Category: Popular Culture, Women & the Creative Economy

Examining how gender, identity, and women’s work play out in the media, arts, and the broader creative industries.

Crafts are deeply embedded in our culture

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 28, 2026

A skill not taught this generation isn’t delayed — it’s usually gone for good. What research on craft transmission actually shows, and what Australia lacks.

Tags Anni Albers, ANZSCO craft occupations, Australian craft sector, CIGI, craft

Red List of Endangered Crafts

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 27, 2026

The UK tracks its vanishing heritage skills like endangered species — 72 critically endangered, one extinct since 2022. Australia has no equivalent list.

Tags Australian craft sector, craft succession, Creative Women’s Association, deckle-making, Endangered Crafts Fund, Gathering Circles, Heritage Crafts, heritage skill extinction, National Endangered Skills and Trades Show, Red List of Endangered Crafts, Southern Cross Registry

Craftsmanship. Defined

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 22, 2026

Craft and craftsmanship aren’t the same word. One describes an activity, the other a standard — and 2026 may be the year that difference gets formally named.

Tags Anni Albers, ANZSCO craft occupations, Australian craft sector, CIGI, craft, craftsmanship, Creative Women’s Association, definition of craft, ethical retail, Geographical Indication, Japan METI, Made in Italy, provenance, ratification of terms, Sustainable Fashion, terminology

Safeguarding Heritage Cultivating the Future

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 17, 2026

In January 2025, the EUIPO convened a landmark conference on geographical indications under the theme Safeguarding our Heritage, Cultivating our Future — bringing agricultural and craft and industrial GIs together for the first time in a unified legal field. EU Regulation 2023/2411 is fully operational.

Tags ARC research, AU-EU Free Trade Agreement, Australian craft economy, Australian Crafts Alliance, CIGI, craft and industrial products, craft skills, craft workforce, CWA

What Happens When You Certify It?

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 16, 2026

Italy’s certified Made in Italy economy reached €643 billion in exports in 2025. Harris Tweed’s statutory certification supports 520 jobs and £16.8 million in GVA from a single product on a remote island archipelago. The Creative Women’s Association examines what certification actually does to an economy — and what it would mean for Australia’s $19.2 billion craft sector.

Tags ARC research, AU-EU Free Trade Agreement, Australian craft economy, Australian Crafts Alliance, CIGI, craft and industrial products, craft skills, craft workforce, CWA, DFAT, geographical indications

The Numbers Are In

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 15, 2026

A landmark ARC-funded study confirms the Australian craft economy employs 116,538 people and generates $19.2 billion in gross value added — larger than the sports economy. The Creative Women’s Association examines what the data confirms, what it doesn’t yet build, and why the infrastructure gap it identifies is exactly what CWA and the Australian Crafts Alliance are working to close.

Tags ARC research, AU-EU Free Trade Agreement, Australian craft economy, Australian Crafts Alliance, CIGI, craft and industrial products, craft skills, craft workforce, CWA, DFAT, geographical indications, industrial craft, Luckman Tower UniSA, makers, making in Australia, provenance, Southern Cross Registry, sovereign manufacturing

The Loom and the Region

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 13, 2026

Harris Tweed turned local wool, certified weavers, and an established mill into a globally protected regional economy on a remote Scottish island. Regional Australia has the same ingredients — and CWA’s Gathering Circles model is building the certification infrastructure to connect them. Here is what a certified, place-based weaving economy produces for a regional community.

Tags Australian craft textile producer, CIGI Australia, craft GI registration, craft industrial products trades, Creative Women’s Association, CWA, Digital Product Passport textiles, DPP compliance Australia, DPP QR code, Ecodesign Sustainable Products Regulation, ESPR textile regulation, EU DPP 2028, EU Regulation 2023/2411, fibre to fashion Australia, Geographical Indications Directory for Crafts Industrial Products and Cultural Works

Sustaining rural and regional textile manufacturing

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 9, 2026

Australia grows a quarter of the world’s wool and sends most of it offshore unprocessed. Harris Tweed turned the same conditions — remote location, established wool, skilled practitioners — into a GI-protected regional economy that now employs the Outer Hebrides. CWA is proposing a Geelong pilot to test whether Australia’s first Geographical Indication–recognised cloth region is achievable — using the Southern Cross Registry, registered Centres for Craftsmanship, and an established Geelong mill already processing local wool.

Tags Australian craft textile producer, CIGI Australia, craft GI registration, craft industrial products trades, Creative Women’s Association, CWA, Digital Product Passport textiles, DPP compliance Australia, DPP QR code, Ecodesign Sustainable Products Regulation, ESPR textile regulation, EU DPP 2028, EU Regulation 2023/2411, fibre to fashion Australia, Geographical Indications Directory for Crafts Industrial Products and Cultural Works, provenance certification Australia, Southern Cross Mark

The Makers Are Here. The Materials Are Here. Now There Is a Mark.

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 8, 2026

On 1 December 2025, the EU activated full legal protection for craft and industrial geographical indications — CIGIs — covering glass, textiles, lace, jewellery, cutlery, and leather as origin-protected products. Non-EU producers can apply. Australian craft and industrial producers who register now in the Geographical Indications Directory for Crafts, Industrial Products, and Cultural Works are building the verified provenance record that CIGI registration requires.

Tags ACA, Accredited Craftsmanship Centre, ACFC network, Australian Centres for Craftsmanship, Australian Crafts Alliance, Centre for Craftsmanship, CIGI craft industrial geographical indications, craft GI registration, EU Regulation 2023/2411, Geographical Indications Directory for Crafts Industrial Products and Cultural Works, Minimum Standards Australian Craftsmanship, Southern Cross Marketplace, Southern Cross Seal

Every Craft Passed On Secures Another Generation.

Post author By CreativeWomensAssociation
Post date July 7, 2026

The Centre for Craftsmanship designation connects Australia’s guilds, studios, working farms, and craft and industrial enterprises into one national network — the ACFC — under a shared standard, a shared mark, and a shared voice in the policy conversations that govern what gets protected and recognised. Every craft passed on secures another generation. The designation is open now.

Tags ACA, Accredited Craftsmanship Centre, ACFC network, Australian Centres for Craftsmanship, Australian Crafts Alliance, Centre for Craftsmanship, Geographical Indications Directory for Crafts Industrial Products and Cultural Works, Minimum Standards Australian Craftsmanship, Southern Cross Marketplace, Southern Cross Seal