Date: 2004/03/01
The earliest influence on Irish-Italian Moira O’Reilly’s fashion life was probably her grandfather who encouraged his grandchildren to focus on the arts.
“That’s where my love of fashion comes from”, Ms O’Reilly said.
“My sister and I spent hours paging through fashion magazines and we even used to make our own clothes.”
But she certainly did not expect to end up in the rag trade.
After matriculating from Northlands Girls’ High School in 1985, Ms O’Reilly headed to the University of Cape Town to study a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in industrial psychology and English.
“I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do – I thought psychology was a respectable thing to do. I don’t regret it at all. The arts degree gave me a good grounding.”
She also noticed the fashion of Capetonians. “Coming to Cape Town was quite an eye opener with its diversity of fashion. Durban is quite deprived when it comes to clothing, with not much variety at all.”
At university she met Marcel Joubert, now the chairman of Hilton Weiner, who was already involved in the industry making clothing for the student market under the Vertigo label.
“I had no real prospects at the time, and was considering going overseas.”
But she and Marcel hit it off, and she got ‘stuck in’ to the rag trade.
In 1989 Vertigo Clothing opened its first retail outlet, selling its wares out of a store in Rondebosch. The business was a hit with the fashion conscious market and by the end of 1994 the two were looking to expand. Just then German investor Claas Daun was negotiating to buy Bergers Stores, which owned Hilton Weiner, which was losing money hand over fist.
This was the opportunity Ms O’Reilly and Mr Joubert were looking for, and they bought the chain from Bergers. “It took us three months to put out the fires, six months to break even and a year to get the business trading beautifully.”
By the beginning of this year the two were ready to expand their operations once again, having doubled the sales of their company in just two years.
“The opportunity to forge an alliance with Aca Joe just popped up and Jenni Button was also at a crossroads looking to do something different.”
So, in a fortnight of high pressure negotiations, Ms O’Reilly and Mr Joubert pulled together a powerful new branded designer retail grouping which now comprises Hilton Weiner, Vertigo, Aca Joe and Jenni Button.
But why, when other clothing retailers are struggling, is the Hilton Weiner group performing so well?
“Part of it is that others don’t have the brands, but mainly it comes down to good old-fashioned basics – hard work, team-work, focus, dedication and fun.
“The fun is important. We are in the people business as much, if not more than the clothing business. We look after our team first, because they look after the customers.”
“We are also always in touch with our stores. A lot of other retailers don’t go into their stores on Saturdays. I can’t remember when I last had a Saturday off.”
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