Meet Australian Style Institute’s 2026 Awards Judge, Sammy Cashen.
For Sammy Cashen, fashion was never a passing interest. From changing outfits several times a day to raiding her mum’s wardrobe growing up, it was simply how she understood and expressed herself.
That instinct has since become a career spanning more than 20 years across retail, styling, runway, brand representation and the commercial side of Australian fashion. As the Founder of Unzipped Fashion Management, Sammy now represents leading brands and works with more than 600 retailers across Australia and New Zealand, bringing together a sharp understanding of style, business and what genuinely connects with the customer.
Her career has not followed a perfectly straight path. It has been shaped by asking questions, learning in the room, taking risks and choosing to build something of her own when the safer opportunity was right in front of her.
For the 2026 Australian Style Institute Awards, Sammy joins our industry judging panel, bringing her perspective to a celebration of emerging stylists, creative direction, editorial fashion, personal style and the next generation of Australian fashion talent.
We spoke with her about the lessons she wishes she had known earlier, why recognition can be transformative for emerging creatives and the straight-shooting advice that has carried her through two decades in fashion.
Read our conversation with Sammy below.
Unzipped Fashion Management Showroom
What has been one of your ‘moments that matter’ or a standout moment in your career?
The decision to build my own fashion agency. By then I’d spent years on shop floors, styling for brands, and dressing models backstage at runways, so I understood the industry from every angle. I was running an office for another company when a Sydney agency asked me to open their Melbourne office, and instead of saying yes, I thought, “why not do it for myself?” That was the moment Unzipped Fashion Management started. There was no safety net and no guarantee it would work. And today we represent some amazing brands and work with 600+ retailers across Australia and New Zealand. Betting on myself in that moment is still the best call I’ve made.
Whose work shaped how you see style, and why?
My mum, first. She was the one who taught me that getting dressed is a form of self-expression, and she never told me my ideas of outfits and hairstyles were too much (although in hindsight I wish she had, occasionally). Beyond her, it wasn’t one designer or person for me; it was watching the people I worked alongside early in my career. The brand founders and agents who could look at a rack and instantly know what would sell, who it was for, and why. Doing my own styling work early on, including for Westfield, cemented that for me. Putting looks together for a real audience teaches you fast that style isn’t about the prettiest thing or the most on-trend item in the room, it’s about intention, and how it makes someone feel. Understanding the wearer, the moment, and the story a piece might be telling.
What was the moment you knew fashion was the thing for you?
I always knew, from the very start. I was changing my outfit five times a day, raiding my mum’s wardrobe for her heels, and I asked for a sewing machine for my 16th birthday. Dressing up was never a phase for me, it was how I made sense of the world. There wasn’t one lightning-bolt moment. There was just a constant pull toward fashion.
What’s something about this industry you understand now that you wish you’d known at the start? Was there support or mentoring that assisted you?
That the industry runs on a lot of unwritten rules, and back when I started, no one stopped to explain them. I wish I’d understood sooner that asking questions is a strength, not a weakness. I learned by getting in the room and paying attention. I worked in retail and picked the brains of every stylist I could, I assisted at large brand sale events, I dressed models at runway shows, and I absorbed everything I could during my first agency internship. Students today are lucky to have an institute that gives them that grounding from the start, because I had to piece it together myself over years. And I still do it, I’m always learning. That’s a big part of why I mentor now. I don’t think anyone should have to figure it all out alone.
@victoriabliss__ at Melbourne Fashion Week 2026, @unzippedfashionmanagement
When you were starting out, what would it have meant to be seen by people already established in the industry?
I wasn’t really “seen” by anyone established early on, and it would have meant the world if I had been. When you’re starting out you’re working in the dark, guessing whether your instincts are any good and whether you even belong. One word of belief from someone who’d already made it would have told me I was on the right track and saved me years of quietly second-guessing myself. It would have let me take myself seriously, sooner.
What do you think recognition like this means for someone early in their styling career?
It’s validation. Early on you question everything: whether your eye is good enough, whether this is even a viable career path. Recognition like this quiets that voice. It doesn’t just open doors, it gives you the confidence to keep going. Confidence changes how you show up: for clients, for brands, for the next opportunity that comes along. Sometimes a moment of recognition is the exact thing that keeps someone here long enough to become great at it.
What are you hoping to find in the finalists’ work?
Point of view, and the judgement to know when to use it. Anyone can follow a trend or recreate a reference, but I want to see someone make a choice I wouldn’t have expected, and make it work. I may look at styling a little differently to most on a panel like this, because I’ve spent 20 years on the commercial side of fashion, watching what actually connects with a real person versus what just photographs well. So I’m naturally drawn to work that has a strong eye but also understands who it’s for: the wearer, the moment, the story a piece is telling.
What separates good work from work that genuinely stops you in your tracks?
Good work is technically ‘right’. Something that is well executed, on brief, nothing to fault. I’ve seen many beautiful, technically perfect looks, and I forget most of them by the next day. Good work you admire and move past. The other kind you remember.
Success is for those who…
Put in the unglamorous work when no one’s watching, stay in it long after others give up, and lift other people up on the way. Twenty years in, the people I’ve watched build something lasting were rarely the most talented in the room. They were the ones who kept showing up with care.
Share some straight shooting wisdom with us.
- Play the long game. This industry rewards the people who are still standing in ten years, not the ones chasing the quick win this season.
- Relationships are everything, so be the person others actually want to work with, because your reputation travels faster than your résumé.
- Resilience can matter more than talent, honestly. I’ve built an agency from nothing, had brand partnerships end, and ridden the cash-flow rollercoaster of a commission-only business, and none of it went in a straight line. You will hear no, deals will fall through, and things will go wrong that aren’t your fault. What separates the people who make it is that they don’t take it personally. They learn from it and keep going.
- And back yourself early, because no one is going to believe in you harder than you need to believe in yourself first.
Follow Sammy at @sammycashenmentor
Learn more about the 2026 Australian Style Institute Awards here.
