Sportsgirl

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Sportsgirl is one of Australia’s leading fashion brands for young independent fashion-savvy women who hold pride and confidence in what they wear and how they present themselves. Sportsgirl aims to create an exciting, boundless fashion culture in which young women are encouraged to not be afraid to stand out, strut their stuff and show the world what they are made of. With a 60-year heritage, Sportsgirl is one of the archetypal Australian brands. Launched in 1948, Sportsgirl has undergone dramatic changes and transformations to become one of the most successful dominating fashion brands in Australia.

Its growing success began with fashion retailer David Bardas, his mindset focused on the importance for a successful fashion brand to be innovative, exciting, fresh and constantly evolving offering its loyal fashionistas something new all the time. Since then, Sportsgirl has grown into one of the most popular fashion brands for women. Sportsgirl seeks to project itself as not your every day standard fashion brand but rather an inimitable ever changing brand with its lively exciting stores in every state of Australia including its prime flagship stores. Sportsgirl’s aim is to ‘create a fashion destination and more than just a shop’ and transform the shopping experience forever.

The recently revamped flagship store in Chadstone, in the heart of Melbourne’s fashion district, features 12 different fashion areas from ‘Recycle It’ which features vintage hand -picked pieces to ’Sportsgirl like’ featuring inspirational pieces from budding fashion designers with the first range by Nicholas Morley. Other designers featured include ‘Bec and Bridge’ and ‘Glint By Mich’. With its newly designed stores, Sportsgirl creates a fashion environment beyond racks of clothes. They now offer fashion style advisers to their customers free of charge, VIP service with an exclusive ‘Style Me’ studio to help customers create that perfect, personalised Sportsgirl outfit reflecting none other than themselves.

In Sportsgirl’s early days, its main target consumers were the faddish 16-20 year olds but over the last few years the brand has repositioned itself towards a 20-24 year old market. Sportsgirl market their products to women with power, leadership, confidence and aspiration. It aims to promote fashion leadership through many of its campaigns including ‘Fashion YOUniverse’ and its recent ‘Search for a Sportsgirl Superstylist’ event.

Sportsgirl stands for positive body image and creating confidence and self belief in Australia’s young women. They respond to the need for community responsibility through their partnership with the ‘Butterfly Foundation’, a charity directed at supporting Australians with eating disorders through funding and research. Sportsgirl designers have created unique collections purely for the Butterfly Foundation with all proceeds given to them. In 2009, Sportsgirl announced the proud achievement of raising $560,000 for the Butterfly Foundation.

Since its opening in 1947, Sportsgirl has continued to grow, transform and lead Australia’s women fashion industry up to the present day. This has led to its success and cementation as the forefront of the Australian fashion industry.

Sportsgirl take pride in not only their unique clothing collection but also their accessories, shoes, jewellery and recently launched beauty range contributing to the growth and success of the brand. The creative strategies and techniques used by Sportsgirl in their interior design,visual merchandising has led to its domination and popularity in the fashion industry.

Article written by S. Kotob for archfashion.com.au
Images adapted from photographs taken by the archfashion team on location around Australia.

Copyright of Fashion Pages Pty Ltd 2009

References:
1)www.sportsgirl.com.au

2)Sportsgirl Case Study - www.cyberfibres.rmit.edu.au/biogs/TRC0404b.htm

3)Newspaper article – Case Study by Gareth Cosslett , ‘Youth marketing’ (collection of five articles) , B & T Weekly , v.49 , no.2224 , 19 Feb 1999