Australian fashion label SABA has trawled the archives of its 60-year history with brand founder Joe Saba, marking the brand’s diamond anniversary.
Founded in 1965, the brand built its reputation on precise tailoring, considered fabrics and what the brand’s parent company APG & Co calls a distinctly Australian ease.
Six decades later, the SABA team have worked closely with the founder and his wife Marita Saba, who have shared their personal collection of brand materials and press clippings dating back 60 years.
The archive includes historic media coverage, features held within the National Gallery of Victoria collection and memorabilia marking key cultural moments, including Joe Saba’s inclusion in Australia Post’s Australian Legends of Fashion stamp series in 2005. The Australia Post ‘Legends’ are the only living people, apart from the monarchy, to appear on a stamp.
This collection has then been carefully digitised and preserved, creating a formal SABA digital archive to safeguard the brand’s history for future generations, working with the State Library of Victoria to ensure the digital record contributes to the broader cultural history of the brand within Victoria.
“When I founded SABA, the ambition was to create clothing that felt modern, refined and relevant to the way Australians live,” Saba says. “It was about tailoring with integrity and attention to detail. To see that approach resonate sixty years on is something I’m incredibly proud of.”
Joe opened his first store, the ‘Joseph Saba Shirt and Sweater Shop’, in Flinders Lane in 1965 and went on to create the famous Staggers jeans label, which revolutionised jeans in Australia in the 1970’s.
He then introduced the SABA brand in 1974, building the business up to 17 stores, including a store in New York, before selling the business in 2002.
Some of Joe’s designs are archived in the Powerhouse Museum (Sydney) and the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne).
Speaking on the archival trawl with Joe, SABA general manager Lucinda Grice says around 600 brand items from the archive have been digitised. From that, a retrospective video has been released based on the archive, with ongoing digital content set to be released over the next few months across the website and its digital channels.
This also includes window activations across all of the brand’s 21 freestanding stores, with in-store moments planned with the founder.
“It’s a privilege to carry forward a 60-year legacy and continue to grow our community of modern professionals,” Grice says. “Spending time in Joe’s personal archives reinforced just how enduring the DNA of SABA has been. Timeless, confident and uncompromising in construction.
“As we’ve expanded, opening new stores and investing in the portfolio, our focus hasn’t shifted, our customers know they are investing in pieces to be worn often, kept for years and carry them forward, both in and out of the office.”
Mid-last year, APG & Co – which also manages Sportscraft and Jag – contacted Marita and brought her into the office. A couple of weeks later, Marita invited Grice over to her and her husband’s home, which held a vast collection of archival material.
Grice says this is likely the first time Joe Saba has reconnected with the brand he founded since he sold it in 2002 to Daniel and Danielle Besen. Daniel is the son of Melbourne retail and property magnate Marc Besen.
Three years later, the brand was sold again to Apparel Group, the company that would later morph into APG & Co. At the time, Apparel Group owned Sportscraft, and had a large private label manufacturing business that supplied garments to stores such as Sussan Group, Oroton and Myer department stores.
“Reconnecting with Joe has been really special,” Grice says. “We had him and Marita in the store a few weeks ago. Marita was trying on some clothes.
“It was lovely to hear the natural way in which Joe speaks to quality and the integrity behind the way he crafted the garments. Having him appreciate the garments, too, and the quality today was really reassuring.”
Today, Grice says the brand still holds a unique place in the market. From a quality perspective, she says SABA sits on par with other Australian designers, but has a pricing strategy that is more accessible for the value customers get.
“We are a workwear brand at our core,” Grice says. “Workwear has changed over the years, definitely. Now that many of us are working from home a bit, it's now getting more of a casual slant. It's more practical.
“I also see that your ability to express yourself while still looking professional is the current trend.”
Grice says the ambition 60 years on is to be front of mind for their customer from university right through to when they hit the boardroom.
One of its ranges in particular, called Dharma, focuses on versatility. Similar to the athleisure, it focuses on going from work to home, from day to night, from a Zoom call to the local coffee shop. The range is also crease resistant and easy to care for.
Grice says SABA customers keep coming back and adding to that collection, with around 25 per cent of its sales coming from these ranges.
“Kathy Gyi, our head of garment quality at APG & Co who’s been with the business for many years, once told the team that you know the quality of a garment two years after you’ve had it. When you can see it hanging still proudly on the hangar in your wardrobe, and it's still got all of its structure and the construction is all intact. That's when you know you've made a really good investment.”
Over the past year, SABA has accelerated its physical portfolio, opening five new boutiques and refurbishing six locations including its flagship at Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building. The network now spans 21 standalone boutiques and 40 David Jones locations nationally across menswear and womenswear. The store refreshes were designed in collaboration with Arent & Pyke.
Grice says that it is both exciting and encouraging to be in a position today to invest in stores and growth, given the turbulent market globally.
“The future for us is about continuing to build customer and community connections. It's all about the customer.
“We're also rebuilding our website this year, and we've got a loyalty program that we'll be releasing, too.”