0:06

Hi, I'm Glynis Trail Nash and welcome to In Fashion. This episode, I've got someone very special to share with you. And I wanted to post this episode to finish off the year because 2024 has been a very significant one for my guest, Steve Bennett. It was 50 years ago that he started a little brand called Country Road. You'd be hard pressed to find an Australian that hasn't owned a piece of Country Road at some point in their life. And it holds a very special place in the hearts of so many. I had the very great privilege this year of writing a commemorative book for the brand's 50th anniversary, and so Steve and I had many wonderful discussions over the year. Now, I'll give you the heads up that this episode will be split into two. For the first half, we're really going to focus on Steve's 25 odd years at Country Road. At the end, we'll touch on what he's been up to since he left the brand. Then, in part two of this episode, we will be joined by another very special guest, who Look, I don't want to give it all away now, you'll have to listen in to the end to see who it is and then join us for part two to hear that conversation unfold. I promise you it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy part one of this episode of In Fashion.

GTN: 1:25

Steve Bennett, it's an absolute joy to see you here in Melbourne this afternoon.

Steve: 1:30

It's a real pleasure to have you here and it's been great to talk to you.

GTN: 1:33

Yeah, we've had some wonderful chats this year working on the Country Road 50th anniversary book. having you on Speed Dial has been one of the great, great highlights of my career, I have to say.

Steve: 1:43

Yeah, well it's been a real highlight for me because, uh, we spent most of the time not talking about Country Road, but talking about life in general. All the other

GTN: 1:52

fun stuff.

Steve: 1:52

All the fun things, like talking about music and movies, tv series. So I suppose we should really talk about that. Work stuff. Work stuff.

GTN: 2:06

And first of all, I think just congratulations again on winning the Australian Fashion Laureate Lifetime Achievement Award very recently.

Steve: 2:15

Yes, no that was, that definitely came out of the blue. I got a call on the Tuesday from IMG who was running me and said you've got to be in Sydney on Thursday. Cause, and I said, well, Are you aware of my current disabilities? I can't just jump on a plane like I used to. And I said, well, would it be all right if I got someone that I really respect and appreciate who could take the award and I could send some notes through? He said, um, well, who would that be? And I said, well, Oh, it just has to be Glenis. So, thank you very much for taking the time to do it. It was my

GTN: 2:55

very great honour.

Steve: 2:56

It was, uh,

GTN: 2:57

frankly.

Steve: 2:58

The whole 50 year thing was, you know, it had its good memories and obviously these sort of things bring back as many good memories as difficult memories. Well look, it's a journey. It's a real journey and it sort of, it's hard to also go back because we talk about 1974 but really this started right back when I got my first job in the rag trade for 20 years. Trent Nathan and what that led to in terms of being that sort of junior frock salesman right up to, um, to today, you know, there was sort of inspirations that you got from that experience. Yeah. And I think at that point, Because Trent was, he was very, very clever, number one. He was very popular at that time. I think he'd just won the Australian Wool Award, which was like winning the AFL Grand Final of fashion. And, um, he was, uh, dealing with, you know, the best buyers in the country. You know, be it, Myers, Georges, David Jones, Sports Girl. So, I was very lucky to, um, get that start. And secondly, I was really lucky to have a great childhood and experience. You know, Mum was sort of the, the quintessential, lady of Melbourne. And, uh, Dad was, the handsome guy back from the war with all his military clothes. So, to be able to see them dress and, you know, They had the smallest wardrobes you could ever imagine, you know, and yet they were the right pieces, Dad had beautiful, you know, Egyptian cotton shirts from Henry Bucks and Mum had, Melton coats from Myers or Georges or something. So They didn't have a lot of clothes, but they had the right clothes and that fascinated me.

GTN: 4:55

I know, unlike us today where we've got wardrobes at home. Bursting. Yes. With too many clothes. And never quite the right clothes. Yeah. It seems every day. Exactly.

Steve: 5:04

my mother and father were, were really stylish dressers. So I was very spoiled as a young man to actually be exposed to this. And I think it was indelible. Yeah, kind of ingrained. Yeah, and then your first job, you're working with these beautiful fabrics and things. So, I suppose that was sort of the start of it all, so.

GTN: 5:26

So yeah, 1974.

Steve: 5:28

Yep. Yep. Yep.

GTN: 5:29

Can you just paint me a little picture for a second about what the Australian fashion scene was like then and why you felt you needed to start Country Road

Steve: 5:38

Well it started about 12 months earlier because I, from Trent Nathan I worked, went and got poached for, to work for a guy called Thomas Wardle who along with Kenneth Pirrie, pro act, and was sort of a, you know. A really hot brand in those days, but he was, he loved dresses. And in the early seventies, the Vietnam war, that the arrival of denim, all of a sudden, it was like a tsunami appeared. And what it was, was, was virtually women wearing men's clothes. It was all, all of a sudden it was okay for girls to wear pants. They did wear pants though, I'm not getting it wrong, but they were more tailored and things. So all of a sudden this massive change in the industry. And I remember talking to Tom Wardle and saying, Look Tom, this dress thing is over, you know. And, uh, I said, it's all about sportswear and separates and look at what's happening with denim, you know, we've got to get into this. He said, oh no, you never make money out of sportswear. Dresses, you've got to make dresses. And I said, well, fair enough. So subsequently I got to, made the decision go and work for one of our factories. It was a shirt pattern maker. And that was a tough year because Pam and I just got married and, you know, you sort of, you go from a big job and then you go and work in a clothing factory. But it was a wonderful learning curve to know how to cut a pattern, how a garment was made and, and Pam had hair dressing salons and she was always encouraging saying, Hey, look if you want to do something, you should do it yourself. So, fortunately, along with her father and her two sisters, uh, we borrowed enough money to start Little Old Country Road in 84 Bird Road, Hawthorne.

GTN: 7:39

Love. And you started off doing women's, well, man style women's shirts, which was quite unusual at the time.

Steve: 7:46

Well, yes, because going back to the gene boom, there was, jag was big and, it was double denim and it was all these sorts of things. So we started saying that, you know, the top of the body was a real opportunity. So. We focused very heavily on shirts, but it wasn't all yarn dyes, you know, it was planes, checks, and we, at one point, were the biggest, buyer from Liberty of, um, tarnel lawn prints because that, that whole look of Liberty mixed with denim, you know, with a little cardigan or a sweater was, you know, so we, we started very much in top of the body, but I also didn't work with denim skirts. I remember getting these windows in Sports Girl, we did eight gore, 16 gore denim skirts with floral shirts. And so, you know, the, it was really the, the buyers that loved it and also Rodney Levers had just started with Q. It was fantastic. And Rodney got the first standalone shop in, in my shop. And I'm like, I'd love to get. So, we started to dream up the, um, the concept of, how could we get into more categories. And that's, that's when we started to branch out and, because people liked the shirts and we started making pants and jackets and knitwear and, so all of a sudden it, became a style. And I'm not sure whether it was the mid 70s, but the whole. Annie Hall burst onto the market. Oh,

GTN: 9:20

God, love.

Steve: 9:21

And that was that fabulous mix of vintage, uh, you know, girls, androgynous look. Yeah, those oversized blazers. And I just, yeah, I just fell in love with it. So all of a sudden this look of, you know, tweeds with vests and ties and white shirts and, Mixed back either with tweed, woolen, denim, corduroy, you know, it was just a magic period. And the interesting thing, I was so fascinated by Annie Hall. I went to New York and I met with the woman that, had done the, the costume, she'd done this. And, She was a fantastic woman. She was such an inspiration of how she worked and she told me how she worked with Ralph Lauren and she'd worked with Vintage and there was another shop in New York called San Francisco, a beautiful shop, which is right up the upper east side. So, that sort of look was coming in. Casherelle, Paul Smith, Max Mara, Margaret Howell, they all had this slightly androgynous look. So it became a look and then we started to grow very quickly and then I realised that we just needed more help and fortunately one of my best friends, Peter Vile, came, he was in the money market and I said to him, look, Would you be interested in this? Because I desperately needed help in the, in the admin, the logistics, because it was, it was growing to, you know, me packing boxes and wheeling them down to the Hawthorne Railway Station to send to our customers around Australia. So Pete had enormous influence in pushing us into, retail, vertical retail. And we opened our first freestanding, well, we started in a shop, but that was multi branded with Country Road and then closed it because we had to expand. And then we started opening in Armidale, High Street, Armidale in 77. And by 81, we had 12 stores across Melbourne, Geelong, Sydney, Mossman, Adelaide. And that's when all of a sudden we got a knock on the door from Skip Glowery, who was the, and Keith Rosenheim, who were the CEO of Meijer, and said

Phone: 11:41

we'd

Steve: 11:42

like to, we think this whole specialty store thing is something we'd like to get involved with because Selfridges had Miss Selfridges and there was it was one of those opportunities that, you know, it was too good because number one, we, we were able to keep 25 percent of the business in our ownership, which is Pam, Pete and I, and so that, kept the continuity and it was that the incentive was a five year contract to then build the business. So virtually in that period between 81 and 87 we opened 60 stores. Which is a radical amount of space in a

GTN: 12:27

relatively short period of time. Yeah

Steve: 12:30

but without the vision of you know. Yeah. It wouldn't have happened. So that was. A real asset, to have that. But then, Meyer got into difficulty and I don't know if people may not remember, but Coles took Meyer's over. That's right, yeah. So the family, sort of stepped aside from the company, so it became a very different company. And we made a decision to, to buy the business back again.

GTN: 12:58

But you don't always get the chance to do that, do you?

Steve: 13:00

No, but it was very, um, it was traumatic in the sense that we had to go public, form a public company. And that was, you know, in hindsight that I would love the business to still be Australian owned. But, um, circumstances change, but by then we'd created a really wonderful footing. And all of a sudden The time with Myers gave us a chance to then launch menswear in 84.

GTN: 13:29

I'm very excited about the menswear thing because, you know, researching this book, the thing that became so apparent was, you had this phenomenal success with womenswear, doing something different in womenswear, this kind of, this casualisation, this man ish style, which was very at odds with what had been happening. And then I, I remember I interviewed Kirsty Clements, who of course was the editor of Australian Vibe. And I said, talk to me about Country Road. What are your memories of Country Road? And she just said, I think the men of Australia owe a huge debt of gratitude to Steve Bennett. And I said, Ah, you are absolutely right. Talk to me about what menswear was like in Australia at that time, because it was pretty dire.

Steve: 14:12

Look, I'd have to say that menswear was pretty dire. was my ultimate dream. I think, you know, in starting the business, I used to fiddle with it. And, you know, we, we had many sort of little goes at doing things. And of course, the factories I dealt with were all menswear and the suppliers So it was, it was a natural progression and we had the capital, which was, you know, would have I had the capital as a standalone business? Who knows, but basically the, Myers ownership period, which gave us the capital to invest in, you know, innovation. And so it gave us a platform to really do our own thing in menswear. Basically the buyers, because what it was was they set up departments within Myers and DJs. So it was a real, start of a trend. Within the UK and America, there was this whole Ivy League, uh, preppy student sort of look, which was, you know, jackets, shirts, worn back with chinos and good knitwear and good shoes. So it was really an opportunity because Dress Down Friday had The whole culture of what you could wear to work was starting to casualize, but you couldn't go to work in surf wear or jeans and a t shirt, but now you can. But I'm saying in that time in the, you know, the early 80s, we were still pretty structured in what we had to wear to work and what you wore at the weekend. So, My sister and I and the team at, uh, Country Road at the time said, well, what do we want to wear, you know? So, you know, we'd come back from Europe and America with Japan with all these samples and said, this is what we want to wear. And so it was really, an expression of what we were going through. So we were actually making clothes that we could wear anywhere in the world. I suppose feel Australian, but also feel as if they would match anything. And that was, that was really the joy. And I laughed because we did this opening launch with Vogue at that time. And, um, it's funny looking back because I didn't even conceive. And I love to find the old ads, but, um, The, the concept that Sue Vesey, who was my marketing stylist director at the time said, look, let's call it the beginning of a legend. And uh, now I look back, I thought, well, that's a, that's a bit, uh, that's a bit bold. She said, no, no, bugger it. I said, this is a concept. And I think Vogue put us on the front cover or something. It was magic. So we had a huge support from Vogue. the media. We started producing catalogues because there was no internet. There was no, so you had to do something that was sustainable in terms of people. So the whole concept of the bag, the carry bag, the weekender bag, all these things were really a permutation of things that we wanted to. So they became the advertising. I

GTN: 17:27

remember that when I interviewed your sister, Jane Parker, who was, you know, designing, um, she said that the tote bag and the carry all with the logo on the side, she said they were the greatest walking billboards of all time. And I'm like, yeah, that's clever. That's really good. But yeah, your catalogs were huge. And the thing that has been so interesting for me in the process of having to interview all of these people about Country Road and all of this, is how visionary you were. And, and I can see you grimacing. I can see you grimacing. But. It's also that understanding of giving other people freedom. That came up a lot, that you just found the right people at the right time and say, you go and do this, I trust you.

Steve: 18:14

You know, I think it's, it's encouraging good people to, one, you've got to give clear direction. And you've got the courage to say, we're going to go from here to here. You know, we're going to go from Melbourne to Sydney. You're allowed to go to Mildura, but if you go to Hobart, we're in trouble. And I found that good people with good leadership, will make it better. And, you know, I think that if you can get people in the same boat, you'll win the boat race. And my grimace because I look back and I don't, I don't see that word. Two words I don't see is, is brand or leadership. It was basically making clothes that we all loved. Unfortunately, other people did. So it wasn't as hard as it sounds. You know, if you're making a leather belt. You wanted the best leather and the best buckle.

Phone: 19:10

Yeah.

Steve: 19:11

Uh, and if you wanted to have the right chinos to wear, it had to be the right weave. It had to feel like it was going to last. Or if you're buying wool or linen, the linen had to feel like real linen. It was Irish, Italian linen we bought because it was longer fibres, you know, all these things we'd learnt. So I think it was basically being able to do things that we loved. Now, is that leadership? I'm not sure. But, you know.

GTN: 19:44

I think it's important, though, you know, to love what you do.

Steve: 19:47

Yeah, well we did love, and fortunately other people liked it too, country Road was a style brand, not a fashion brand. Mm. And I don't see myself when, you know, I'm sure my sister doesn't, and anyone that worked with me thought that we were, you know, fashionistas. You know, so it was really, that whole concept of, You know, what Australia expressed, which is, you know, great cities, coast and country, and clothes that could work from work day to weekend. But we were, I must admit, because one, we're baby boomers. So this massive market that we grew, we start, emerged. Their language had changed, and the music had changed, the country had changed. So there, there was a liberalism, a rise in education and everything was more accessible to everyone. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't driven by class or, or religion or, or um, nationality. There was this emergence, um, a lot to do with music, I think. And, and. the culture of that era was what we were seeing and what we were doing, you know, that was influencing sort of close your war. So, there was always a bit of, I suppose, country in there that you had to have, you know, a good pair of desert boots or a good pair of Derby shoes and in women's wear, You had to have the sort of colours that went from season to season. You know, people would come back and say, Oh no, you've got to have this colour, that colour, or, purple's in, or turquoise is in. I'd say, oh, no, I can't deal with those colours. They're not for us. I also like colors that you could take the top off, you know, the red was sort of sanded red or the green. I love like corduroy colors. It's just a die for, because they had that luster. And then, moving into You know, 88 when we launched homewares was, was a similar effect to menswear that we could transfer the, those values that the cotton sheets would, we used to buy from National Textiles and they were hotel quality and um, And actually hospital quality. So they were really tough, you know, people would say that, but you wanted to sleep in them. So they're, you know, high count cotton. And of course all this in those days was made in Australia. So we were dealing with wonderful mills that were still operating. I also used to love ticking, you know, like the old mattresses, mattress ticking. So we'd do stripes in ticking and. And then you do edge stitching and piping. So, the move into homewares was as exciting as the move into menswear. And then we're able to then create You know, the biggest stores like, you know, we bought this old pub in South Yarra and And there's still

GTN: 22:54

a country road there today. There is,

Steve: 22:56

yes.

GTN: 22:57

And that was, I think, you know, further to the visionary thing, I'm going to use the word again. Again? Again. No, no. Uh, it was that of, you know, you brought, firstly, you had your stand alone women's stores, which were a great experience and very fresh looking. Yeah. And then you added menswear into the mix. Yeah. So men and women were shopping in the same shop. Correct. That's quite unusual.

Steve: 23:18

Yeah. Well, it was, but the girls were fantastic sales people. We used to call, um, you know, you could, you could sell top down or bottom up. And what that actually meant is if you got a guy into a pair of pants, you could then

GTN: 23:35

Here's the shirt.

Steve: 23:36

You get the shirt, you get the belt, you get the jacket, you get And because he doesn't like shopping, he'd buy two jackets and four pants. And we had this training, you know, we had this formula that you could, now if they bought a shirt, you could then suggest a tie and a jacket. Because men I, I slightly disagree. I think men love shopping because you want to go to Bunnings or somewhere. And so how could we get that? Yeah. So how could we get that sort of, you know, feeling that shopping could be fun for men? So in doing the stores, it was a lot of fun to do. Now we did, we definitely did. You know, we were bold enough to open a standalone men's west store next to Henry Bucks in Collins Street, which was a huge success. Yeah. And then we came up with this concept of the split suit and the idea of the split suit was that it was that, how can I get these young baby boomers to not have to wear a suit, you know, Harry high pants and all this sort of thing, and that they could. Virtually ended up with a pair of pants and a reefer jacket, and the reefer jacket was navy, of course navy blue was the main colour, or grey, so you could wear the jacket with chinos, you could wear it with denim, you could wear, so all of a sudden we tapped into this dress down Friday thing, which was huge, When this came in, there'd be poor guys coming to work feeling so embarrassed that they didn't have anything to wear to work.

GTN: 25:13

And now they had amazing Chinos and Chambre shirts and Polish shirts. So it took off, you know, sweet shoes that they did.

Steve: 25:20

And it was, you know, it's easy. It's easy to look back, but it was a massive phenomenon and it was an enormous boost to the brand. Oh yeah. And at the same time, women's wear was going through this. It's the same issue that that sort of classic casual look that we loved was also being accepted to wear to work, you know, whether Janie came up with the Stuart Pant, which was a huge success. So women were able to then wear, weekend wear to work. But I think there was always a feminine thing that, my team put in there. If I look back through the catalogs, you could throw a, a beautiful scarf around your neck, you know, with a Melton peacoat or something and, you know, I look at some of the images and they're quite beautiful.

GTN: 26:07

Oh, they're beautiful, they're country road images. One of the things, again, the photographers that I spoke to for the book were just saying, like I think it was Simon Leakey said, you know, when he came back from New York, after living there for a few years, he said, you know, Whoever was working on the Country Road campaign, like that was the campaign everyone wanted. Like that, you were in the big league if you had that campaign. So then he got something to say, he was stoked. Um, but the catalogues were beautiful, you had a really relaxed style of imagery, which was like things, like accessories shot outside, on clotheslines, things like that, which hadn't really been done before.

Steve: 26:41

No, that was, you know, at that time, We tried to put lifestyle into, so, where are you going to dry a towel? You're going to, you know, throw it over a barbed wire fence and, you know, and it sounds silly, but it was a, some of the imagery was quite beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful. And, you know, you're going to wrap a towel around your head, No, I was very fortunate to work with some wonderfully creative photographers and stylists that were, they were leaders in their, in their field and they're an absolute pleasure to work with.

GTN: 27:14

Um, and so further to the retail thing, I mean obviously we had the men's, we had the women's, then we had the homewares, which brought the whole home in depth. And the whole lifestyle under one roof. You brought cafes into stores? Like, no one was doing that.

Steve: 27:29

Well, I remember South Yarra, in those days, Chapel Street was going through really difficult times so the whole of Chapel Street was changing and we bought this old hotel and At a time it was, you know, everyone talks about cost of living now. This is the late 80s and, you know, interest rates of 18 percent, inflation at 16 percent. But fortunately, we got together and said, look, we've got to do something different. Otherwise we'll just die. It was just ordinary. So up came this concept of this big store, which was then 16, 000 square feet, which is, was um, 8, 000 on the bottom and 8, 000 on the top. And it changed the dynamics and the business was very tough, but within five years I think we made the biggest profit the company had made. Ever made to that point, but it was really the opportunity to create a shopping experience on top of the clothes. So You know parts from the beautiful restaurant. They collect a chain. It was so the only place you get coffee was a kachina And we set up a beautiful coffee shop, which became, you know, very popular. And, uh, we had PC Folk, who had come from Marmello with his wife, Annie, and they did this wonderful, the chicken sandwiches were to die for, and the Pure mango juice. I remember there. It was just a meeting point for people and the coffee culture just started. So, you know, very lucky. You're ahead of the curve there. You knew it was going to happen. Yeah.

GTN: 29:06

Yes. Um, now there are so many things we could cover off, but I don't want it to all be about Country Road because you have done so much more. And you left Country Road in what, 90s? Yeah, it was

Steve: 29:20

really, well, actually left the day to day work in, in 96 to start work on George's, which was my passion. The company had been

GTN: 29:31

sold again. Yeah. You sort of left the day to day, as you say, and George's was an amazingly visionary department store for Melbourne. Mm. And we're going to get into a little bit of this because we have a special guest who's going to join us to have a bit of a chat. Because as well as having set up one of Australia's great brands, um, you worked for Dryser Bone for a while also, another great iconic Australian brand. Um, George's department store, your passion project. but you still, now, today, we are in the Mecca offices in Melbourne, because you have quite an amazing relationship with Joe Horgan, the founder of Mecca, which started at George's.

Steve: 30:18

Like talk about a special guest. This, this is, this is going to be a very interesting discussion. I know,

GTN: 30:23

because I don't know how many people are aware of how long you and Joe have known each other and how much of a sounding board you have been for her and a mentor to her. And everyone in this office just loves you.

Steve: 30:40

Well, I think it's, I think I feel very privileged to have been able to, be involved with both Country Road for 25 years and then the experience of the highs and lows of Georgia's, but, you know, I see Mecca as the phoenix that rose out of the disappointment of of George's not succeeding because I think, I wish it was here today. So it's an absolute joy to, to be in this position and to, to work with, you know, an incredible group of people. So I have had the privilege, you know, when you look back, I look back through the diary of the year that I met Joe and then look at the people I met during that time, you realize that, you know, it is this combination of. experiences and particularly meeting people that inspire you to try and do, you know, do something. So

GTN: 31:39

that's what keeps us, keeps us excited, isn't it? Yeah. It's all,

Steve: 31:42

you know, it's all, it's all a lot of fun and beautiful. Yeah. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.

GTN: 31:49

I'm just glad we can get the two of you in the same room. Thank you.

31:57

Well there's a cliffhanger for you. Do keep your eyes and ears peeled for that very special part two of this episode with Steve and Joe coming very soon. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love you to share with your friends and on social media and to rate and review on your podcast platform of choice. You can find the show on Instagram at infashion underscore podcast, where you can slide into my DMs. If you have any questions or suggestions, thanks again for listening to in fashion until next time.