Where native varieties flourish
An intersection has blossomed into one of the country’s premier destinations for resident designers and it is all thanks to one man, writes Georgina Safe.
Attempting a low-key lunch with Theo Onisforou in Paddington is like trying for a quiet cocktail with Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood.
As we tuck into our salads, there is a constant stream of guests to our table at Jackie’s Cafe on Glenmore Road, among them designer Beccy Iland, the wife of architect George Livissianis, and former Woollahra mayor Keri Huxley, with whom Onisforou happily admits he’s ”had his moments” throughout the ages.
Outfitted down in a leather bomber jacket over a check shirt and jeans, you could be forgiven for thinking Onisforou was just another native breaking bread at Jackie’s, the unofficial ” style canteen” for workers and clients at the boutiques around the corner of Oxford Street and Glenmore Road, which is known as The Intersection.
But there you would be wrong – Onisforou owns most property around the style hub and counts 17 businesses as his tenants in the area, at present the most lively high-street shopping strip in Sydney.
Scanlan & Theodore, Kirrily Johnston, Anna Thomas and Zimmermann are between the predominantly Australian brands that have hung out shingles around The Intersection, which has become a shopping destination for not just Sydneysiders but clued-up go to see superstars such as Katy Perry and Reese Witherspoon, who swung by for a little retail therapy while in Sydney previous month to promote Water for Elephants.
When I see Onisforou on a sunny yet garden-fresh afternoon, the precinct is buzzing with window-shop girls teetering in heels on their lunch breaks, yummy mums browsing in cashmere and flats and working females ducking out for a sly purchase among meetings.
But it was a different story when Onisforou began buying up properties on what was then the moribund end of Oxford Street in the first 1990s, when the place to be was the eastern strip near the Paddington marketplaces. Onisforou snapped up a few more earlier the opening of Westfield Bondi Junction, after which trade dropped more than 30 per cent along Oxford Street.
But the depositor was undaunted.
”I was content that I was different,” he speaks. ”I always knew there was an opportunity for an outdoor Australian designer precinct with brands you just don’t find in every shopping mall.”
Onisforou has a thing about shopping mall – he detests them.
”I was a typical migrant youth from Cyprus; I grew up working in my close relative fruit shop-delicatessen,” he speaks.
”I’ve continuously disliked shopping malls and I think my dislike of them emanated from the fact my parents lost their business when it failed after the East gardens mall in Bondi Junction opened.
”It took away so much of our business. Sure, we were more costly but, on the other hand, with our local store we knew everyone; all our clients were our friends.”
After the family fruitlet shop foundered Onisforou went on to independent success, graduating from the University of NSW law school to open a restaurant with Malcolm Turnbull with the piquant moniker of Randi Wicks – ”obviously it’s a play on Randwick so it was an outstanding name” – before working as chief investment manager for Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings in the late 1980s and ’90s.
”I worked for Kerry Packer for about 10 years but I was self-sufficiently successful from investment and I’ve been a full-time investor ever since,” Onisforou says.
Thru that time, a chance meeting with the late Mark Keighery introduced Onisforou to the world of style, leading to a lifelong private friendship and business association with the Marcs founder.
”Mark was an absolutely desperate businessman and I was absolutely hopeless at style, so we started giving each other advice,” Onisforou speaks.
”I had many tours to Italy and France with Mark when he was importing Diesel and other trademarks to Australia and I got to like the style world; it was a nice juxtaposition to my lawyer brain.”
Onisforou’s first style tenant, Scanlan & Theodore, opened at the corner of Glenmore Road in early 2004 but it was not until May previous year that the area was officially branded The Intersection, when the property investor launched a blog under that name.
From the start Onisforou was adamant the precinct have a focus on Australian designers, which he speaks has helped it enormously, as other shopping areas with worldwide retailers have foundered owing to the increase in online shopping, fuelled lately by the strength of our dollar.
”Retail is tough at the moment but I’ve not had a day’s job in seven years,” he speaks.
”The one big advantage we have is that we are all Australian designers. What that means is if you visit their websites, the prices on the web are exactly the same as in the shop, so why would you bother and miss out on the pleasure of the outdoor high-street experience?
”The internet is really helping us – my 11-year-old daughter Stephanie alerted me to the fact we’d put images of Reese Witherspoon shopping at The Intersection on our blog and that got us a lot of attention.
”But if you go to a shopping mall, they are dominated by foreign brands and the problem is most of the product is cheaper online than in the actual store. I’ve tried to avoid ‘Mc Fashion’ and, in the process, it has worked to my advantage.”
It is difficult to get Onisforou down from his anti-shopping malls soapbox once he gets started – he asks me several times to Google Paco Underhill’s 2004 book The Call of the Shopping mall, which argues that the heyday of the shopping center is history – but where he is equally passionate is in his belief that emerging Australian style designers need better support to flourish.
”Kirrily Johnston had a conversation with me a couple of years ago and believed, ‘Theo, this is how much it costs me to run my shop each week, once you factor in rent, staffing and all the other costs,’ and I was blown away by how much money it was,” he speaks.
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