I'm in two minds about SABA, Australian 'high street' label whose website says aims to provide high quality minimalist fashion for the discerning eye. Everytime i go in there it never seems to be fulfilling its self-professed brief, but they do cut a nice suit, and they seem to be the closest to COS (Collection of Style, the best high street phenomenon since sliced bread) that we have in Australia.
What's more interesting for me is SABA's future, namely, their high profile fashion collaborations and their attempts to redefine their looks. The latest of these is with Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist who shot their Denim campaign for autumn/winter on the streets of melbourne this past week. He even cast 'real people' in the campaign apparently, the party he held last Sunday for his readers was an informal casting call, say fashion insiders (read: the 'Buzz' section of the Sunday Telegraph today haha).
Before that, and more interesting for me, was their hiring of Yasmin Sewell as 'Executive Creative Consultant', a hefty title which apparently means she will be casting her considerably chic eye over designs, styles, fabrics and colours for each season.
Yasmin Sewell is the incredibly fabulous Australian fashion 'insider', regularly featured on The Sartorialist, ex-Director of Buying at Browns Department store, cherry-picked by Mrs B herself, and now Creative Director at Liberty and the woman responsible for its recent revamp. She is an industry darling, and though i hate that phrase it seems to be the only one that really describes her role within fashion. People love her, and not just because she has faultless taste and an effervescent look. I've met her, albeit very very briefly, and she is just charming. She's bright and bubbly and engaging and warm. A very good postcard for Australia haha.
I'm excited that SABA has hired her, because she has a great eye and her help will hopefully put them back on the fashion radar. She has thing knack for discovering beautiful prints and colours, think her 'scarf room' in the Liberty Store and her love of Josh Goot (and her introduction of him into the London fashion scene) and she's a great one for chic, minimal style with interesting design quirks and clear, clean lines. Exactly what SABA is aiming for, but falling unfortunately short of at the moment.
I'm definitely waiting with bated breath for the results of the Sart campaign and each new season's collection as overseen by Sewell. Because i have high hopes for SABA, and like i said, they do make some lovely stuff that is well designed and well made. It's just that high quality high street fashion is few and far between in Australia, and even supposedly high quality stores like 'Sportsgirl' are woefully ignorant of what high quality actually is (a bracelet of theirs broke in my hand when i took it off the shelf yesterday). So if SABA could only up their fashion cred they could be ticking all my high street boxed right now.
If only!
X
The beautiful Yasmin Sewell!
[images from the sartorialist and garance dore, via tfs]
SABA website: click
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