Too Big to Fail?
There’s a strange thing that happens when people think you’ve “made it”.
A few weeks ago, we packed up what felt like half the Sage x Clare office and headed to Life Instyle for our annual trade fair, where we launched our new collection, Dakota, to our stockists.
If you’ve never been to a trade fair, picture hundreds of brands under one enormous roof, each with their own little temporary world. Beautifully merchandised stands, flowers being fussed with, cushions plumped for the hundredth time, bowls of lollies replenished, coffees everywhere. And underneath it all, a fairly potent cocktail of nervousness, excitement and anticipation. Everyone is hoping to be noticed.
For a small brand, perhaps it’s the buyer you’ve been trying to get in front of for years. For an established brand, it might be seeing whether a long-time stockist falls in love with the new collection all over again. There are first orders, repeat orders, bigger orders, smaller orders and the slightly terrifying silence of no order at all. Add three days of back-to-back conversations and not enough sleep and, by day three, a certain level of delirium also sets in. I can confirm some very strange conversations happen on a trade fair floor.
But something happened this year that really stayed with me.
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A number of other brand owners and sales reps came over to congratulate me on Sage x Clare. They said such lovely things about what we’d built, how established the brand felt, how well known we were. There was this sense of, “You guys must be fine.” Like we were the pros. The veterans. The ones who had figured it all out. And I remember thinking… God, I used to think that too.
I can still remember coming to my first trade fair around ten years ago when Sage x Clare was tiny. I knew almost nobody. I was part of a brand collective. I didn’t understand the industry particularly well. I certainly didn’t know who all the important buyers were. I’d look around at the big, beautiful stands and the brands whose names I recognised and assume they inhabited some magical, stress-free realm of business that I was desperately trying to reach.
They’d made it.
Surely once you reached *that* size, people just bought your products? Surely you knew what you were doing? Surely you stopped worrying whether anyone would show up? I imagined success as a place you eventually arrived at. And then, presumably, exhaled.
Ten years later, I found myself standing on the other side of that assumption. And I can tell you, it feels very different from here.
In ten days, we launch the first chapter of Dakota. She is beautiful. I love her. I believe in her. Our team loves her. Our stockists have responded incredibly to her. And I am still nervous. Because sitting in our warehouse right now are thousands upon thousands of very real, very beautiful products that we have designed, sampled, resampled, ordered, paid for, photographed, shipped across oceans and pinned an enormous amount of hope on. They’re not theoretical anymore. They’re here. And now we wait to see what you think.
There’s something wonderfully vulnerable about creating a product-based business. At some point you have to stop tweaking, stop discussing, stop forecasting and place the order. You have to say, “Yep. I think people are going to love this.” Sometimes you’re right. Sometimes something you almost didn’t make becomes the thing everyone wants (hello Nudie Rudie bath mat!). And sometimes the piece you were convinced would fly... doesn’t.
We call them winners and losers internally, which sounds a little brutal when you consider the months of love that have gone into creating them all. But the reality is that whether a collection is loved a lot or loved a little has very real consequences. And perhaps that’s what surprised me most about growing a business. The nerves never really went away. The stakes just changed.
When Sage x Clare was tiny, there was enormous uncertainty. But there was also less to lose. We could make smaller bets. Change direction quickly. Make a mistake and quietly try something else. Today, there are more people depending on those decisions. More stock. More overheads. More customers. More stockists. More expectations. More zeros attached to the bets we make.
We are undoubtedly more experienced. But experience and certainty, I’ve discovered, are two very different things. Which brings me to a phrase that has been bouncing around my head ever since the trade fair:
Too big to fail.
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I’m not sure there is such a thing. Businesses we once thought untouchable disappear. Brands that seemed to be everywhere suddenly aren't. Something changes in the economy, consumer behaviour shifts, a trend moves on, costs rise, a competitor arrives, an algorithm changes. Big or small, there is no sure thing.
And oddly, I don’t find that depressing. I find it energising. Because perhaps the moment you believe you’ve “made it” is the moment you stop paying attention. You stop listening. You stop being curious. You stop feeling that little flutter before you put something new into the world. And I never want to lose that. I want us to care deeply whether you love Dakota. I want butterflies before launch day. I want us debating whether we got something right. I want to notice when something isn’t working and be brave enough to change it. I want to remain just uncomfortable enough that we keep moving.
Maybe there is no arrival point. Maybe “making it” is simply earning the opportunity to keep making it. Again and again. Collection after collection. Decision after decision. Year after year.
And maybe somewhere on that trade fair floor there was a founder standing behind their very first little stand, looking over at ours and thinking, “Imagine how easy it must be when you get to that size.” If I could have pulled them aside, I think I would have told them this:
“The nerves are still here. There’s just more stock in the warehouse.”
Dakota, we’re ready for you.
I think.
With a whole lotta love,
P x