From refugee to runway: How migrants are transforming Australian small business

The innovative tailoring of Karla Spetic's eponymous label is a runway regular at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.

But the glamorous world of high-end fashion is a long way from Spetic's arrival in Australia as a refugee in 1993.

Spetic was 11 when she fled war-torn Croatia with her mother.

"It's something obviously I would never forget," Spetic says. "It was a shock going to the complete other side of the world but I think Mum really had no choice."

Now the girl who arrived in Australia unable to speak English runs a successful fashion label that turned over about $500,000 in 2016 and has customers throughout the world.

"I really had an itch to do something of my own," Spetic says. "I had a lot of ideas and I wanted to bring those ideas to life. I was really very impatient and I had a vision and I really wanted to do my own thing. I didn't know how it would happen, I didn't have any business knowledge as such, but I did the first collection and once I received the orders I had to make them and it snowballed from there." Read more