Working at Supré as a teen in the noughties explains everything about me now

Supré in the 2000s was loud, pink and character-forming in a way no casual job had any right to be.

Ali Berg is a Melbourne-based writer and former Supré employee who still occasionally says “hey babe” without meaning to. She is the co-author of four bestselling romantic comedies and co-founder of Books on the Rail. You can follow Ali on Instagram at @aliandmichelle and @alibergwrites.

Last weekend, I took the new Metro Tunnel into the city to visit Mecca’s new Bourke Street flagship. And because muscle memory is powerful (and so is a beautiful display window), I drifted into Zara across the road.

I was prepared for the usual Zara experience: trying on six items across four nonsensical sizes and pre-justifying the credit card bill. I wasn’t prepared for the nostalgic gut punch. Because underneath Zara’s signature Euro-club soundtrack, I could hear ghosts.

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Where Zara’s changerooms now smell like Ebony Wood, they once reeked of Britney Spears’ ‘Fantasy’ and fake tan. Where attendants now count garments with the calm efficiency of people who don’t have to shout over their own music, we used to pump Flo Rida at volumes that surely violated work health and safety standards. And up the front, I once stood wearing a security lanyard, convinced it would somehow made me intimidating.

Before Zara, this was Supré. And for a few formative years, I was Supré too. If you were a teenage girl in the 2000s, you probably were as well, even if your only contribution was carrying a pink branded bag everywhere you went. Here’s what the fluorescent fever dream that was Supré, taught me.

The lexicon

I had never called anyone ‘babe’ before, but when I worked at Supré, it wasn’t optional. “Hey babe!” was the verbal uniform, a multitool that could be friendly, firm, or aggressively passive-aggressive depending on the customer.

“Babe, that’s not a fitting room.” “Babe, you can’t return something you wore clubbing.” “Babe… please don’t steal.” The word followed me out of retail and burrowed into my adulthood. It sneaks into my emails, meetings and Teams messages. I think it primed me for sounding agreeable on demand, a skill most women seem to inherit rather than choose.

Self-branding slogan T-shirts

Before Instagram bios told the world who you were, Supré did it with cotton. There was a T-shirt for every feeling (especially if that feeling was bitch). They would read, ‘Bitch Formerly Known As Princess’, or ‘I Only Look Innocent, Yeah I’m A Bitch. Just Not Yours’. A personal favourite was ‘Santa’s Bitch’, my uniform for the entirety of Christmas 2007.

Those T-shirts taught us identity was something you could try on, take off and swap for the next version. Was it empowering? Yes. Was it degrading? Yes.

Girls building worlds

If you’ve ever commented a flame emoji on a friend’s selfie, Supré changerooms walked so you could run. We praised each other’s outfits, soothed each other’s spiralling and delivered pep talks with the authority of girls who absolutely did not have it figured out. Somehow, we turned a changeroom engineered to break us, into a place we felt safe enough to be ourselves.

The people I worked with were brilliant. One is now a body-positive model with over a million followers. Another is a famous psychologist undoing the shame we all internalised back then. They were cool then, they’re cooler now. I really think Supré was more than retail, it was an early lesson in how girls build worlds for each other (even in places designed to do the opposite).

Retail exposes you to the absolute worst of people

So yes, the people who worked at Supré were fantastic. The customers were sometimes, but sometimes, they were not. Part of the job was fitting room checks. We’d have to run a hand over the top of the mirrors after people left. Sometimes you’d find hidden security tags, sometimes you’d find used pads. I think retail teaches you early that people are gross and that hand sanitiser should be carried at all times. On the upside, I was very prepared for Covid.

My parents bought a decibel reader, and they were right

Ask anyone who entered a Supré in 2007: it was the loudest place in Australia. My parents, loving and admittedly quite invested in my long-term hearing, kept asking if the store’s volume would cause permanent damage. They suggested bringing it up with management. I rolled my eyes with the confidence of someone whose frontal lobe was still under construction.

Then one Saturday, in my Santa’s Bitch tank, I turned a corner and found them standing in the middle of the store, holding a chunky pre-iPhone decibel meter up to the speaker. I pretended we’d never met.

But they were right: the volume was objectively unsafe. They complained. Supré adjusted. My hearing and perhaps yours, was spared. A humbling reminder that your parents are occasionally correct.

Chasing shoplifters in ballet flats

A lot of people stole. At the time, the brand put myself and the other teenage girls on ‘door duty’. We’d stand at the entrance and ask, “Can I see your receipt?”. People ran, and we ran after them with zero training. I chased more strangers down Bourke Street Mall at 18 than seems normal to admit. I remember I once even marched someone to ‘the office’ for stealing a studded belt and felt like I’d done something meaningful.

Years later, sprinting after my toddler through Woolworths, I realised retail had inadvertently prepared me for parenthood.

Supré didn’t just shape my retail era, it shaped everything after

Working at Supré taught me how to smile through overwhelm, apologise too often and tidy messes I didn’t create. It taught me belonging and confidence, even as it dressed me in a tank top that would feel NSFW by today’s standards.

But it also gave me resilience, humour, and a reverence for the way women hold space for each other, even in places designed to make us shrink. Supré was loud, pink and overstimulating. And it marked me in ways I’m still unpacking.

I still over-greet people I’ve never met and I’m still a little deaf. But I’m louder now about who I am, so, to Supré I say: thanks, babe.

For more Supré nostalgia, try this.