Tony Wenzel's tongue is planted firmly in his cheek when discussing how major events of the 20th century affected his family's fabric supply business, Wenzel Australia.
“Well I don't really remember the First World War...”
Not unlikely, given Wenzel was yet to grace the earth when Archduke Franz Ferdinand took a bullet in 1914. The now 70-something-year-old does remember his own early beginnings with the company, however.
“I started off in the basement delivering parcels. Then I moved up into the sample room cutting samples, then after that I moved onto the floor cutting lengths of fabric for the clients. Finally, after about five years, I got out into the selling role.”
Fast forward to 2011 and he sits at the head of Wenzel Australia's operations, managing 18 to 20 employees including his daughter Kate and daughter-in-law Narelle. Today, 95 per cent of Wenzel Australia's business is garnered from womenswear labels, an about-turn from the company's beginnings in 1911.
“We were purely servicing the men's tailoring market,” he says. “In those days, up until 1960, the vast majority of men's suits and clothing were made by tailors, not by ready-made people. We had offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart.”
Wenzel Australia sourced fabrics including worsted wools, mohairs and silks from England, Scotland and Italy, and it took six months from the time the company placed an order with a mill for the fabrics to be produced, shipped and delivered.
“We also used to buy a lot of men's fabrics from the Australian worsted mills, particularly Yarra Falls, John Vicars, the Valley Worsted Mills in Geelong and quite a few others. There used to be in those days a very strong domestic industry.”
Early clients included the David Jones and Myer tailoring departments, and later, the makers of military uniforms for soldiers in World War II. Wenzel shies away from saying the war was good for business, “but it kept the doors open”.
In the late 1960s, as Wenzel and his brother David rose through the company ranks, it became evident men's tailors weren't going to keep the Wenzel business in the black. The company dipped its toes into new territory, the supply of women's fabrics. Textile artworks were sourced either from Australia or Europe – “in those days it was London, Paris, Lyons and Como” – and then supplied to fabric mills in Japan and later Korea and China.
“In those days there used to be very big business in home-made women's clothing and we used to do very big business with the Myer fabric department, the David Jones fabric department. There was Greg's in Sydney who were a great operation. There was John Martin's in Adelaide. On the whole, we probably had 300 or 400 different customers.
“That was the main part of the business, and then we had clothing manufacturers as well like Leroy, who've long gone now, Ralex in Sydney who've gone, John J Hilton who are no longer there. In fact, I don't think any of the clients we had in those days still exist.”
While many Australian manufacturers and the trend for women to sew their own clothes may have withered away in the 1980s, '90s and '00s, Wenzel Australia continued to adapt and innovate. The company closed all its Australian offices beyond those in Melbourne and Sydney, opting to work with agents instead.
It also dabbled in supplying the home craft market in the early 1990s before deciding it was better to concentrate on apparel textiles, “the one area where we felt we were experts”. Over the last two years, the buds of new business have been sprouting in Shanghai, where Wenzel established a company to cater to Australian labels manufacturing offshore.
“Over a period of time it became obvious that if we were going to continue to service our Australian clients as well as we would like, we would have to have a presence in China.”
He's quick to point out China is not the be all and end all, however. Many suppliers are still located in Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, and thousands of metres of Wenzel fabrics are still transformed into apparel by Australian manufacturers. “It is still more than 50 per cent of our turnover, fabric that comes into Australia for local manufacturing,” he says.
He won't name names of current or recent clients, hinting only that they are “well known” apparel chains. “All the ones that are in all the shopping centres, we do business with most of them,” And for anyone wondering, yes, business has been tough of late.
“I haven't had too many highlights apart from the fact that we've reached this mark, which I'm extremely proud of. The main thing is the next 100 years. What's happened in the past doesn't really matter now.
“We've got to think about the way we adjust to the more difficult climate that we're in at the moment and the way we plan the business and the services we can offer to the clients to ensure the business will prosper in the next 100 years and the next generation. I'm in my 70s now so I'll be standing aside soonish. It's all about what happens from 2011 to 2111.”