Top Aussie Fashion Designer Gets Gong

The private online shopping websites will no doubt be pleased to see that fashion designer Liz Davenport has got a gong on Australia Day.
Davenport, who is a leading fashion designer and a popular with private online shopping website users, picked up the Medal of the Order of Australia for both service to the fashion industry and the community.
Davenport has been in the business for 35 years and is a recognised figure in the fashion industry. But nowadays a lot of her time is spent fighting for the rights of independent retailers. She believes they get poor treatment from shopping centre managers.
She told the media:
"I would like to start a group of independents that have the power to lease as a bloc, or the power of a voice as a bloc, to buck the system that has developed as part of the retail sector."
She is also behind a new internet venture, which will no doubt further stimulate the private online shopping experience. She said: "Online will become a bigger and bigger thing, so it's very exciting."
But it doesn't stop there. Davenport is also supporting a retail industry campaign to remove the GST threshold on overseas purchases valued under $1,000. The campaign is being led by Gerry Harvey, the executive chairman of Harvey Norman.
The campaign believes that the Australian Government is a being a little short sighted when it comes to the stamp duty and GST threshold issues, which cause more retailers having to commit to more administrative and accounting work than others.
Davenport said:
"If people are having to comply with onerous business compliance, why should somebody be able to step in and avoid that when others have to do it?"
Nonetheless, Davenport welcomes many advances in Australia as regards fashion and says that the shift to manufacturing offshore was inevitable, saying:
"All of our product up until five years ago was manufactured in Australia, but it became almost impossible to do that," she says, adding that wages in Australia are no longer even close to those in other manufacturing-driven countries.
"Successive governments did not encourage the clothing industry, which was a tragedy because it was the highest employer of migrant women and it meant that it took away a whole industry that they could be employed in."
Davenport is no stranger to awards, having already received the Grand Award from the Fashion Industries of Australia, as well as an Advance Australia Award for the contribution of lifestyle through fashion.