Branding power

Co-founders and directors of SGC (from left) Marc Moore, Luke Harwood and Dan Gosling. Photo / Babiche Martens

If you're Auckland-based, you probably know at least one of them. Maybe you were at a party with them last weekend. Perhaps you've shopped in one of Dan Gosling's stores, Black Box Boutique or Dead Modern. It's likely you've seen Marc Moore in the social pages. It's possible you've worked with Luke Harwood. Maybe you're wearing one of their designs right now.

Maybe you can't stand them and rolled your eyes when you saw them on the cover. Love them or hate them, the Stolen Girlfriends Club team is incredibly well connected. Hollywood may have six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but Auckland has six degrees of Stolen Girlfriends Club. But let us go back to the beginning, shall we, for those who don't frequent Ponsonby bars, who aren't in the fashion industry, and who think About Town is a real estate guide. Who are Marc Moore, Luke Harwood and Dan Gosling, what is Stolen Girlfriends Club - and why should you care?

Friends Moore and Harwood first started the brand - and make no mistake, Stolen Girlfriends Club is a brand, not just a fashion label - in 2005 after meeting through the surf scene. Both had worked in marketing and sales for local surf labels and competed in surf competitions. "We sat down over some beers and were like, 'let's start something'," says Moore. The original premise was simply to create some cool things for themselves and their mates to wear.

"It was more a case of not being able to find what we wanted to wear in the market, and we thought 'hey, let's make some clothes for us and our friends'. It's pretty cliche, but what other reason is there really?" says Moore, who originally used the name Stolen Girlfriends Club for an art project. "We wanted it to be like an umbrella and do creative projects underneath the name."

This included art exhibitions and parties that involved fashion insiders drinking out of jam jars, as well as a recognisable slogan T-shirt that the boys credit with creating "the brand". The Stolen Girlfriends Club Says Relax tee (a riff on Frankie Says Relax) was "such a strong branding piece, we didn't even really know it at the time," says Moore, now the only one of the three who works full-time on the label. "It ended up getting so much editorial and it stood out like dog's balls," says Harwood. Gosling, who owns fashion distribution company Stem and bought into the label a few months later with a box of beers, pinpoints exactly what is so interesting about the label. "The brand got bigger before there was actually any product."

Branding and hype has been key to the success of Stolen Girlfriends Club. It has also played a part in the backlash, but more on that later. Moore, Harwood and Gosling all agree that they did things differently to most labels: creating a brand, then learning how to make the clothes. "We did everything backwards, but I think we did the right thing about growing and establishing a brand, which is really hard these days," says Moore. "People don't realise

that if you don't have a brand, you don't have anything. We stumbled across ours so to speak, but we did create a little bit of a following. People wanted to know what the name meant, what was behind it, it had this whole thing of mystery and interpretation as well and everyone kind of took ownership of it." Superette's Rickie Dee has stocked the label since the early days and says though the T-shirts were what originally had pulling power, it's now the collections themselves that "sell out instantly". "They created a hype before they started even making clothes... it was and still is a right wee club." Go to any hip Auckland bar and you'll spot at least one person wearing something by Stolen Girlfriends Club: their denim, their jewellery, a T-shirt or a piece from the fashion collection. Their Fashion Week shows have proven one of the more popular; last year they showed their "Pretty Vacant" collection in a huge warehouse with what felt like half of Auckland looking on (the jam jars made an appearance at the after-party). One of their T-shirts recently appeared on the cover of Nylon Japan, and in the past week their pieces have begun to pop up on several influential American fashion websites. Their white safety pin dress from the current collection featured on FashionToast.com, where blogger Rumi Neely declared them her "new favourite label". That's kind of a big deal when you realise that style websites and bloggers like Neely are quickly becoming just as, if not more, influential than mainstream fashion magazines.

Of course, there's also a negative side to all of this. Mention Stolen Girlfriends Club in certain circles and you will be met with rolled eyes or even straight out condemnation. Comments I've heard thus far include that they're not "real" designers, they're sneaky, they're trust fund kids, and they've even been given the nickname "Stolen Ideas Club". Moore, Harwood and Gosling certainly aren't oblivious to the haters. But I get the distinct impression they get some sort of twisted satisfaction out of it.

At Air New Zealand Fashion Week a couple of years ago, there was a catfight over an allegedly stolen sponsor; an anonymous email was sent out to the fashion press dissing SGC, and it all got a bit dramatic. The Stolen Girlfriends Club team took the email and displayed it as an art piece at their show. "There's always going to be haters; but it does kind of gut you when you've supported people," says Gosling. "But it's the same old thing in New Zealand; you should be praising people who are trying to do new things." Maybe their take-the-piss nonchalance simply comes from past experience with negativity: "The surf world was lethal," says Harwood.

The trio (who are sometimes joined by stylist Zara Mirkin, who helps with production and womenswear) now plan to continue to expand the brand into new international markets, with the help of the prize money they won at the DHL Express Fashion Export Scholarship Awards. There are also possible plans for a shoe, and a move away from their distinctive punky aesthetic. "We see that fashion and a lot of labels have gone along that similar deconstructed, punky kind of vibe, and we were like 'well, we wanna do something different and surprise people'," says Moore. "The new summer collection is heaps more modern, with bolder colours and detailing, a touch more sophisticated. Think Robert Palmer videos."

Although the men's line is slightly different, with its own identity: "Guys are probably not as forward as the girls, they're a bit more cautious and classic," says Gosling. They show me their Stolen Girlfriends Club office, a small area at the back of Gosling's warehouse, complete with rabbit printouts, dolls dressed in mini-SGC outfits, shelves of magazines and a neon light. They're typically self-deprecating about it all. "People do make us out to be a bit bigger than we are," says Gosling. "Some have said we've almost created our own little culture with the brand," says Moore, "It was probably a good accident."