LEADER - Dressing to impress

Sass & Bide designers Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton tell The Adviser how they used word of mouth communication to build their multi-million dollar fashion label

UNLIKE MANY designers, Sass & Bide’s Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton had no training in design when they launched their fashion brand in the late ‘90s.

But both shared a dream of building a successful, multinational label.

Twelve years later, the two Brisbane women, who first met in high school, have managed to do just that, turning the Sass & Bide label into a $65 million business.

Earlier this year, the formidable duo defected from Sass & Bide’s long-term distribution partner, David Jones, and sold 65 per cent of the brand to the store’s arch-rival Myer for a cool $42.5 million.

The sale has given the women freedom to work fewer hours and spend more time with their respective families.

But the route to international acclaim and a multi-million dollar brand that they selected wasn’t orthodox.

After leaving high school to pursue different careers – Clarke studied to be an accountant; Middleton attended Queensland College of Art – the women reunited in the late ‘90s, armed with a dream and a handful of customised vintage jeans.

Their plan was to hit the London markets, such as the world-famous Portobello Road, to sell their modified jeans.

After some initial success, the pair returned to Australia to develop a collection.

With little to no money in the bank, however, Clarke and Middleton didn’t know whether they would be able to turn their dream into reality.

That was until a friend and mentor loaned the couple $70,000 to kick start their business.

With that $70,000 the women managed to develop an underground following, allowing them to show their first seasonal collection at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in 2001.

The brand grew in popularity and became more widely known, allowing the pair to show collections at London Fashion Week in 2002 and New York Fashion Week in 2003.

BIG BREAK

Despite the brand’s appearance at several international fashion weeks, however, Sass & Bide did not secure its in-your-face reputation until a fateful encounter with Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker.

While on their way to a meeting, Clarke and Middleton walked onto the set of the hit show. Clarke was wearing a self-styled denim jacket and managed to slip it to a security guard who then passed it on to Parker.

Impressed with the jacket, Parker commissioned the pair to create a couple of other one-off designs to be used in the show.

“From there, the brand really grew,” Clarke says, adding that the women’s fateful encounter with Parker helped create plenty of hype around the brand as well as a lot of press.

“We felt that encounter was a sort of magic surrounding the start-up of the business,” she says, “and that was one of the things we look back on now and think, my god, how lucky were we to have that happen so early on!”

While the girls attribute some of their success to luck and being in the right place at the right time, their belief in their product is what has really helped drive the label forward.

Clarke and Middleton deliberately sought out celebrities whose image would reflect positively on the brand and then sent them parcels of jeans.

“We used to target the people we wanted to send the product to and when we first began, we sent off maybe five to ten parcels of jeans,” Clarke recalls. “Basically, we just had to ask them what they thought of it. It is scary, but all the feedback was really positive.”

The pair has always had a policy not to advertise; rather, they relied on word of mouth communication to build the business and the results show that their method has worked well.

Word of mouth carries more weight, according to Clarke, than a well-placed print or television advertisement.

“We think it is far better to actually get an editor to choose clothes out of the collection, rather than to pay for advertising. So, that is how it has worked for us,” she says.

“We are much more interested in a more intimate marketing campaign than in spending money on advertising.”

The pair continues to host intimate in-store appearances and trunk shows, not only to build the Sass & Bide brand in local communities but also to create a physical rapport with prospective clients.

BIG BRAND, SMALL SCALE

Clarke and Middleton’s desire to retain the intimacy and ‘niche’ feel of their multimillion dollar brand is reflected in more than just their approach to advertising.

The pair has also kept the business relatively small in terms of staff, with just over 20 employees working at Sass & Bide.

According to Clarke, there is no need to have a large number of employees in order to have a big presence. By keeping the company relatively small, the pair has been able to retain a positive work culture.

“We trust all of our staff,” she says. “Our work culture is one of positivity, empathy and honesty. We all support each other.

“At the end of the day, people are the most important part of any successful business. Don’t recruit because you can, recruit because you need to.”

When the pair was first growing their business, they relied on word of mouth to find appropriate staff, Middleton adds.

The company let people know it was looking for staff and would then interview those who had been recommended because they knew they could be trusted and were likely to be quality operators.

“The personality of the brand is what makes a business successful, not the amount of employees you have on the books,” she says.

Clarke and Middleton aim to “keep loving what we do” and to “keep growing the brand, both domestically and internationally”.

And that shouldn’t be hard, given the critical acclaim both they and the label constantly receive. Last year, for example, they took home the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award for their distinct, modern designs.

The award recognises the extraordinary achievements of entrepreneurial business women – innovators, risk takers, leaders and visionaries with a commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Clarke and Middleton say they were humbled by the win as well as the opportunity to reveal the key to business success. These were kindness, respect and dedication.