Franco Cozzo’s children reopen furniture store in Melbourne — ABC News Australia
In Melbourne, Australia, several children of the late furniture retailer Franco Cozzo have reopened the family store in the Brunswick area. The showroom on Sydney Road was ceremonially opened after a five-year break, ABC News Australia reports.
A family promise
Franco Cozzo died at the age of 88. His daughter Alessia Cozzo said the decision to revive the business was connected to a promise the children made to their father during his lifetime. According to her, during a family conversation he doubted whether the next generation would continue his work.
Alessia Cozzo noted that the family wants to preserve their father’s legacy. A room dedicated to Franco Cozzo has been set up at the front of the store, displaying his furniture and a tribute wall. Cannoli were also prepared for visitors at the opening, while the entrance was decorated with an arch in the colours of the Italian tricolour.
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Television image and furniture style
Franco Cozzo became well known in Melbourne through television advertisements for his furniture business in the 1980s and 1990s. He was recognised for the exclamation “Megalo!” and his distinctive pronunciation of the suburb name Footscray. He was one of the first distinctly Italian-Australian voices on the country’s commercial television.
Cozzo opened his first furniture showroom in North Melbourne in 1959, after working as a door-to-door appliance salesman. In less than ten years, he expanded the business and established a three-storey shop in Footscray, which ceased operations in 2018 and now operates as a craft brewery. The Brunswick showroom, opened in the mid-1980s, was a local landmark for four decades.
Madeleine Martiniello, director of the documentary film Palazzo di Cozzo, noted that Cozzo became not only an entrepreneur but also part of Melbourne’s cultural life. According to her, furniture in the Sicilian Baroque style continues to appeal both to older Italian migrants and to people with a postmodern view of the style.
