In news that will go straight to the heart of anyone who spent 2008 sitting on milk crates, drinking vodka cranberries in long-line singlets, skinny jeans and fedoras, ie elder millennials, Sass & Bide will close its stores and e-commerce site for the next several months. The Myer-owned label announced the move on Thursday, writing on social media it’s “never too late to reinvent yourself”. The plan is to relaunch later this year with a strategy aimed at capturing new markets.
Beloved in Australia and abroad, Sass & Bide was founded by Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton in 1999. Selling distressed denim, embellished jackets and singlet-dresses cut to flash side-boob, the Brisbane-born duo experienced a meteoric rise. They garnered global acclaim and a slew of celebrity clients – Beyoncé, Rihanna, Paris Hilton and Madonna to name a few – before Myer acquired the business in two transactions in 2011 and 2013 for approximately $70m. Both designers exited the business in 2014. Middleton went on to found a new label Artclub, while Clarke launched a line of jewellery.
The pause will see all Sass & Bide retail channels closed by the end of January, including three stand-alone boutiques, 14 concession stands and its e-commerce site. It punctuates a difficult trading period for Myer that has seen its share price plummet in the last 12 months.
In response, the business is strategising to reach younger shoppers. A spokesperson said Sass & Bide’s reinvention would be relevant to a new generation of customers and rely on its long heritage.
“It played an important role in the Australian fashion landscape, and we know it can do that again, given the affection and following Sass & Bide maintains,” he said.
Using Sass & Bide to make a play for youth would be savvy. In its early years, the brand was synonymous with the rock’n’roll and laneway parties that defined the Myspace and Tumblr eras. Its stovepipe jeans were favoured by festival it-girls Kate Moss and Alexa Chung, its corsets were worn by Taylor Swift. Trying to imagine indie-sleaze without the brand’s famous “Rats” leggings, drapey vests and high-rise shorts is akin to contemplating punk without Vivienne Westwood or pleats without Issey Miyake.
But in recent years, Sass & Bide’s collections have been devoid of that attitude of youth and freedom. Composed instead of conservative blouses in pastel tones, pleat-front tailored trousers and sensible twinsets, last year Sass & Bide offered clothes for a working woman. Perhaps the design team have been pitching for the grown-up, reformed club rat; but sales suggest the brand did not take her with them. Instead, the label’s artistic DNA has been compromised.
“When Sarah Jane and I launched Sass & Bide, we were young, fearless and were being fuelled by our love affair with fashion and creating,” Middleton told Guardian Australia via email in 2023. “The excitement and global reaction to what we were doing was intoxicating and at times I felt as though we were being swept along this wild ride rather than driving and guiding us along a strategic path.”
Founded 26 years ago, at a stand on London’s Portobello Road where Clarke and Middleton sold embellished jeans, a relaunch spearheaded by a young talent with a raw instinct for design and sense of the zeitgeist just might work. Especially given the appetite of teens and twentysomethings for Y2K, raver aesthetics. But only if artistry and originality are championed over product development and commercial strategy.
