Back in the day: When overseas travel was a real trip

Brian Zyster today.

Back in the day, the 1980s and 90s, before the time of cell phones and the internet, all design and marketing teams in the South African footwear industry had to visit the fairs and shop windows in Paris, Frankfurt, Bologna and Alicante in person to see the various new product releases from the design houses.

This happened over a 3-week period, so we had to spend the entire 3 weeks to get an insight and plan our next range of products armed with a Canon camera with the largest zoom lens. (Although you were not allowed to take photos inside of the exhibition halls) 

With this contingent of manufacturers also came the different suppliers, including Tony Mossop from Mossops Leather, John Whittle from John Whittle Components, and the folk from Paul Moeller & Co., BUSM, Mobbs Miller, and many more. And all the buyers of the national retailers e.g. Edgars, Woolworths, etc., were also there to indicate to their various suppliers what they were looking for.

You’d have to mingle with most if not all of them. 

At nighttime we enjoyed musicals and plays not seen in South Africa. I remember getting to see the stage production of “Cats”. 

I was also a millionaire for a week having like 20 million liras (R200) in my wallet. This was before the change to the euro. The lira was almost the size of an A5 paper. 

I was working for Bolton. Bagshaw Gibaud in Port Elizabeth, to be exact.

Brian Zyster with Sam Muller in a Stuttgart pub.

At Frankfurt Airport…laden and on the way home.

Sam Muller was the marketing manager. We were together for most of the time.

In Paris, we tried crossing the 6 lanes at the Arc de Triomf at the end of the Champs-Élysées, not realising that there was a tunnel to get there.

And when we were in Zurich in Switzerland to visit the Bally factory, the only available hotel was a 5-star alongside the lake. Cedric Novis wanted to know if we’d taken out a bond to stay there.

I wonder how the current crop of development teams get their ideas!