Aussie streetwear brand Afends unveils new concept store in Melbourne

  “I think people still have a desire to shop in real life rather than just online,” Jonathan Salfield, one of Afends’ co-founders, told Inside Retail.  Started by Salfield and Declan Wise in the New South Wales surf town in 2006, the brand initially offered screen-printed band t-shirts. Today, Afends (a play on the Greek capital Athens) sells a much broader range of streetwear targeting the Millennial and Gen Z consumer with a focus on sustainability.  Recently, the founders have been working to elevate their offering by increasing the focus on direct-to-consumer sales through Afends’ own stores and website and being more selective about the retail partners and platforms they work with. “We have to keep backing The Iconic and General Pants because we feel like they’re the most premium ones in Australia, but we were on a bunch of other retailers, like Surfstitch and Surf Dive N Ski, and we pulled out of those accounts about a year or two ago,” he said.  The founders continue to work with retail partners in overseas markets like Japan, where the brand is mostly distributed through independent streetwear stores, and Europe, where it is sold through Zalando.  “They’re probably our biggest retailer worldwide,” Salfield said. But it’s more challenging to find good retail partners in the US, he said, which is why the founders plan to go direct-to-consumer in that market.  The new store in QV also reflects this focus on becoming a more premium streetwear brand.  “We’re right next door to Assembly Label, we’re right across from Off-White, you’ve got Saturdays NYC, that new Acmé de la Vie brand from Korea, and A.P.C. is just two or three doors down,” Salfield said.  “Being around brands that we like and that we think sit well next to us was the main reason [to go into QV].”  The brand also has a store on Chapel Street in Melbourne and three stores on the Central Coast in New South Wales, including a flagship store in Byron Bay, a cafe at its headquarters in Byron Bay, and a store in Brunswick Heads. The brand previously had a bricks-and-mortar presence in Bali, but it closed those stores about five years ago due to the challenges of importing products from its manufacturers in China.   Afends currently has a turnover of between $15 and $20 million, with roughly 75 per cent of sales occurring in Australia and New Zealand.