A young Roanne Jacobson would spend hours walking the New York City streets window-shopping, when she discovered the garment industry and grew fascinated with shops selling thousands of a single item, be it zips or buttons.
Jacobson was on her overseas experience and had travelled to the American city in a bid to make it as a painter but got waylaid. About nine months later she returned to New Zealand to begin dabbling in handbag making and the possibilities of large-scale production.
The idea she thought up during that New York stint would evolve into the Saben brand.
She started thinking about the production side of the fashion industry after discovering these stores that sold purely buttons or just zips, especially one that really caught her attention selling just handbag fixtures.
"I could spend hours in there trying to work out how these mechanisms worked, and then I started purchasing bits and pieces so I could test the actual functionality of them. In the end I had made something that resembled a bag and that was the moment where I was like 'Hmm there is something to this'," Jacobson told the Herald.
"I spent so many months admiring beautiful bags that I had seen in windows and when I finally got brave enough to go into stores and take a closer look I realised that either they were exquisite and beautiful but completely impractical or the opposite - all about function with no flair, and so that was the lightbulb moment."
That sparked Jacobson's desire to make affordable yet beautiful bags. She came home having already made the decision she would start a handbag venture.
It had no name at that stage, but she eventually settled on the name Saben - her grandmother Sarah's last name; she wanted the brand to encompass her spirit.
Jacobson was in her early twenties at the time and established Saben in 2002 after dabbling in prototypes in her parents' garage. No pro on the production side, she says she soon found a factory in Mt Roskill to make the bags she was designing.
The brand's bags were made in Auckland for the first five years before part of production was moved overseas in 2007 to meet growing demand.
The very first bag Jacobson designed was a bum bag that could be worn across the waist or as a sling. But it wasn't until Saben started producing "The Shopper" bag in 2003 that the business took off and the brand started to become well known.
It was on her honeymoon in Bali that Jacobson found an Indonesian manufacturer. Production was then moved to China five years later in 2011 after she faced multiple issues around quality control.
Today, Saben has 100 stockists in New Zealand and Australia, sold by the likes of The Iconic and David Jones, and is a multimillion-dollar operation with two Auckland stores, located in Newmarket and Ponsonby. In 2018, Saben expanded into luggage and then into footwear two years later.
Saben expanded into Newmarket last November. It formerly had a store at Auckland International Airport, since 2015, which was temporarily closed due to Covid.
A private company, its seven-figure sales revenue and valuation remain confidential. However, Jacobson says sales are tracking 25 per cent up on the previous year.
It has produced almost 19,000 bags so far this year.
Next month, the Morningside-based business that employs eight staff turns 20 years old.
Jacobson says she is unsure what the next 20 years will have in store for Saben, but she hopes it will have a larger market share in Australia, and inspiring other women in business to follow their dreams.
While more retail stores would be nice, Jacobson says its not priority.
"We don't have a clear strategy in terms of our retail. I'm very happy with the way the stores [we do have] are trading and we have great relationships with our partners across the country, so I feel like we're doing a great job to represent the brand," she says.
"We're looking at Australia as a new market ... a market that has potential for us. We're in David Jones and available through The Iconic and a few boutique retailers, so [expanding that] is our next goal."
She would also like to do some philanthropic work empowering and supporting other women in business to grow their ventures. "Being able to spend more time lifting others up is definitely something I would like to do," she says.
"I'm hopeful to be able to spend some time in the next 20 years to support and empower others.
"It would be amazing to be able to look back and have businesses talk about being inspired by Saben and growing their side business into a fully-fledged business. That would be really cool."
A vertical business, Saben manufactures, wholesales and retails through its online and two retail stores; an operating model that Jacobson says works really well for the business. She says she has no reason to change that and Saben will continue to expand on that.
Any future store openings would be determined by demand, she says, similarly to how its first store in Ponsonby came about following ongoing interest in the pop-up shop it had at the time.
"We've played with pop-ups from the very beginning of Saben - we've always wholesaled and we've always done pop-ups once or twice a year. In the early days that was from my house, and then it moved to the factory and then to leased spaces. They have always been a natural progression."
Jacobsen says it would be great to have a store in each city across the country within time. Long term, a flagship store in Sydney, Australia is also on the cards.
"My focus is Australia right now, and growing that. Our stockists are an intrinsic part of our business and their ability to put a product in a different environment to one we might put it in creates a bigger scope for people to find Saben. That [model] has really worked for us - we will always make sure we have that element in our business."
These days Jacobsen is less hands on and more focused on creative direction. She designs all the bags herself, and works from head office most days. She describes her role as "stirring the pot" and "making chaos" with her team working to put her "crazy ideas into action".
"Every day seems to bring challenges or wins and a good day is when you get both - and that's what keeps me going."
And even 20 years on, she says she still gets "such a kick out of seeing Saben bags on people's arms".
