Dave Singleton walked into my office and gave me a card containing fifteen strands of wool. “We need a Freestyle, a Hi-top and a Princess in each of these colours.” Apparently, we had just signed up a distributor in Italy, a well established shoe company by the name of ‘Calzaturificio Di Varese’ or Shoemakers of Varese who had been bought by mega brand of the ’80’s Benetton. Their vision of Reebok was athletic fashion and the plan was to take Italy with colour, the way they had with their polo shirts, sweaters and iconic rugby shirts, which even sold in Bolton. The Benetton rugby shirt was the choice of clothing for every ‘WHAM’ boy and girl and worn with white ‘Peddle pushers’ and espadrilles. Now it would be a pair of Reeboks gracing their feet from Milan to Monza, Turin to Treviso. These shoes were not going to see the inside of an aerobics studio, they would grace the ‘Via della Spiga’ on the foot of fashionistas
First things first I had to spec every single colour from multi-tonal wool to single Pantone numbers. Luckily the cool north facing windows of my room gave great real world light to match colours. Which then had to be written out on one sheet, style by style by fifteen colours and sent out to the USA and then on to Korea, where many attempts were made back and forward to match the colours.
Eventually we had vast range of styles and colours to present and the whole Varese sales team came over to see their new range:
We spent the whole day cleaning the design room which was the only place big enough to seat so many people and had a wall big enough to display: Freestyle and Hi-Top in fifteen colours from burnt orange to lime green, midnight blue to crimson reds.
The Italians were led by their Managing Director; Dr Umberto Columbo, a well-dressed man in a dark wool overcoat, combed back dark hair and thick rimmed glasses sat on his suntanned face. He spoke perfect English with a North Italian accent and finished each sentence with ‘grazie’. With him came his debonair Sales Manager Gianfranco Terruzi, he spoke just one line in English “I live in Monza, is the centre of the world!” everyone sat around our wall and Dr Columbo gave an introduction to the sales team and introduced everyone from Reebok, before handing over to Gianfranco who introduced each shoe and spoke with his hands open and gesticulated while his index finger and thumbs remained glued together. There was lots of product handling, colours rejected, re-accepted, on and on, all very exhausting.
There was a break for lunch which had been set at the Pack Horse in Affetside. We all crammed into four cars for the drive I got Gianfranco and three of his team in to my XR2. I had a reputation in this car amongst my friends and work colleagues of driving like a Finish rally driver. They piled into my car chatting and joking, then we set off. After we sped round the first two chicane like corners and over the crossroads at 50, accelerating up the hill at 70, the car fell silent and everyone grabbed hold of something. When we pulled up, I announced “Arrivato!” in my best Italian. The colour returned to their faces and we strolled into the pub to be greeted by the landlady, Linda. “Birra?” I asked and four pints of warm English Bitter were produced for them. It was then they noticed the Skull behind the bar. They looked visibly shocked. Luckily the cavalry arrived in the shape of Dave my dad and Dr Columbo, Linda told the story and he translated:
“It is said to belong to George Whowell, and its story dates from the Civil War. whose tragedy was to witness the murder of his wife and children. Their murderers were Royalist soldiers, in the charge of James Stanley, the seventh Earl of Derby. George’s family were among over a thousand people killed in the Bolton Massacre. Stanley, Earl of Derby was later captured by Cromwell’s soldiers and sentenced to death for the crime of supporting the ‘pretender’ to the throne, Charles II. He was executed in 1651, in Bolton and, fittingly, his executioner was the local ‘headsman’ – none other than George Whowell.
No one can say how the skull got there but it is said to bring bad luck to any who remove it.
Suitably freaked out by this story, traditional lunch was served, then everyone stepped out for a breath of fresh air. I pointed to the road and told them it was Roman, “ and the cross there is halfway from Manchester to Ribchester and a camping point. Dr Columbo translated again. Everyone had a good pat at the cross before. Getting back in the car for stage two of the rally of Bolton. When we got out of the car one of my passengers shouted “Guida come un Italiano!” which they all found hysterical. We may have played with fashion colours before but now we were in Ath-leisure.
© David Foster 2020
The Freestyle, especially the Hi-top is still a fashion item today:
Foster's Famous Shoe's 