The brand that’s too cool to be mispronouncing

The fashion landscape is embellished with landmines primed to explode vainglorious attempts at sounding cool. Stumble over Aje (eyj never Ah-jay), Balmain (bal-MAH-n never bell-MAIN) or Hermès (ehr-mez) and you may as well be wearing Tar-jay.

The latest name tripping on the lips of personal shoppers for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, Kendall Jenner and Selena Gomez is Danish-born designer Anine Bing. Local stylists have mistakenly whispered about An-een’s cool girl slouchy jeans, oversized blazers and retro sweatshirts since the opening of her Sydney store in 2019 and the volume has been turned up with the Melbourne boutique’s debut this month.

“An-een-uh will be with us shortly,” Bing’s publicist says with a contrived casual air as we wait for the designer to join the Zoom interview. “Ah, here’s An-een-uh, hello An-een-uh.” Message understood. Landmine averted.

While the correct sound of Bing’s name strives for recognition, her personal style is loud and clear.

“We already had such a loyal community when we launched. It was a much smaller scale but the trust was already there.”

That community rapidly grew to encompass Australian insiders, with support from fellow digital pioneers Tash Sefton and Elle Ferguson and their now defunct blog They All Hate Us.

“When we opened our first LA store nine years ago, Tash and Elle were the first Aussie influencers to come in. I was already following them. They would pick up a few pieces, post them, and the audience grew from there.”

“It’s the way she does off-duty cool girl wardrobe essentials that makes the brand a must,” says Ferguson. “It started with a pair of studded black ankles boots and a black leather jacket that were the pieces you had to have. Anine is just understated cool at its finest.”