Nick Cave has detailed how the closure of his wife’s fashion brand helped her to process the loss of their son.
Cave’s wife Susie announced in an Instagram post last month that her company The Vampire’s Wife would be shutting down after a decade in business.
“I say this with great sadness and want to express my undying gratitude to you all for your support. I wish to thank my extended family at The Vampire’s Wife who helped me create such beautiful things. I cannot describe how much you have all meant to me,” she wrote.
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Last week, Nick responded to a fan question about the closure on his Red Hand Files website.
“For Susie, the label’s end amounts to a kind of grief, but she is an extraordinarily resilient woman, sometimes shockingly so. She feels many things at the moment – sad, happy, angry, nostalgic, regretful and proud, but most importantly, she feels suddenly free,” he wrote.
“And as much as I don’t want this post to appear as me shamelessly venerating my wife (as I am occasionally disposed to do), I do want to tell you this – The Vampire’s Wife was not just a clothing company, it was a pure and necessary articulation of the grief that Susie felt in the wake of the death of our son, Arthur.”
Arthur Cave tragically died after falling from a cliff in England in 2015.
Cave continued: “The Vampire’s Wife was Susie’s [Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ album] Ghosteen. Just as I tried through music to create a place for Arthur to be, real or imagined, Susie’s dresses were an attempt to give her grief form by throwing fabric over an invisible boy, as an act of love, an act of mercy, and an act of contrition.
“That is the truth of it – as softly spoken and dream-like as the dresses themselves – the clothes Susie created were objects of devotion, sacred things that will live on regardless of the brand’s fortunes.”
The Vampire’s Wife opened its doors in 2014, and became worn by big names such as Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue, and the Princess of Wales.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are currently preparing for the release of Wild God, the follow-up to Ghosteen, in August.
The band shared “Frogs”, a new single from the record at the end of May, with Nick citing the track as one of his favourites. “The sheer exuberance of a song like ‘Frogs’, it just puts a big f*cking smile on my face,” he said.
