Who we are

1983 the year of iconic hits, the year of songs that bring back floods of memories. The year Bossi was born in Cape Town, by a South African for South African’s – yes 1983 was a great year to remember.

Neville Dorrington, an ambitious entrepreneur started with the humble beginnings of selling his Jean-Pierre Gift Range from the boot of his car to retailers in the Cape. His flair for business helped him grow his start-up into the official National Bossi brand, specialising in quality wallets for the market of South Africa.

Neville worked tirelessly travelling and negotiating to find manufacturers who could meet the quality, price and design requirements the Bossi brand would be become known for.

Initially, the first years of business, product was mainly sourced from Macau in Nylon and PU Fabrication. From 1986 onwards, Bossi diversified to include quality, affordable leather products to its vast and fast-moving range of styles. Bossi was well on the way to becoming an Iconic South African brand.

In the same year, Claire, Neville’s daughter at the age of 8, put on her Bossi Brand Ambassador cap and stepped into her young entrepreneurial shoes. She got to work designing her first product range, named ‘Big Bucks’ wallets, which she went on to market to her fellow peers. From that time on, Claire spent many hours helping out at Dad’s side. As Claire grew, she ‘walked the beat’ with Bossi Sales Representatives, learning the in and outs of business negotiation, design, production, wholesale, merchandising and customer relations. Even during her years studying her BCOM she worked part-time at Bossi.

 

Bossi's Expansion

It was a natural progression for Claire to take over the Bossi business when Neville decided to take a new path. Claire was natural, experienced and driven young business women, full of new ideas.

On taking over Bossi, Claire expanded the Bossi range to include more on-trend colourway and design options. Opening up the Bossi brand to even more age groups.

It’s important to remember Bossi has always been an original South African inspired brand, with local design and distribution being carried out in Cape Town and no product is sold to foreign markets. Production is outsourced but Bossi product suppliers are all small family-owned business that support their local community. The skill to hand craft each Bossi product is handed down through generations of families and close communities.

From 2011 onwards Claire opened Bossi Corporate to cater for the SA fashion retail sector, offering bespoke design, production and supply for their brands. Further Bossi went onto cater for smaller corporate clients looking to brand gifts and merchandise on a smaller unit scale.

Some of the companies we have and still work with include The Foschini Group (Markhams, Fabiani); Cape Union Mart (Arthur Jack, Tread+Miller, Old Khaki, K-Way); Truworths (T-Men) and Pepkor (Shoe City).

Bossi offers a full inhouse design and production service to clients on the Corporate side to meet each companies’ individual specifications.

Bossi also introduced other accessories such as Leather and PU Bags, Leather Belts and Bracelets and continues to ever be on the lookout for new production opportunities to offer the South African market quality, affordable and on-trend fashion accessories that are both stylish and functional.

Watch this space….Claire has a son, he is in training!