THE NEW SAINT OF DENIM
Feel the thrill of a new pair of jeans with the New Zealanders behind moto denim brand Saint, even if you don’t take yours for a spin
Jeans you can motorcycle in
Throttle twisting, heart racing – few things come close to the exhilaration riding a motorbike can fuel. With nothing between you and the open road, other than the power of a raw machine, you take your life in your handlebars. It's intense. A visceral thrill as life's little worries whip away from you, like the hair jutting out from under your helmet.
“The best way to describe it is freedom,” says Aidan Clarke, the CEO and co-founder of moto denim brand Saint, on the phone from his Melbourne office. “A person can jump on a bike and go for a ride to no particular place at all – just ride – and feel like they’ve had a holiday.”
Make no mistake, biking isn’t always relaxing – but it requires a miles-per-second-mindfulness when the constant roar of the motor surrounds your ears like white noise. “You’ve got to be aware and alert. You’ve got to focus. For people with busy minds and busy lives, riding becomes escapism…
It forces a serenity.”
Harmony never sounded so fierce, nor looked so devil-may-care – some of the many reasons riding is experiencing a resurgence. Benefitting from developments in car technology, from traction control to power-to-weight ratios, riding is not only becoming more fun, but safer too, says Aidan.
“I think the stigma of bikers being rebellious and naughty is not quite the same anymore. There’s a coolness around the genre now.”
From a ridiculously roaring Harley, to a peppy Café Racer or a road bike that makes you feel like a Grand Prix celebrity, there’s no end to the confidence torqued-up transport can inspire. The only thing is, the heavily padded gear you have to wear turns any should-be swagger into a waggle as soon as you hop off.
Aidan (46) who rides all of the above, had an epiphany on how to solve the least chic element of biking after a ride on a mirage-hot day in the Yarra Valley. The Australian-based New Zealander was attempting to cool-off with a customary beer with his comrades when they thought: Why sit around like Stormtroopers in cumbersome leather pants and jackets, when they could find a single layer of safety fabric, more breathable and lightweight than anything else on the market but just as safe?
A couple of years and a couple of million dollars later, Aidan and his former partner Mike Lelliott developed a denim that is streets ahead of competitors, with a space-age yarn named Dyneema – the toughest man-made fibre in the world used to tether spaceships and armament helicopters. The Dyneema, along with elastane, has been woven into the denim to ensure that something so strong can also be soft to wear. The Achilles heel of the fabric, that it breaks down at 180 degrees, was solved with the help of an Italian mill, which found a special cotton fibre which is woven into the garments to act as a temperature regulator. The end result is a dashing range of denim jeans and jackets that are almost cool to the touch.
Performing well under intense heat is important, because when you come off a bike, the injury that takes the longest to heal is lost
skin from sliding across the rough road. The European CE safety certification requires biking gear to be able to slide for a full four seconds to protect against this. After some serious testing, Saint’s Moto denim is proven to keep a rider protected for up to 5.9 seconds of slide. They may look like they’ve been dreamed up by the likes of Levi’s or Ralph Lauren but Saint’s jeans are 200 times stronger than those on fashion racks. “It’s quite exceptional,” says Aidan. “People couldn’t believe that we created such tough denim.”
One way to shut down the nay-sayers, Saint style, is to hang off a helicopter or lift up a car using your denim as a rope – you can see evidence of both on the brand’s social media channels.
Authenticity is at the core of the brand that’s evolved with its riding community – Saint’s original office was in a shared space with 100 other motorbikers, who’d happily take prototypes for a spin. “A lot of brands will position themselves around the motorcycle culture but they really aren’t an authentic motorbike brand themselves,” says Aidan. “We immersed ourselves in the riding community.
“We’ve got the tiger by the tail,” he says of the rapidly growing business, now shared with his current partner and fellow New Zealander Xavier Unkovich. “Four years ago, this was an idea after a ride and here we are now turning over millions. Sales are doubling every year and we’ve only just begun the journey so it’s good to see the momentum come in.”
The tough yet impeccable styles – “a little bit Rolex and rock n’ roll” – are flying off the shelves. Even those with no intention of riding buy garments, including the Unbreakable jacket with detachable shearling collar on Fashion
Quarterly’s wish list. “People were walking in the door and buying [the jacket] and didn’t have a bike,” says the businessman. “I think that’s testimony to the fact that our motorcycle gear actually also looks like fashion gear. And that was the niche. That was the opportunity that existed for Saint to start.”
Celebrities from Brad Pitt and KJ Apa to Jess Quinn are lapping up Saint gears, whether that be to protect them on the road, or protect their style cred. With plans to turn a Ponsonby pop-up in Auckland into a more permanent arrangement, and more stores and stockists in the works globally, there’s no slowing down.
Seeing a demand beyond bikers, the partners have developed the Works collection. With less Dyneema weaved through, the range’s denim is still five times tougher than standard, and is a runaway success for those with an active lifestyle. “That’s really exploded,” says Aidan. “We’re very much a moto brand but the workwear is finding a massive audience because of its more fashion price point.” The Moto jeans go for around $460 while similar Works are $140.
Aidan’s formative years were spent in Auckland and on Great Barrier Island, where his father, a builder, often relocated to build batches. “So I had this wonderful exposure between town and rural life,” he says.
Though he hot-footed it to Melbourne with his family in 2005, Aidan still calls Great Barrier home and goes back from time-to-time, giving his motocross bike a blast on the beach when the neighbours aren’t around.
“Growing up on an island, if something breaks you have to fix it. You end up being very innovative. You’re often being creative and fixing things and I think that creativity really shows in New Zealand entrepreneurs,” says the trailblazer.
Aidan’s first taste of the start-up game was selling ties down Queen Street in-between lectures at Auckland University – he’d realised he could make his own ties for a third of the price of ones for sale at Smith & Caughey’s, with the same fabric. Stints at Les Mills and Vodafone then followed, where he learned the value of branding and service.
He climbed the corporate ladder until, at the age of 30, he lost both his mother and a good friend suddenly and decided it was important to do something he loved every day – building up his own business. Learning from a friend who launched successful New Zealand triathlete clothing brand Orca he saw that there was room to show the world what our sports brands are made of.
On moving to Melbourne, Aidan set-up cult workout and compression clothing company 2XU with New Zealander Jamie Hunt and Clyde Davenport. Like Saint, the brand focussed on innovative yarns that disrupted and brought new technology into the marketplace. It not only caught the eye of top-level athletes from NBA players to Navy SEALs but also the fashion world. As Yeezy fans will know, Kanye West asked the brand to create two custom designs for his runway show at New York Fashion Week in 2017. His wife Kim Kardashian West still posts a photo of her favourite pair of tights to her 120 million followers on Instagram from time to time.
“I believe that you’ve got to have a unique product,” says Aidan of the hype. “I find that when I truly believe in the benefits and uniqueness of the product, you’re not even selling, you’re just recommending. I feel like I’m doing people a favour when I put them in my compression at 2XU and my jeans that are tougher and safer at Saint.”
Aidan’s keeping up the pace and plans to continue to develop Saint internationally, with a look to expanding the women’s range as well as the more fashion-focused workwear ranges. There may even be a lightweight leather line down the track. But for now, like any keen biker, he’s simply enjoying the journey.
This summer, Aidan’s planning on taking his BMW tourer for a ride down the South Island, screaming past the scenery and serenity of his homeland. “I’ve been lucky to go down New Zealand a couple of times and I think you have to do it every few years to just remind yourself how beautiful it is.”