Nick Cave on the closure of wife Susie’s fashion company The Vampire’s Wife – and how it helped her deal with the loss of their son

nme.com:

Nick Cave has spoken about the closure of his wife Susie’s fashion brand The Vampire’s Wife, revealing that the venture helped her to process the loss of their son.It was announced last month that the company would be shutting its doors. “After ten years as The Creative Director of The Vampire’s Wife, it is time for me to say goodbye,” read an Instagram post from Susie Cave.“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.

I love you all, Susie x.”A post shared by Susie (@susiecaveofficial)And now, in a post on his blog The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave has responded to fan questions about the closure.“For Susie, the label’s end amounts to a kind of grief, but she is an extraordinarily resilient woman, sometimes shockingly so,” he wrote. “She feels many things at the moment – sad, happy, angry, nostalgic, regretful and proud, but most importantly, she feels suddenly free.”He continued: “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.”In July 2015, Arthur Cave died after falling from a cliff near Brighton at the age of 15.

The 2019 album ‘Ghosteen’ was written in the aftermath of the tragedy.“The Vampire’s Wife was Susie’s Ghosteen,” Cave’s post continued. “Just as I tried through music to create a place for Arthur to be, real or imagined, Susie’s dresses.