Blonde Ambition

by Annette Sharp

  Sydney had long been the epicentre of Australian fashion, beauty and lifestyle industries. With media associated with those businesses also primarily based in Sydney, the fashion PR industry had grown up alongside it. For fashion, beauty and lifestyle PR, Sydney was king.

  ‘The Australian fashion PR scene back then was very established with the main players having been in the business for years. It was all very polite, respectful and grown-up,’ said Kellie Hush, then deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar. ‘Roxy came out of nowhere and she was tenacious, loud, brassy and young.’

  Huge multinational PR agencies Edelman, Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton had the lion’s share of premium clients, along with the likes of Judi Hausmann and Prue MacSween who had thriving independent agencies. Premium clients paid upwards of $20 000 a month for professional public relations services. In their shade was a thriving industry of smaller agencies happy to sign smaller clients with less than $20 000 a month to spend.

  The top Sydney fashion, beauty and lifestyle PR agencies in that sector at that time were Marguerite Julian’s Stellar, Mark Patrick’s MPA, Marie-Claude Mallat’s MCMPR, Mark Cavanagh’s Cav Con, Nikki Andrews’ NAC Media, Adam Worling and Garry Saunders’ Worling Saunders, Lisa Poulos and Debbie Coffey’s Hush, Peter Metzner’s The Arc Factory, Naomi Parry’s BLACK Communications and Simon P Lock and Simon Bookallil’s SPIN Communications.

  In Melbourne, two agencies dominated: Ann Morrison’s AMPR and Effie Young’s Style Counsel.

  These were the companies Roxy had in her sights. These agencies jointly held the PR accounts for the most lucrative clients in the sector—Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Chanel, YSL, Gucci and Prada—the world’s most coveted fashion brands; Moët & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Dom Pérignon—the premium champagne brands; Collette Dinnigan, Lisa Ho, Zimmerman, Charlie Brown, Ksubi, Kirrily Johnston, Alex Perry, Carla Zampatti, Akira Isogawa, Wayne Cooper, Morrissey, Kit Willow and Sass & Bide—Australia’s top fashion brands; and Mecca, Napoleon and other prestige beauty brands.

  One PR professional reminisced:

  PR was very respectable back then. It was very much about who you knew and who you were … You had to have the editor of Vogue on speed dial to be able to get the society movers and shakers to attend your party or function. You needed to walk this fine line—with the rival gossip columnists in separate corners—you needed to be respected.

  Setting Sweaty Betty apart from her rivals was Roxy’s sales pitch. Kellie Hush reflected:

  She always promised to over-deliver and there were times she did and other times she didn’t. She was also rogue and didn’t play by the ‘rules’. She forced her clients down your throat, which again, sometimes worked and other times didn’t. She also lived on her computer so for a newspaper journalist working to deadline knowing she’d get back to you in an instant was gold.

  Not compelled, as a private company proprietor, to reveal revenue and takings, Sweaty Betty’s early success wasn’t apparent for a few years. When it did become apparent, it was subtle—something Roxy was not. Roxy’s staff numbers grew, clients grew and the buzz about Sweaty Betty grew.

  Insiders say the bulk of Sweaty Betty’s clients were on relatively small accounts, worth $1500 to $2000 per month. Luckily, Brian Tinant’s larger portfolio of brands kept the business viable.

  Roxy’s aim was to sign a larger luxury brand. In time she would pick up Dolce & Gabbana’s men’s apparel, Heidi Klum Intimates, Levi’s, Quicksilver, Guess, Converse, Merivale, Porsche accessories, Ed Hardy, Oliver Peoples, Supre, Billabong, Coles, Peugeot and Le Coq Sportif.

  Success would see her upgrade her car and replace her beloved Mercedes SLR with a Porsche. An accompanying Range Rover looked to be leased as a company car.

  Her father, by this time, had become concerned about what PR might be doing to his daughter. He would recall telling Roxy’s mother: ‘PR will never do her any good. It’s not what Roxy needs in her life. It’s changing her.’ Nick Jacenko would say he didn’t always recognise his daughter. To his mind, Roxy had started to believe she was a cut above.

  But life in the exceedingly glamorous fast lane suited Roxy to a tee. She was living her own soap opera surrounded by fawning new friends, glamorous fashion magazine editors, television stylists and Sydney’s constant swirl of on-the-brink-of-starvation celebrities who would do a lap of her showroom with a shopping trolley to collect as many free samples as they could carry. She began to feel so comfortable in the world of fashion PR that she even dabbled with a long-held dream of launching her own lingerie range. It never quite got off the ground.

  Having actively chased clients in the first few years of business, by 2008 Sweaty Betty was in demand and Roxy looked to relax a little. During these years, the Sweaty Betty account managers didn’t have to pitch for business—there was no need. They had little time for new business.

  ‘Roxy had a lot of client inquiries from about 2008. She didn’t need to pitch. But on the downside she wasn’t saying no to anyone for two or three years and we started to struggle to keep up with the workload and demand. Getting that big isn’t always a good thing,’ said a former Betty.

  Judging from the few available figures on the Sweaty Betty website, the years from 2008 to 2012 look to have been a golden time at the agency. In 2006, two years after opening her PR business, Roxy had fifty-three brands in her stable. By 2009, the company homepage profile boasted ‘more than 100 brands’—former Bettys suggest there was a time when that figure went as high as 150. The Sweaty Betty staff had grown to double figures by 2007 and would continue to grow to twenty-two in 2013, before the business contracted again with the unacknowledged recession biting the fashion industry.

  The appearance of minor celebrities in her showroom would bolster the spirits of the flagging staff who regularly worked long days keeping pace with Roxy. Cheyenne Tozzi would drop in to collect product, Lara Bingle wafted through in search of sunglasses. When US actor Adrian Grenier, from Entourage, paid the showroom a visit, the Bettys didn’t quite know what to do with themselves. As luck would have it, a paparazzi photographer had been tipped off, ensuring the moment was captured for posterity—and the papers. Meanwhile, the appearance of Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter films, aka British actor Tom Felton, was puzzling to all.

  Roxy always maintained she wasn’t very social—she only really left her desk when business demanded it—and her idea of the perfect day often ended, friends said, with her phoning for takeaway dinner at Sweaty Betty HQ and enjoying it with members of her staff—women who knew not to leave before 6 p.m. or you’d be reminded about it the following day.

  Yet while Roxy wasn’t herself ‘social’, driving the Sweaty Betty machine through the years was social media—something that fortunately didn’t demand much actual physical socialising at all. Roxy was an early exponent of Twitter and would set calendar notes in her staff’s digital diaries notifying each of them when it was time for a nominated Betty to post a tweet. This was expected every hour or two and everyone on staff was expected to do it.

  Next came Facebook. Staff were required to post galleries of their events, products and celebrity associates wearing their clients’ clothing and accessories. Instagram, which in Roxy’s hands would soon prove a precision instrument, came later and would ultimately prompt a rethink of her entire business. It would give her an edge in uncertain times when social media was still largely a disposable novelty, though it was exciting and promised much. Financially its merits would prove harder to define.

  One area of the business that continued to challenge Roxy involved relationships, a vital cornerstone of the public relations industry.

  The Jacenko family HQ in Beaconsfield remained the hub for seismic family fallouts, of which there were plenty, though few really understood why. Despite the sisters’ feud at The Piano Room, Ruby maintained her office at Beaconsfield. From time to time a thaw between the sisters would prompt Roxy to welcome Ruby back into the fold at Sweaty Betty where she
would give her a role on her staff and try to teach the younger woman the mechanics of PR. Often it was at her mother Doreen’s urging, which added to existing tensions between Roxy and Doreen. Doreen’s devotion to Ruby irritated Roxy. It may have been because of the teenage beauty pageants or possibly because the mother had been rattled by the tsunami of 2004 that was a near miss for her daughter and husband in Sri Lanka. Inevitably each cessation of hostilities would end. All agreed Roxy and Ruby were incompatible.

  Nick Jacenko would make appearances in the office doing whatever he could for his eldest daughter. When the accountant took time off, Nick would spend a week at Sweaty Betty managing Roxy’s books.

  If relations with her family were complicated, Roxy’s relationships with her employees were also periodically strained—though here Roxy had the upper hand because she could swiftly bring their employment to an end, and did so, when she felt so compelled. Occasionally Roxy’s disruptive hustle would fatigue clients too. Many felt her pitch and promise overrode her capacity to deliver expected results.

  ‘I remember when I was editor of Grazia she came into my office with her big hair, skinny jeans, Balmain jacket and Hermès Birkin,’ Kellie Hush would recall. ‘She promised me the world, in the end couldn’t deliver it, but I still have respect for the successful business she has built with pure hard work and determination.’

  Roxy be could prickly when clients pointed this out to her. ‘If a client was unhappy and voiced this, she did seem to jump on the defensive and then things would turn a bit ugly,’ said a former Betty. ‘A favourite strategy of hers was keeping clients’ sample until they paid outstanding invoices. Also a lot of clients expected Roxy to be on their account all the time. When a brand got palmed off onto a 20-year-old graduate, some weren’t happy and would try and cancel their contracts with her.’ Roxy’s competitors, meanwhile, were growing increasingly tired of Roxy undercutting them.

  She denied she was, rebuffing the question bluntly when Mumbrella boss Tim Burrowes put it to her in 2012:

  No. I think I’m fair with our pricing. The retail climate at the moment from a fashion perspective—and I’m sure from various different categories—is brutal. Retailers are really struggling so I wouldn’t say I go there and I undercut it, I [propose] prices that I say are attainable and achievable for a client because at the end of the day it’s all well and good to charge them X amount and then they can’t pay it and then you’re not helping them at all. I’d rather offer a price that is maintainable.

  Yet rumours persisted. One rival would claim Roxy tried to sign a client ‘for nothing’ just to have the brand on her books. She also approached another rival’s clients while the PR executive was battling serious illness: ‘Roxy tried to persuade them it was in their best interests to hand their businesses to her,’ said a friend of the woman’s. The client, valuing loyalty, refused.

  One client who did walk in sensational circumstances was Vittoria Coffee. Roxy would chalk it up as a success of sorts and there was genius in her scheme in 2014 to ambush Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) with a disruptive stunt on behalf of Vittoria Coffee, her client, and Alfa Romeo, which had no official affiliation with the Mercedes-Benz sponsored event. Her plan was to wrap Alfa Romeo cars in the signature seasonal prints of key fashion designers including Camilla and Marc (snow leopard spots), Dion Lee (snakeskin), Ellery (paisley), We Are Handsome (pink flamingos), Bec & Bridge (roses) and Romance Was Born (psychedelic flowers). The cars would then be used to chauffeur fashion writers and clients to MBFWA events.

  The owners of the Sydney-based MBFWA, international events and personality management group IMG, were overwhelmingly unimpressed and wrote to the designers involved in the stunt to warn there had been a breach of their agreement.

  ‘We don’t know if you are aware but Vittoria has partnered with Alfa Romeo to brand cars with a fashion theme that includes your designer label’s endorsement,’ IMG’s Louise Iselin wrote in a communique to the designers, acquired by The Australian. ‘We wish to point out that the execution you may have endorsed is also jeopardising event relationships which may have a flow-on effect to how we can support you at future events.’

  The designers denied collaborating with Roxy—one demanded an apology and said they felt ‘mistreated’. Roxy offered no apology and was typically defiant: ‘IMG surely cannot determine what brand of motor vehicle can drive on public roads.’

  Vittoria Coffee’s MD Rolando Schirato apologised to the offended designers, while marketing manager Garth Douglas delivered the killer blow in a statement: ‘Please note that Sweaty Betty will no longer be involved with the Vittoria Coffee brand or our company, as of 30 April, 2014.’

  Roxy the rebel remained defiant two years on. Observing an old Vittoria-emblazoned beach umbrella erected on Bondi Beach in the shadow of an umbrella printed in fashion label Bec & Bridge’s new season design pattern, she posted to Instagram:

  The moment when you watch a campaign you came up with and executed for a client #santavittoria two years back replicated by another brand—only to see your handiwork still present in the background. It’s when you know your [sic] doing something right. My motto—be the leader not a follower.

  Within four years of establishing Sweaty Betty, Roxy claimed her PR consultancy was one of the biggest in the country. Within six, she claimed to have ‘successfully changed the face of public relations, ditching the tired and traditional strategies of old, breathing new life into their clients’ brands, and setting an untouchable benchmark in communications’.

  Through the years she would include among her achievements the boast that she had brought singer Snoop Dogg to Australia to launch the Arnette sunglasses brand Notorious in 2008 and thrown Cleo magazine’s Bachelor of the Year event in 2011.

  The successes meant she was in a position to start paying her parents rent for their showroom.

  More controversy followed in 2013, when a former staff member distributed an email called ‘What It’s Really Like to Work for Roxy Jacenko—By Someone Who Survived’.

  The email, sent on 13 June, was triggered by Roxy’s appearance on the reality show The Celebrity Apprentice. It quickly went viral within the media and marketing sectors and shattered Roxy’s carefully crafted image that she was the best in her field. If the email was to be believed, she could no longer claim to be the best boss and ‘a team player … a team member … not above anyone’, as she had told Business Chicks.

  When she learned the email was in circulation, Roxy dismissed her staff for the day. ‘She was at her computer—she read the email and just turned around and sent everybody home. Only her mother stayed,’ said one former staffer. ‘She was crushed.’

  In the email, which had been leaked to the press, a disgruntled former employee calling herself ‘Miss Karma’ savaged her former boss in 924 explosive words. Roxy stood accused of abusing her staff, of workplace bullying and racism. Her alleged fury and outburst after a staff member hung showroom coathangers in the wrong direction prompted an outburst from Roxy that even rated a mention. The year-old marriage to Curtis was also brought into question.

  The email, sent from a Gmail account called ‘dontworkfor sweatybettypr’, started furiously:

  How long is too long for someone to subject themselves to what can only be described as torture? Hell, a week is too long! But day in and day out I would march myself into 52 Queen St Beaconsfield knowing that at some point during the day, I would be brought to the brink of tears, the edge of insanity, or to a point where punching a wall seemed like a good idea. You might have called me a ‘Slave to Fashion’, others (like my mother) would call me a ‘Masochist’.

  The day after, another woman claiming to be yet another former employee of Roxy’s threw petrol on the fire in a new email supporting Miss Karma’s allegations. Entitled ‘Enough Is Enough Roxy’, the second email, just a few paragraphs shorter than the first at 800 words, continued in a similar vein. ‘I am here to back up everything that was said by Ms Kar
ma,’ it began. It listed a raft of new allegations. These included claims Roxy only hired women under twenty-five, paid ‘peanuts’ and fired staff at the drop of a hat. ‘Parents—DO NOT let your daughters work for her,’ the author signed off.

  Miss Karma predicted Roxy would sue and ‘cry defamation’—which Roxy promptly did the next day when reporters attempted to publish the toxic email.

  Another former staffer corroborated the emails saying that when Roxy turned on staff she turned suddenly and absolutely. She would strip her account managers of their clients in a way that distressed the young staff, and she thought nothing of sacking staff on the spot if she believed they had somehow been disloyal. ‘People in there were like battered wives. Years later we still call ourselves the battered wives club,’ a departed Betty would say.

  Weeks after the damaging emails were circulated, Roxy would tell Jane Cadzow at Fairfax Media she was a ‘… very, very, very obsessive’ person—‘very’. She would contradict the damning emails and insist she was a kind boss.

  The pressure in this business when you’re packing 600 gift bags, when you’ve got three events in one week, when you’ve got staff who don’t turn up, when you’ve got a million and one things … it gets overwhelming … it’s all riding on my shoulders. You’re on your own because it’s your bottom line, your reputation. The clients are going to ask you for the answers.

  You dictate every fucking email, you know?

  Four months later, Roxy, newly pregnant with her second child, would demonstrate her affection for a staff member in an unprecedented way. Twenty-seven-year-old Maz Coote, the general manager of Sweaty Betty, would be presented with a Mercedes SLR sports car. Photos of Coote being given the astonishingly generous gift—the first time any could recall a Betty being rewarded with such an expensive gift—would go straight up on the company Instagram site with a heartfelt message from Roxy: ‘Here’s to another 7 years … I couldn’t do it without you.’