Keri Craig-Lee OAM (’75): Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame 2025 Inductee

Congratulations to Keri Craig-Lee OAM (’75) who was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in July in recognition of her pioneering contribution to the fashion industry and her exceptional business leadership.

With almost five decades in the fashion industry, and accolades including a Medal in the Order of Australia and induction as a 2024 Queensland Greats recipient, Keri Craig-Lee OAM is tightly woven into the fabric of Australia’s fashion history and has now been inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame.

“Fashion was always just a part of life,” she said.

After graduating, she spent a formative year in the US as a Rotary Exchange student.

“I applied for London, Paris and New York, thinking I’d go to one of the fashion capitals,” she said. Instead, she was accepted by a tiny town in the American Midwest called Oconomowoc.

There, she enrolled in a fashion technical course at college, and she describes the exchange student experience as life changing.

Back in Brisbane, she launched her own eveningwear label at just 19 years old. With 36 garments, it had national distribution from day one.

“That’s quite unusual,” Keri said. “Normally you build your label state by state. But I was very lucky that my parents’ company was already well established nationally.”

Luck, perhaps – but also determination. As a young designer from Brisbane, Keri encountered scepticism from the south, but she worked hard to break into that market, and her fashion career launched with unusual speed. Keri paved the way, becoming the first Queensland designer to sell nationally and internationally in exclusive boutiques and department stores.

At 21, she won her first RAQ Fashion Design Supreme Award. By the age of 28, she was the inaugural inductee in the Retail Association of Queensland Hall of Fame. To this day, Keri remains the only female designer in the RAQ Hall of Fame and the only recipient of its Award of Excellence.

Despite the glamour, Keri has always kept her feet firmly on the ground and her impact stretches beyond couture.

After several boutiques in Brisbane and one in Sydney’s Double Bay, she opened the Keri Craig Emporium in the Brisbane Arcade in 1983. Part boutique, part cafe, part institution, it was the first fashion store in the city to serve high tea. The Keri Craig Emporium remains an iconic part of Queensland’s fashion history.

In 2018, Keri was invited to join a Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Leadership Board. She has been bestowed many ambassadorial roles, has won over 50 fashion awards, and having employed hundreds of staff, is considered a true pioneer of the Australian fashion industry. She has often been dubbed ‘Queensland’s Empress of Style’ and ‘Queen of Fashion’.

“It’s hard work, it’s dedication, it’s your team, it’s having the idea of something that is unique,” she said. “But a lot of life is timing. I’m fortunate to have had the support of my family, the Queensland press and decades of loyal clientele.

“I'm so lucky that I've had a career in an industry that I just adore. I've loved every day, and I continue to do so.”

Watch Keri’s interview with the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame here: https://leaders.slq.qld.gov.au/inductees/keri-craig-lee-oam. Congratulations, Keri!

This article was initially produced and shared by QUT.