He sources luxurious fabrics from Europe and produces all garments onshore – but this vertical retailer started with $7.95 basics and a dream of pulling schooners. Assia Benmedjdoub meets a man who fell in love with fashion.
Before Charlie Digby opened his first store in the inner-city suburb of Carlton, Melbourne, he was scouring local newspapers for a small pub. Back then he says, if you’d asked him what a size 10 was, he’d have pointed to a men’s footwear chart.
“I was looking in the paper and I saw this shop,” he says of his ‘Digbys’ Lygon Street store, which still trades today.
“I came from hospitality and didn’t have a clue about women’s fashion. But back then in the ‘70s it was easy. You had people carrying stock so you just went and bought a size break up, you took it to your shop and it sold. The next day, you went and got some more. It was different.”
The year was 1972, when wholesalers on Flinders Lane sold garments designed for double racking.
“Tops were on the top, bottoms were on the bottom and that was that. The pricing was crazy – we used to sell garments at $7.95 and ‘high fashion’ at $12.95. When we jumped the $20 barrier, that was super-sonic.”
His fashion offer evolved after several seasons to include brands such as Sammi, Toronto, Covers and Country Road, the latter of which Digby initially knocked back because he’d never heard of them. Within seven years, he had a network of six multi-brand boutiques across the city.
Today he continues to trade through as many doors, with sites in GPO Melbourne, Carlton, Como Centre, Malvern, Hawthorn and Chadstone.
A pivotal moment occurred in the mid-1980s, when clothing manufacturers and suppliers started to open their own stores. It was then that Digbys launched its own brand.
“At one stage, we were one of the bigger accounts for Country Road in Victoria and when Covers came on the scene, we were the biggest retailer of their clothes in the state as well. A lot went on but then everyone started opening up their own shops and I could see a problem for us, so slowly, slowly, slowly we started to do our own label, Digbys.”
It was a case of good fortune that he met fashion designer Alan Tan at the time, who was responsible for designing the local product offer for suiting brand Sterling Cooper. When the domestic agency representing the brand shut shop, Digby offered him a design role at his new label.
“Then I picked up the ball and started travelling – I travel at least twice a year to Paris and Milan to look at the styling and of course, buy fabrics,” he says. “I never miss Premier Vision in Paris and I’ve been going there for the last 25 years. If you are a fabrics person, it is like Dracula in a blood bank. We source from the best mills.”
Around 70 per cent of fabrics are currently imported from Italy, with the remaining 30 per cent from France. These fine silks, linens, wools and cottons are rendered into shirts priced from $275 to $375, jackets from $500 to $650, coats from $500 to $800 and pants from $300 to $400. Today, the designing is split up between Digby’s daughter Alana and partner Johan.
And then, of course, there is the ‘old school’ Bruno Fatilba. Fatilba is an Italian manufacturer who operates a factory in Melbourne. So long has he been a fixture in the local industry he once produced garments for the iconic Prue Acton.
He is responsible for the 6000 to 7000 units requested by Digbys each season and while the retailer admits he’s “very expensive”, the service is uncompromising.
“If something works, we can have it turned around in two weeks. If a customer needs a special size, we can pull it out from production the days after or two days. If something tears or rips, we can take it back to him so it is fixed by the same factory and that’s a five or six-day turn around.”
The same level of care is extended to the shop floor – it’s why Digby has never expanded into other states or been tempted into wholesaling. He says he is paranoid about controlling the customer experience.
Instead of opening a concept store in Sydney, he and his team pack up to 300 or 400 garments each season and travel to the city to meet customers directly. A plush apartment in Surry Hills is converted into a selling space with racks, lighting, music and most importantly, attentive sales staff.
There are 15,000 “genuine” members on Digbys database ready to shop.
“We’ve been going to Sydney for about eight or nine years now,” Digby says. “I favoured not opening up a shop because we can give the same service level and control we give our customers in Melbourne. There’s no advertising, just emails and phone calls.”
The formula for the retailers’ loyalty club, which launched 10 years ago, is equally simple. There are no cards, no fuss and no obligations. When sales reach $1500, a $100 voucher is sent directly to the customer. That’s it. So is there anything that fazes Digby?
“I’ve been through a couple of recessions, we were in business when my overdraft was 19 per cent per annum and it was 22 when I went over and we had big borrowings. We’ve been through one election after another, changes of government, 911, a couple of gulf wars. But it’s up to you to navigate.”