FREMANTLE has never been particularly interested in looking like everybody else. Thank goodness for that.

Our Port City has built its identity on independent thinkers, artists, makers, musicians, designers, retailers and people who are prepared to colour outside the lines. 

So perhaps it makes perfect sense that Fremantle is about to turn itself into one enormous runway.

On Saturday October 17, the inaugural F.RE.O Fashion Festival will spill across Fremantle, bringing together Western Australian designers, retailers, students, vintage traders, creatives and community organisations for a celebration of fashion that feels unmistakably Freo.

And this is about much more than fabulous frocks. 

It is about economic activation, supporting independent businesses and recognising that creativity is not simply something nice to have in a city. 

It is an industry.

F.RE.O Fashion Festival started life through the Fremantle Markets incubator before being championed and driven forward by the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce tourism committee. 

With the support of the City of Fremantle and a growing collection of partners, that original idea has now evolved into something much bigger: a Fremantle wide festival.

That evolution matters. 

One of the things we talk about constantly at the Chamber is creating reasons for people to come into Fremantle, stay longer, wander further and spend with our local businesses. Events can do exactly that when we stop thinking of them as isolated attractions and start using them to activate an entire city.

Raw ingredients

Fashion is particularly powerful because Fremantle already has the raw ingredients. We have independent boutiques, designers, artists, vintage stores, op shops, markets, students and makers. 

We have extraordinary heritage spaces and streets that provide a backdrop no shopping centre could manufacture. And we have attitude. Quite a lot of it, actually.

Three runways. 20+ independent labels. In store activations, workshops, clothes swaps and up to 25 per cent off. 

From emerging WA designers to vintage and upcycled treasures, F.RE.O is putting fashion in all its fabulous forms centre stage.

Then there is the wonderfully Freo Pre Loved Parade, where 24 models and 10 professional dancers will take over Henderson Street Mall outside the Fremantle Markets in a choreographed flash mob runway.

The festival will not simply sit in one fenced off event precinct either.

Walyalup Koort will host a major outdoor fashion market. FOMO will become home to curated pre loved and vintage fashion. 

Workshops, talks and a clothes swap will put circular fashion into practice while Fremantle op shops including Salvos, Save the Children, Red Cross, Vinnies, Good Sammy and St Pat’s will join the celebration through their own in store activations. 

That is the bit I particularly love. Because the opportunity is not simply to hold a successful fashion event once a year. 

It is to start building Fremantle’s reputation as WA’s home of independent, creative and circular fashion.

Perth does not currently have a major city-wide fashion festival on its annual calendar. 

That creates an opportunity for Fremantle to claim some space. 

Not by trying to become Melbourne. Not by trying to recreate Sydney. 

By being spectacularly, unapologetically Freo.

Economic

There is also an important economic story here. 

When thousands of people come into Fremantle for a festival, they do not only watch a runway. 

They buy coffee. They have lunch. They discover a shop they have never walked into before. They buy something from an emerging designer. They stay for dinner. They tell somebody else about what they found.

That is why destination events and economic development increasingly belong in the same conversation. 

A thriving city needs reasons to visit but it also needs reasons to explore. F.RE.O gives us both.

There is another reason this festival feels right for Fremantle. 

Fashion is changing. 

Consumers are increasingly interested in where clothing comes from, who made it and how long it will last. 

Vintage, pre-loved, repair, reuse and upcycling have moved from the fringe into mainstream conversations about fashion. 

Fremantle has been living many of those values for decades.

The Festival brings those worlds together rather than treating them as competitors. 

Independent designers can sit alongside vintage. 

New collections can sit alongside pre loved treasures. 

Fashion students can share a runway with established labels. 

That is a far more interesting picture of what the future of retail can look like.

And importantly, much of the Festival is free, including the runway showcases making this a celebration the whole community can participate in.

It started with a simple question around a table: what could we create in Fremantle? 

Now that idea is about to take over a port city.

So on October 17, I have one request. Freo, it’s time to strut your stuff! 

Come into the city. Watch a runway. Discover a designer. Raid an op shop. Swap something fabulous. Buy something local. Stay for lunch. 

And perhaps together we can start building something that becomes another distinctly Fremantle fixture on WA’s cultural calendar.

by CHRISSIE MAUS
CEO Fremantle Chamber of Commerce