Freddy’s Head of Retail and Customer Happiness for Australia and New Zealand Noni Azzopardi has played a key role in the brand’s successful launch. Freddy is an Italian designed brand that originated in Milan more than 40 years ago and has found great success since its launch in 2014. With unsurpassed passion for the brand, Noni thrives on helping women feel confident and proud of their unique silhouettes. Her significant role within the company requires her to take the lead on management of stores, customer service and happiness, product buying and trend forecasting, as well as constantly improving the customer journey from start to finish.

Noni started her professional life as a nurse and midwife (10 years as a nurse and three years as a midwife) but a major shift into the fashion retail space came for Noni when she joined forces with her husband, CEO and Co-Founder of Freddy Joel Azzopardi, to take on her new role. They later moved from London to Melbourne to grow the business. In this new role, Noni feels she thrives due to her immense love and belief in the brand, and the impact that she sees first hand that it has on women and their confidence. The edge that Freddy has over its competitors is also a driving force in Noni’s passion for the brand, she says, “Freddy pants are unique in every way, our pants solve the problem of jeans getting loose and baggy and ladies constantly having to yank them up which is something many women experience. Freddy’s WR.UP line of pants has a patented design, which includes unique stitching and a thin silicone under the bottom which holds and shapes in all the right places. The silicone waist band helps to keep the pants in place and the bi-elastane fabric is very comfortable and doesn’t stretch out or get loose over time,” says Noni.

The main challenges she faces in her role include keeping on top of the ever-evolving and fast-moving world of fashion and buying products two seasons in advance. Despite these challenges though, and through her continued hard work, Noni has experienced real success with the brand. Her greatest Freddy achievement to date is setting up the brand’s flagship store within Melbourne’s famed shopping centre, Chadstone. This was achieved alongside her husband Joel Azzopardi, and his business partner Kenneth Dreyer, and the brilliant Freddy team that has been built up since their launch in 2014. Noni and the Freddy team’s ambitions remain high, and they now have their sights set on growing their bricks and mortar presence across Australia & New Zealand.

Noni Azzopardi displays how love for a brand and its products, and a true understanding of what makes their audience tick, can help propel what started as a small business into a booming company, consistently empowering women to feel confident in their bodies.

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