Louise, William, Oscar, Shane and Tony Anselmi, the family behind Overland Footwear. Picture / Babiche Martens.
You see the stores in every mall and high street in the country. You probably shop at one of them each season, for the perfect interview, party or day-to-day shoe. You've grown up knowing the Overland brand, and stepped with ease in to newcomers Mi Piaci and Merchant 1948. They are some of New Zealand's best-known footwear brands.
What you may not know, is that behind these success stories are four generations of footwear expertise. A culmination of over 65 years of knowledge; a true family business.
There's Tony Anselmi, the patriarch, peddling shoes since his teens, chairman of the board. Tony's son Shane, the managing director, and the guy behind the Overland concept. His wife, Louise, director, buyer, and long-time supporter, joining the business full-time 12 years ago. And the three children - all in their 20s, working for the brand in their own ways.
Their story details a changing industry, from a small chain of discount shoe stores selling New-Zealand made shoes, to a big business with 60 high street stores across New Zealand and Australia. Forty per cent of the shoes are now designed in-house and manufactured in China, with young designers employed straight from the London College of Fashion, and ex-Nike and Adidas designers being brought in from North America.
I meet the family on two separate days - they managed to squeeze me in between a board meeting and an overseas trip. Expecting a fiery, in-fighting horde - perhaps how my own family would work together - I instead find a quietly confident family, clearly supportive and complimentary of each other. There's a fair bit of finishing of each other's sentences (albeit in a supportive "I've got your back" way rather than an intrusive, "I need to have my own say now" way).
There's lots to talk about. Sixty-six years, to be exact. We begin in 1948, when Tony's father Guglielmo (William) Anselmi, an Italian migrant farmer (the other family business) bought three shoe stores, named King Country Shoes. Tony worked in the stores during school, before leaving at 16 to work fulltime in the business. He was managing it by 18, and before long had grown the chain, started a factory in Te Kuiti and launched another line of stores, called Shane's Shoetown.
"I put Shane's name in it," Tony explains, "because an adviser thought to put an identity with it."
And, perhaps, he knew that Shane would follow in the family footsteps, even if his name was eventually dropped. In 1963, when New Zealand's first shopping centre Lynn Mall opened, Shoetown was there. Successive stores opened in K Rd, Otara, and St Lukes. The recipe for chain store success had begun.
Shane, keeping with the Anselmi farming heritage, studied agriculture, then quickly realised he preferred the idea of a business where he could control the variables. He moved into shoes in his early 20s, setting up his own factory, at one stage manufacturing in opposition to Tony. "I wanted to get into something more stimulating." he says.
"I lent him machinery because I believe the young have got to do their own thing." Tony laughs.
The "young and ambitious" Shane quickly achieved his financial goals, and went on to develop property and restaurants. But a reality check came with the 1987 stock market crash. The young couple lost everything. Louise was pregnant with Oscar.
"I fell flat on my face," recalls Shane, but he admits "that was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I had wisdom beyond my years." He also had a resolve to "build on a strong foundation with a real focus on people," in a future career.
And that is what he's done. Rather than products and figures, people pepper his speech, with his pride in winning New Zealand's best large workplace (three times, and best workplace twice) in the Kenexa Best Workplaces Awards evident.
"Certain things are very important, like the culture that we have here," he says, adding that the company values, drawn up with input from every staff member 10 years ago, keep them on track. "We try to live and breathe those values."
While Shane was recovering from the crash, Tony asked him to help his struggling business out. Shane suggested the concept now known as Overland, opening the first store in 1990 in Newmarket's 277 shopping centre. It's still there today. Tony gradually stepped away, and closed his own stores.
"I think you've got to understand that it's the young person's day, so you can't try and impose from the past," Tony explains. "You've got to accept that the power must move forward. The young will always win. That's a fact."
"I had come from the past, and was very conscious of cost and price," he adds. "Shane came in, with the vision of adding value through marketing and perception and advertising.
"While one has history and knowledge of the past, you don't have the same understanding of the present and where the future may be."
The future lies with the youngest generation, particularly Shane and Louise's son Oscar. From teen hours spent in the warehouse, Oscar now works in the marketing team with a focus on the company's sportswear line Deuce Generation (launched to compete with Vans and Converse).
The similarities between the three Anselmi men are unnerving - from the tall, slender gait to their shy and gentle way. One has to wonder the pressures of being the boss' son - and bossing his own team around.
"The best thing about working here is the opportunity to get involved in each stage," Oscar enthuses. "Right from idea conception of a shoe or range, to actually seeing it being designed, going to China, getting the designs finalised and then working with marketing departments to create a campaign and get it out to market. That's what interests me. And just the people here are fantastic to work with."
His siblings are involved too, with brother William helping out in between graphic design studies at Whitecliffe, and sister Bella - whom the range Isabella Anselmi was named after - lending an eye from New York, where she studies fashion design at Parsons The New School for Design.
She's worked in stores and on seasonal launches previously, and there are plans to release a Bella-styled edit next winter, but no expectations to join the business full-time.
"I think she'll do her own thing," Louise says. "She's always been quite creative and she has a natural flair for fashion. She was never that keen to sit down and do data entry."
"It might be hard to prize her out of New York. She just lives and breathes it," adds Shane.
He could be talking about the family's brand of work life balance.
"It's a double-edged sword, it's so stimulating - I often think if I wasn't doing it, you'd just lose that sense of currency," Louise admits.
Shane adds, "but I guess with being a seven day business we're always watching sales. I can't not log on and see how we finished at the end of a day in Australia and New Zealand."
Charity and giving back help to lessen the pressure, with every store sponsoring a child in Malawi and $5 from each pair of Deuce Generation shoes sold going towards their trust, the Young Hearts Project, which gives to charities Youthline and Great Potentials.
"It just adds to engagement," says Louise. "Our staff enjoy that additional dimension of work. You get to a point where you realise you actually want to start giving back. There's got to be a bit more to industry than just ..."
Shane picks up for her, " ... just accumulating and building an organisation. All the good stuff in life, in my belief, comes when you get out of your comfort zone and you learn new skills and do those things that you're kind of afraid of doing."
- VIVA
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