It's 9:30 on a Tuesday night and the Nitza and Marsha clothing store is swollen with a small traffic jam of women. Those lacking the patience to queue for a change room strip off where they can, yelling to their friends across the room for opinions. Others struggle to twirl and strut in the crowded space facing the shop's two full-length mirrors.

It's a shopping frenzy befitting a mega-sale or the latest shipment of international brands. But instead, the labels being flung across the shop - Totali, Zuriel, Scelle - are from local designers, with price tags hovering around NIS 400. Across Tel Aviv, a growing number of stores are now cashing in on the demand for 'Israeli-made' and devoting their racks to young unsigned designers.

"We only sell blue and white," says owner Nitza Zadik, referring to the Israeli designers stocked in her Dizengoff Street store. "And we've been very successful because I think Israeli designers know how to pick the right material for this country, they know it's hot, and they know the Israeli woman's shape."

A few blocks away on Sheinkin Street, Ronen Buskila, owner of the Israeli design store Overdose couldn't agree more. "Usually when I say it's young Israeli designers, people are more supportive and willing to pay extra."

For budding designers, Israeli-only stores also offer a rare foot inside the notoriously cutthroat fashion industry. As a bikini designer himself, it is a struggle Ronen knows well.

"It's very difficult when you're new. When I first wanted to sell my bikinis, people would ask 'Who are you?' and I would say 'Look at the bikinis, never mind who I am.' People go by established names and companies. If they don't know you it's very hard to get a foot in."

Skimming the labels in Overdose, few are instantly recognizable, which is exactly how Ronen likes it. "I want to support unknown designers. If it wasn't for shops like mine, they'd never get a stage to show their stuff."

The stuff in question is layered, loose-fitting, brightly colored, and according to Nitza, requiring an open mind - something her European customers struggle with. "The French like things a-line, small. But Israeli fashion is loose, comfy and colorful."

Nitza's vision four years ago was to open a store that would expose this flamboyant and casual style, and help talented youngsters launch their careers.

Tali Ben-Naim was one such designer. Three years ago and fresh out of Escola Fashion School, the twenty-something graduate approached Nitza with four tops. Her Totali label has since expanded to twenty pieces for the summer season alone, and now supplies 15 other Israeli-only design stores.

Like many young designers, Tali works from home, a spare room in her apartment crammed with sewing machines and her floaty, layered, cotton wrap skirts.

Tali readily admits she would be unable to survive without stores such as Nitza's. "It's very hard starting out," she said. "Young designers just don't have the money to rent their own store, pay staff to manage it, and make enough pieces to fill it. Stores like Nitza's are a way in."

Ran Zuriel of the Zuriel brand, agreed, saying if Nitza hadn't scouted him out at the Dizengoff Centre Artist's Market, he wouldn't have survived. "It was hard in the beginning. I also had to have a part-time job in a shoe store." Two years later Zuriel has skyrocketed, being exported to Argentina and adorning such catwalk notables as Naomi Campbell.

But like many Israeli designers, Ran laments the lack of support for youngsters plunging into the industry. "It's not like in Europe where you have a fashion show, lots of designers come, they put their stuff on the stands, and people from all the companies come and buy. Here you have to go from store to store trying to sell your stuff."

An exception is Tel Aviv's biannual Fashion Market, which this year hosted over 120 Israeli designers. At NIS 10,000 a stand, it is also an arena that remains out of reach for many younger designers.

Hardly a nurturing environment according to Ronen, who said the Fashion Market's preference for established names and the government's lack of support were hurting younger designers. "There should be more government support for them when they're beginning, so they can sleep at night, not have to work another job, just be creative."

It is exactly this creativity that encouraged Nitza and Ronen to open their Israeli-only stores in the first place. Judging by the shopping mayhem in Nitza and Marsha, their enthusiasm seems to be catching on.