Dressing Illawarra glamour girl and 2008 Miss World Australia Katie Richardson in an all-Australian outfit is not as easy as it sounds.
Recessionistas - or fashion-lovers coping with the economic gloom - would have to scour the racks for locally made frocks and would be even harder pressed to find a pair of Australian-made heels.
But when they do emerge from the piles of linen, leather and lace, they'd be surprised to learn the Australian-made products rival their foreign counterparts in price.
Women's office-outfitter Cue, which also owns the edgier Veronika Maine label, has a strong ethos to manufacture clothes in Australia and works closely with the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union to maintain that goal.
A new-season pencil skirt made in Australia from European fabric costs just $150 at department store David Jones. On a smaller scale, the Illawarra's Lily and Minx retail chain will launch its own Australian-made label, Lily Meets Lola, in its stores in the coming month.
Lily Meets Lola designer Neischa Barker created the label because her customers demanded it.
"People appreciate something that's locally made - it's quality, a really good price point and it's unique; there is only one in each size and it is something nobody else will have," she said.
The capsule collection of party dresses will be manufactured by four Illawarra-based dressmakers and retail for about $120 each, a similar price to many of Lily and Minx's higher-end China-made clothes.
"It's the same for us as buying a piece made in China but it is locally made and we are still making a profit," Ms Barker said.
There are five levels of quality in the manufacturing of clothes in China. At the bottom end, garments wholesale for as little as $2 to $15 for T-shirts, dresses and shorts.
These items are customarily made in bulk and quality is poor.
They are distributed to cheap chainstores across Australia, where retailers can then sell them for between $10 and $20 and still retain a profit. A long-lasting life is not guaranteed.
It would be impossible for many Australian manufacturers to compete with these low-end products but industry insiders say it is achievable in anything up from the mid-range.
They insist quality products can be manufactured in Australia with a wholesale price of about $20 per item.
It was cheap Chinese imports and lack of quotas that drove many shoe manufacturers out of the game in the late 1970s to early '80s.
Today there are only three or four shoe manufacturers in NSW, and Salvio's Dancing Shoes, which has a small factory in Randwick, is probably the biggest.
Salvio's was established in Melbourne in 1881 by Italian migrant Enrique Salvio. It moved in the 1920s to Randwick, where it is run today by Enrique's grandson, Ted Salvio, and his great-great-granddaughter, Cathy Lennox.
The factory primarily produces dance shoes with leather soles, ranging from ballet, to tap, jazz and flamenco. But many a savvy fashionista over the years has added a rubber sole to the shoes for everyday wear.
In the past two years, the company has also branched out into fashion footwear.
The shoes are handmade with Australian leather, lined in pigskin and retail from $95 to $164 for pret-a-porter and $220 to $550 for custom-made pairs.
"How have we managed to survive? With a lot of difficulty, but because we work really hard at trying to make a good product for a reasonable price," Mrs Lennox said.
"We keep the prices as low as we can possibly go without losing money."
The biggest issue facing Salvio's in the present economic climate was the death of the dependent industries.
"It gets very difficult to buy the components we need to make shoes," Mrs Lennox said.
"We have got to buy the heels and decent bits of leather and that is getting more difficult because when there is nobody making them in Australia then these companies have got no-one to support them."
Mrs Lennox said she worried that if all this manufacturing went offshore, Australia would lose the skills to create clothes and shoes.
"In the future, with no such skilled people left in Australia we are at the mercy of the countries we deal with for all our product and, when quality is not there, we will have to just live with it," Mrs Lennox said.
"I worry that we will be unable to produce anything."
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