“Parties, air-kissing and long boozy lunches”? Public relations in the Australian fashion industry

There has been limited research into fashion public relations. This study explores public relations in the Australian fashion industry using ethnographic research and semistructured interviews with six fashion public relations practitioners. The findings suggest fashion public relations does not easily fit into mainstream understandings of public relations. Rather, fashion public relations is assigned a low status due to its close association with marketing, promotion and publicity and popular representations of the fashion sector as glamorous and superficial. Despite this, participants perceived their work to be professional, where the dominant activities of media relations, celebrity endorsement, and relationship management form part of a carefully devised strategic plan to meet organisational and client objectives. The findings offer an alternative perspective on public relations by considering practitioner experiences in a niche industry field. The study provides new understandings of public relations and calls for a reconceptualisation of the field beyond the narrow remit of mainstream public relations definitions and professional associations.