Sass and Bide launch

Wednesday night was the official opening party of Sass and Bide’s first store outside of Australia. We talked with co-owner Sarah Jane Clarke who admitted she had put in more black for NZ than they usually would have in their Australian stores…

Wednesday night was the official opening of Sass and Bide’s first store outside of Australia! The sleek white-on-white store, with glossy white painted floorboards was jam packed with Auckland’s fashion fabulous.

It is a gorgeous space, which though an old industrial space, has a lot of natural light and somehow feels quite feminine. The exposed beams and touches of black all work to show off the clothes to their best advantage.

The current collection ‘Resort’ is a bit of a departure from the more monochromatic collections of recent times, with some definite injections of colour. We are loving the intense pomegranate orange – with greys, khaki, and putty adding to the colours.

Left: Karen Walker and Rachael Churchward.

Marc Moore of Stolen Girlfriends Club and Steve Dunstan from Huffer were DJing for the night.

In the middle of all the chaos, I got to catch up with the exceptionally glamorous Sarah Jane Clarke (pictured below with Sara Tetro.) She was looking simply amazing in a black lace fitted jacket, cut off lace tights, black pencil skirt and high heels. She told me she wore the outfit, as she understood our antipodean love affair with black!

Sarah Jane (whose nickname is Sass) her best friend Heidi Middleton (whose nickname is Bide) started out in London on a stall at Portobello Market many years ago with a pair of customised jeans. They then went back to Sydney and Sass and Bide was officially born. They are both just back from London Fashion Week where they showed their new collection called ‘Papa Sucre’ (sugar daddy is the rough translation I assume). If you want to get a look at it, there is great footage of the show on their website www.sassandbide.com.

It is obvious Sarah Jane has great affection for London, and says she would love to open a store there. And it is definitely a case of when, and not if! She would also love to open a store in New York, as often their clients can’t find the pieces they want – and a dedicated store would help that. It is always an added bonus that they would be in two gorgeous cities that they love travelling to.

I tried very hard not to gush too much over her Alexander McQueen black clutch… a rock n roll classic, sexy with an edge. Pretty much like Sass and Bide really…

I asked whether they had done anything different with the Auckland store, in terms of the clothing they kept there, and she said that she had put in more black than they usually would have. That said, they had been very pleased with how much colour had been embraced, and as a ‘recovering goth’ myself (well – not so much recovering, just aging) even I can see the appeal of the colours, and textures – it all has an ease about it. She also said that you could anticipate what you think a store will be like – but it goes and often surprises them. It appears the Ponsonby store has done this – how like us to be unpredictable!

It appears we also have more than just a passing connection with Sass and Bide here in NZ, with one of the jeans named after Kiwi model Zippora Seven. Two years ago she modeled a pair of jeans no one could get themselves into, so she became their namesake. The ‘Zippora’ jean is a huge seller for them. We were particularly taken with the waxed black ‘skinny boy’ which I am told is worn by pretty much everyone at the Sass and Bide office. With a sheen to them, they can take you just a bit further than a blue denim jean.

By the time we had finished our interview, the place was absolutely full and the champagne and canapes flowing, gorgeous clothes everywhere and plenty of people wanting to congratulate Sarah Jane on the opening of her new store. Definitely the start to a great night…

Karen Walker and Mikhail Gherman with David Briskin, CEO of Sass and Bide.