When the director of London's Tate Modern museum visited Australia last year, he described Melbourne label Perks and Mini as ''one of the strongest fashion designers in the world right now''.

The Tate's Chris Dercon was so impressed by husband-and-wife team Misha Hollenbach and Shauna Toohey after viewing their work at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, he arranged to meet them and has since bought several archival pieces for the Tate.

''He did a studio visit while he was here and bought a couple of pieces … To have our work archived there is pretty incredible,'' said Hollenbach, who studied fine art and designed graphics for Los Angeles-based skate label Fuct before going into business with his wife.

While Perks and Mini (P.A.M.) is hardly a household name here - a result of their aversion to high-profile catwalk shows - they have been attracting the attention of some of the globe's most influential art and fashion leaders since they launched in 2000.

One of the first to take notice was Sarah Lerfel, the co-founder and creative director of innovative Paris-based retail juggernaut Colette, who snapped up their inaugural collection and has stocked every collection since.

The pair said meeting with Lerfel during their European honeymoon was key to the brand's international success. P.A.M. now sells 70 per cent of its men's collection and about 50 per cent of its womenswear to overseas customers through some 70 stockists in countries including Italy, Mexico, Japan and Germany and at some of the world's most innovative stores, including LN-CC in London.

In Australia, the range is sold through the couple's Curtin House store Someday in Melbourne and a P.A.M. boutique in Sydney.

''You have to remember that in 2000, Colette was a really important boutique that was breaking the boundaries of retail … It was really exciting,'' said Toohey, who studied fashion design at RMIT.

Since then they have collaborated with some of the world's biggest names, including Nike, cult Japanese labels Undercover and A Bathing Ape's Skatething and the late American artist Mike Kelley. There are more projects in the pipeline, including a men's shoe collection for adidas and a womenswear range for American label Carhartt.

But P.A.M. is much more than a fashion label, said Toohey and Hollenbach, who also publish books, produce music and do exhibitions.

''It's more than just a business or a retail thing, it's more about a feeling for us. It's about creating a world where culture and fashion and music can all exist,'' Hollenbach said. ''We've produced almost 30 books with different artists and photographers.''

The pair, who say they have never had a business plan and are ''still not fully aware of what we're doing'', are modest about their international success and unperturbed by their relative obscurity here.