RUDOLPH Alagich’s, a tailor and clothing store on Patton Street, has been stylishly dressing Broken Hill’s residents for almost eighty years.
Store founder Mr Alagich, often called Rudi, was a tailor who began his career in the 1940s, when, according to his daughter Nancy Keenan, Broken Hill had 17 tailors and hundred of tailoresses.
“Because there were no suits off the rack, everybody had tailored suits,” Ms Keenan said.
“Mum and dad were married in 1943, and they lived in a house and dad had that as the start of his business. There was a garage, and that was the tailor shop, for ten years.”
In 1954 they rented a shop on Patton Street down near where Pepe’s Milkbar is today, and expanded the business.
“Dad started selling shirts and ties, along with the suits,” Ms Keenan said.
“And then this current block became available in 1958, and they bought the block and built these premises.”
Ms Keenan recalls Patton Street in the 1960s as a thriving shopping strip.
“The South was very busy, there was a population of 10,000, just in the South, in the 50s and 60s,” she said.
“We (Patton Street) had two fruit shops, I think three or four butchers and banks. And when they bought the block a few people said oh why didn’t you go into town? But they loved the South!”
The Alagich family had immigrated from what was formerly Yugoslavia, and Ms Keenan said all the Slavs and Italians lived in the South as part of a close-knit community.
In 1964, the Alagich’s began a hire service for weddings, debutantes and other occasions, hiring clothes from the city, along with their own suits, to Broken Hill.
Many of their original clothes from between the 1950s and 1980s are still in the shop today, with a number of pieces available to rent.
Ms Keenan said their clothes have been in St Patrick’s Day fashion parades since the event began in 1965.
Though business has changed over the last 80 years, she said she still loves being at the shop.
“It’s always been a drop in centre, ever since mum and dad were here, everybodies sort of congregated at the shop,” she said.
“So I love the shop and like that contact with people. Business isn’t like it used to be, there are shops closing down all the time. But I still intend to be here a bit longer, hopefully a lot longer.”
