Last Friday was the final day for Lucia Labbate, who resigned after 16 years as Australian Fashion Week's event director to take up a post with Sydney marketing agency The Projects.

Her departure follows that of the general manager, Daniel Hill, who left last month after six years of overseeing the local fashion portfolio of IMG, which owns Fashion Week.

The event's founder, Simon Lock, left the company in November last year and was followed by Graeme Lewsey, also with 16 years' experience at Fashion Week, who relinquished his executive role earlier this year to join the Melbourne Fashion Festival as its chief executive.

Industry journal Ragtrader recently reported Labbate's departure with a fervour not seen since Tom Ford left Gucci, claiming ''the future of Australian Fashion Week is under question''.

The reality is that the 16-year-old event remains on solid ground, with a new management structure to be announced by the end of the year. A rethink of Australian Fashion Week itself is also under way.

Changing the dates of AFW and finding a new venue for the event, which is held at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay, are among the options the Herald understands are being explored by IMG for the 2013 event (next year's will go ahead as usual). A new industry advisory panel is also being considered by Australian Fashion Week , the Herald has learnt, with the aim of providing IMG with regular feedback from fashion designers, retailers and publicists about the event.

It is welcomed by the Little Hero publicist Rae Begley, who produced eight shows at this year's AFW.

''It's really important to have key members of the industry offering insight and input so we can all work towards the same goals,'' she says.

But the biggest issue on the table is the timing of the event.

Shows usually run late but in future designers want them to run early - by one month.

Australian buyers buy their first spring-summer collections in March, well before AFW's start date in the first week of May. Moving the event forward, closer to March, would enable designers to generate greater sales during a week that has, for most, become more of a media and marketing opportunity.

Sydney menswear label Vanishing Elephant does not show during AFW for this reason but its co-creator, Huw Bennett, would consider taking part if the dates were brought forward.

''As Vanishing Elephant works to a North American and European selling period, Australian Fashion Week would only serve as a marketing activity in its current calendar,'' Bennett says. ''Late April-early May is not even feasible for us in terms of selling as we have closed our books and started on the next collection. If it were to be moved forward by a month, this would be of much greater benefit for Vanishing Elephant from a sales point of view.''

Out on a fashionable limb is designer Kit Willow Podgornik, who instead would like the event to be moved back one month to capitalise on the lucrative resort collections season in June.

''If we moved Australian Fashion Week back a month, Australia could own the concept of resort collections, which are incredibly popular, commercial and wearable,'' she says.

Resort, or cruise, collections were originally designed for a niche market of wealthy women taking holidays during winter to more temperate climes. But the ranges delivered into US and European stores in November are an increasingly important category within the industry and one in which Australia has an advantage due to our climate.

Moving Australian Fashion Week from May to June would enable Australia to attract international buyers who have already bought most of their spring-summer collections in February but who open their wallets again to buy resort collections in June, Podgornik says.

''[AFW] is really just a public-relations exercise now but if you did it in June then the buyers have their chequebooks open,'' Podgornik says.

The Herald understands IMG is privately reluctant to move the dates of AFW forward too far, because it believes international buyers would be fatigued following the international shows, but the senior vice president and managing director of IMG Fashion Worldwide, Peter Levy, said there would be ''no decisions taken without close consultation with the industry.''

Whether AFW should have a greater international focus, in line with Podgornik's idea, or be oriented towards the domestic market, is another topic for debate.

''I don't think we should be too distracted by what international buyers are coming,'' designer Josh Goot says. ''We should make sure we are serving the domestic market really well first and when it does come to the internationals, do we have a strategy? Are we focusing on Europe, America or Asia and so on?''

Organising the event to focus on a smaller number of quality shows (say, 20) in three or four days rather than four times that number in the present five-day schedule would also make a stronger showcase of Australian fashion.

''I got a lot of feedback from media this year that they got tired from going to so many shows,'' Begley says. ''An audience that doesn't want to be there because they're fatigued doesn't work for anyone.''

She would also like to see IMG working more closely with designers and publicists to cultivate sponsorship opportunities, which this year were thin on the ground.

''There wasn't a lot of cash thrown around this year; in fact, it was the most challenging it has been ever to secure sponsors,'' Begley says. ''It would be great if IMG could work more closely with designers to pass on even just a little bit of opportunity with the [sponsorship] alignments they have garnered.''

With new naming-rights sponsor Mercedes-Benz on board, AFW is in good financial shape for next year. Moving it to another venue in 2013 would also eradicate the complaints about the quality of venues and production facilities at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Options including CarriageWorks and Australian Technology Park could breathe fresh life into the event that has been the Australian industry's premier showcase for 16 years.