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The Fashion Week Topic Women Feel Deeply
New research is shining a light on the surprisingly practical reasons so many clothes stay hanging in our wardrobes.
Fashion Week might be all about fantasy dressing, but new research unveiled this week at Australian Fashion Week 2026 proves most women are getting dressed with something far less glamorous in mind: practicality.
Commissioned by NIVEA, the nationally representative survey of more than 1,000 Australian women aged 18 to 45 found that 91% own clothes they’ve never worn, while most regularly rotate through just 25 to 50 per cent of their wardrobes.
The reason? What the brand is calling the “style confidence gap” — the disconnect between what women love in theory and what they actually choose to wear day to day.
Poor fit was cited as the biggest reason clothes go unworn (49%), followed by a lack of confidence in how the piece feels or looks once it’s actually on (40%). And beneath that sits something surprisingly common: nearly one in three women say they wear black specifically to avoid visible sweat marks, while seven in ten admit sweat stains and body odour impact their confidence when getting dressed.
Fashion stylist Jess Pecoraro, who is styling The Edit Runway Presented by NIVEA at Fashion Week on Thursday 14 May, says it’s a conversation women rarely have out loud despite how universal the experience is.
“Every woman I work with has a wardrobe full of clothes she loves and a much smaller rotation of clothes she actually wears,” she explains. “That gap isn’t about taste or having the wrong things, it’s about confidence.”
The conversation comes as NIVEA Black & White celebrates 15 years in Australia and partners with Australian Fashion Week 2026 to support The Edit Runway presented by NIVEA on Thursday evening.
Equal parts fashion moment and social commentary, the showcase aims to spotlight the realities of how women actually get dressed beyond the runway fantasy and features some of Australia’s best brands. If you’re heading along on Thursday 14th May, expect plenty of fashion inspiration — and perhaps a few thoughts about the pieces sitting unworn in your own wardrobe, too.
Tickets are available here.
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