Sass & Bide - sofeminine interview Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton

© Sass & Bide

Ambition, drive, sophistication, determination. The usual attributes of successful business persons don’t quite seem to fit to Heidi and Sarah-Jane - the creators of Sass & Bide.

Not that they didn’t know what they wanted when they started selling clothes at a small stall on Portobello Road market.
 
They were certainly prepared to work hard sacrificing after work and weekend hours for designing and sewing while they were still working full-time jobs, Heidi in Marketing, Sarah-Jane in Accounting.

But their success is really a story of two caring, generous women and their great friendship. 

Their bond has made Sass & Bide Australia’s most successful fashion label (ever!) and one of the few foreign brands to conquer the UK market. 

It's because of this bond that both were able to build a little family of their own. In fact their friendship even carried them through cancer together. 

Meeting the two blonde, blue-eyed women - tall and slender, Heidi, and  the smaller, tiny framed Sarah-Jane - is like catching up with old friends.

The makers of Sass & Bide are refreshingly warm-hearted, genuinely interested and have that typically Australian laid-back air that makes European business women seem like mad people.

When we meet in a luxirous hotel lobby in Paris, Heidi is wearing a vintage black and white overall with red ankle boots and one of their brown leather belts wrapped around her waist. They've just finished London Fashion Week and are now taking a well-earned break in France.

"Sugar daddy", Heidi calls Sarah-Jane who is in charge of the company's finances. "Can we have a coffee?" It was in honour of this nickname that their last collection was called "Papa sucre".