The home of New Zealand fashion.

NZFW connects emerging and established fashion designers with buyers, media, and consumers on a global scale, offering a world-class, sustainable and inclusive event to champion, nurture, and grow designers in Aotearoa. 

Founded in 2001 by Dame Pieter Stewart, New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) proudly forms the backbone of the New Zealand fashion industry, enabling local designers to promote and profile their brand, and sell both nationally and internationally. In 2021 the event was acquired by Aligroup Ltd (Feroz Ali).

The reimagining of NZFW prioritises responding to, empowering, and collaborating with the ever-changing and dynamic fashion landscape, working in collaboration with the industry to achieve great outcomes. A vital part of the event is the commitment to championing a circular fashion ecosystem in Aotearoa, with innovation and creativity at its forefront. 

NZFW owner, Feroz Ali is a visionary entrepreneur and business leader with a deep commitment to the growth and evolution of New Zealand’s fashion and creative industries. As the owner of New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) and Whitecliffe Colleges globally, he is dedicated to fostering innovation, education, and industry connections.

Now in its 25th year as an iconic New Zealand event, the event is led by NZFW Executive Director, Liam Taylor; an industry expert that oversees a new direction and reinvigoration of the prestigious Aotearoa fashion event with the aim of maintaining relevance and adapting the event’s ability to allow a more inclusive and elastic format. The vision for 2026 is in keeping with International Fashion Week events that have adapted to new formats, allowing greater public access and a wider range of online and real-life activations.

Fashion philanthropy

One of Feroz's most distinctive contributions sits outside the business world in a conventional sense — and it is the one he calls, simply, fashion philanthropy. In acquiring New Zealand Fashion Week, Feroz made a deliberate choice to use a significant commercial and cultural platform not for profit extraction but for access.

New Zealand Fashion Week, under his stewardship, has become a genuine launchpad for student designers, emerging creatives and industry professionals who would otherwise have no route to the kind of stage that changes careers. Feroz believes that access to platform is one of the most consequential things a person with resources can provide — and that the fashion and creative industries, for all their visibility, have historically been poor at giving emerging talent the exposure it deserves.

This work is not peripheral to who Feroz is. It sits at the intersection of his belief in education, his commitment to the creative industries and his conviction that the most meaningful use of a platform is to share it. Fashion philanthropy, as he calls it, is both a personal value and a lived practice.