashion Overview
- Australia ready to say G’Day USA
About ERA404
Established in August 2000, ERA404 Creative Group, Inc. is a New York-based design, development and marketing agency. Recent clients include: The Arthur Ashe Foundation, Broadway Video, Jonathan Safran Foer, The Herb Ritts Foundation, Sanrio/Hello Kitty andThe Target Corporation.
For more information about Lyrek Contact and Events Management System, click here.
For further information, please contact:
Don Citarella, ERA404
www.era404.com
Prashanti Kanagasabai
Business Development Manager
AustTrade
www.austrade.com.au
Adam Blum
Hudson Printing
www.hudsonprints.com
