Sarah-Jane Clarke's Dry Season
Harper's Bazaar Australia|December 2017

Imagine 12 months without drinking alcohol — at all. It’s a terrifying concept for most, but this fashion designer has embraced a tough personal challenge to Ban the Binge, finding joy and clarity along the way.

Sarah-Jane Clarke's Dry Season

For someone who joined the major league, as half of the duo who created mega label sass & bide, just before the force of Instagram really hit, Sarah- Jane Clarke has a lot of Instagram followers. More than 26,000 of them, in fact. And it was on this beautifully curated feed filled with glorious interiors, harbour views, afternoons of family boating and gatherings of Sydneychic people doing Sydney-chic things that I spotted something anomalous: a post from December 5, captioned: “Happy birthday to me ... looking forward to 365 days alcohol free” and hashtagged #banthebinge.

Fast-forward to July 31 and Clarke had followed up with another #banthebinge post: “Eight months and the rewards of my year of sobriety are starting to pay off.” And then this, from September 28: “I am starting to think about what is going to happen when my year of sobriety finishes.” I’m starting to think about that too.

There’s been a lot of noise lately about women drinking. The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) has revealed disturbing rates of binge drinking among Australian women (as well as men), and SBS Insight recently claimed that “more women over 40 are drinking larger amounts”. Doctors now define binge drinking as more than three standard drinks in one session — about three glasses of wine, which doesn’t seem that much to me.

But sitting it out for an entire year? There’s really only one question for Clarke. How?

ELIZA O’HARE: When did you start drinking?

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