On the afternoon of 30 September, Tony Apidopoulos will close his simple shop at the usual time, 5pm, as he has done on most Fridays for the past thirty-five years. But on the last Friday in September it will be different, because Tony’s not coming back.
There’s unlikely to be much fuss or fanfare as the front door snaps shut: no plaque is planned to mark where his humble business once stood.
If you’re on the 86 tram as it slithers down Smith Street from the city before that day, get a window seat on the right if you can, and look out for number 313; you may still get a glimpse of the shop front of one of Victoria’s most loved traders, and the last chapter of a rich and remarkable Greek Australian story.
My own introduction to Tony is on a chilly morning as he’s about to open up. I explain the reason for my visit and apologise for my unannounced arrival. Tony insists on paying for take-away coffees to complement with the kourambiedes he’s brought in.
Sunlight filters into the shop, which as I enter, appears almost timeless. It could easily be a city tailor’s business of the 1950s or 1960s. A row of crisp police uniforms hang in an open wardrobe to the right of the counter. We sit and begin talking beside a row of treadle sewing machines, mounted on lacquered wood and cast-iron stands that first stitched hems before the Great War.
Tony the Tailor was born Theodoros Apidopoulos in the village of Ammohori near Florina, in 1940. The infant Theo entered the world at a time and place of immense strife and hardship. Nazi Germany’s invasion of Greece, a year after his birth, tore through the Florina area. His first steps were taken as his homeland became a battleground of resistance to Nazi occupation.
Two years into the occupation, his father Pavlos, who had suffered wounds as a soldier in the Greek army, died of a related infection at the age of 26, leaving his mother Vassiliki and her four children to fend for themselves.
“I can’t remember my father. My mother stayed at home, inside,” says Tony of the warring years. Though the civil war brought further danger when Florina became a battleground once more, Tony remembers a happy childhood.
When he was old enough to dig a vegetable patch, and not attending school, he and his siblings tended the family’s plot of land. “We were very poor. We had chooks, grew tomatoes, corn and other vegetables – to sell and to feed ourselves.” At 17, after meeting the village tailor – Naoum Zouzele – Theo was sure that he had found his ideal profession. “I said to my mother that I wanted to learn tailoring.”
Each year Zouzele would take on a couple of boys as apprentices. Eager to learn, young Theodoros asked his mother if he could be one of them. “She said, ‘son, go and learn, but I can’t afford to pay’,” he says.
Despite their circumstances, he was passionately committed to the idea. “We can pay, but slowly, slowly,” said the ambitious Theo. As Tony recalls these far off days, his eyes soften and his gentle voice falters. “It’s a little bit difficult for me, I can never forget my mother,” he says quietly.
For three years, he spent the hot summers labouring on his mother’s land, and each icy winter he would learn the tailor’s craft. He paid Zouzele two gold coins a year for tuition. The knowledge gained from his mentor would give him a first vital foothold in a new country.
In 1960, Theo and Vassiliki left Ammohori for Melbourne, following in the footsteps of his eldest brother Vangelis, who had found a house for rent in Richmond. Within a few weeks Theo had found his first professional employment as a tailor.
As we talk about the early years, Tony opens a large file of documents lying on a cutting table nearby. He begins to leaf through half a century of dog-eared income tax notices. “Here it is,” he says, pulling out a faded one-page tax receipt for 1960. It identifies his first employer as Klein and Cowen, a garment manufacturer in Lonsdale Street. His employer found ‘Theodoros’ too unfamiliar a name to add the company’s books: Theodoros seamlessly became Tony.
In 1964, at a Greek community event at Fitzroy Town Hall he asked 21-year-old Stavroula Passas to dance.
Christine, as she later became known, was from Agia Paraskevi, a village less than 20 kilometres from Tony’s birthplace, but it had taken a journey to another hemisphere for them to find each other.
“In those days, the parents would sit upstairs on the balcony and the young people would be dancing on the ground floor,” says Tony. Was it love at first sight? “Of course!” he exclaims. Tony and Christine were married on 11 July 1964 at Agios Evangelismos in East Melbourne.
After changing employer twice after Klein and Cowen, in 1966 Tony was offered a position at Melbourne’s prestigious Berensen Tailors. That same year he and Christine were blessed with their first child, Vassiliki.
Berensens had a contract to make up the uniforms of the Victorian police, and from his first day, Tony was cutting bolts of black merino wool fabric, and fitting the carefully chalk-marked cuts to Victoria’s finest.
A second daughter, Evangelia, arrived in 1968. A few years later, Tony went on a rare family holiday, back to Ammohori where his mother had returned to live. He met again his mentor, Naoum Zouzele, and thanked his old teacher for the start in life.
In 1976, with a baby son, Gregoris, to celebrate, Tony decided it was time to be his own boss. “One day I bought The Age and I saw a shop for rent at 119 Smith Street in Fitzroy. I said ‘how much’, and he said ‘$20 a week’. Today it would be $550,” says Tony.
As always, he worked hard and long hours and established an appreciative and regularly returning customer base. Three years passed during which he was able to save enough to buy his own shop in the same street, at number 313.
The move coincided with a commercial opportunity that Tony was in an ideal position to realise. The Victorian police were being fitted out for a new style uniform. Tony tendered for the contract and won it.
“The old uniform was black. The new style was Navy blue and a better design; it was easier to make,” says Tony, who would go on to fit two generations of Victorian police, specialising in uniforms for officers from the rank of Constable up to Deputy Commissioner.
I ask if Tony has fitted any officers who have been in the news recently, and one in particular who wore the uniform for a shorter time than expected. “Sir Ken Jones, he came here for a fitting. He was a very nice man, medium size,” adds Tony. “All the policemen who came here were nice men. I’ve got their measurements if you want, I can tell you, no problem,” he adds, laughing.
As we talk, the doorbell rings.A young couple, new to the area, have read Tony’s farewell message on the window and want to express their best wishes to him in retirement. As the days count down to 30 September, visits like this have been increasing; heartfelt and achingly sincere. His customers and the Smith Street community know they’re losing something precious, irreplaceable.
There will be no handover to the next generation for Tony the Tailor, no young apprentice to keep the thread intact. “A couple of years ago I said to my son, ‘I’ll teach you, I’ll give you the business,’ but Gregoris said, ‘I can’t, I’m sorry. Dad you have a very big heart to be a tailor, my heart is too small.”
After a life’s work completed, what is Tony most looking forward to? “I haven’t spent enough time with my family before, I was working six days a week. I’ll settle my brain, relax and look after my health. Then I’ll think about what I’ll do.” Will you sew again? “Just for myself, to fix my suits, to dress properly.”
The number 86 tram will still rattle past 313 Smith Street when Tony closes his front door for the last time. The footy fans, young mums with prams, the business types and the cafe crowd will still walk by. But who will know the story of what happened at this place, what Tony the Tailor achieved at this quiet landmark?
Those who have the good fortune to have been a customer, a neighbour, a friend; we will know.
We’re the lucky ones. Kala yieramata Tony. You will be missed.