Industry Shoes Key people Vance Dickie Brands Aquila Headquarters Melbourne | Founder Tony Longo Products Shoes Founded 1958 Number of locations 30 | |
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Area served Australia and New Zealand | ||
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Aquila Shoes is a shoe manufacturing company founded by Tony Longo in 1958 in Melbourne, Australia. Antonio (Tony) Longo was born in San Marco in Lamis Italy on the 18th October 1920. In 1949, he immigrated to Australia.
The Aquila company began by producing children’s shoes, but expanded to begin supplying men’s footwear. On the 1st December, 1964 Aquila opened a new factory and manufacturing plant, by then Minister Vance Dickie, in the inner Melbourne suburb of North Fitzroy.
With the business and factory open and running at capacity, the factory manufactured 100,000 pairs of shoes per year. Aquila was both a manufacturer and wholesaler of its products. The company entered the retail arena when it opened its first retail store in 1975 in Melbourne’s central business district. A second store in Sydney was open in 1976. Over the next few decades the company expanded its retail operations across Australia and New Zealand.
In 2012, the Aquila brand expanded into menswear and fashion accessories. In 2015, Aquila operated 30 retail stores in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.