What it’s like going into business with your mum
SUPERMODEL Cheyenne Tozzi does it. So does PR guru Roxy Jacenko. Here’s what it’s really like working with family.
IN HONOUR of mothers around the country Sunday Style asks four real-life business partnerships what it’s really like working with family. Here are their stories:
Yvonne & Cheyenne Tozzi
Cheyenne Tozzi never made the decision to become a model. It happened by chance one day when her mother, model Yvonne Tozzi, 57, got a call from Australian designer Alex Perry, who was in need of some “angels” to pose with Sarah Murdoch — or, at the time, Sarah O’Hare — and three-year-old ‘Chey’ ft the bill perfectly.
“It just all happened,” Yvonne says of her daughter’s foray into modelling — a career she also shares with her sister, Tahyna, 28. “Alex Perry called and said he needed a couple of young girls to do a shoot but didn’t want to go through an agency. It started off like that, then other people would call.”
Yvonne was a model in the 1970s and ’80s who worked with labels such as Azzedine Alaïa, Emanuel Ungaro and Cacharel, so it’s no surprise 25-year-old Cheyenne says having a mum in the industry has meant she’s always had amazing guidance and support.
“She knows what I go through,” she says, post-Sunday Style shoot. “When I was travelling too much or would call crying, she understood. She could teach me all the dynamics of a modelling career and how to deal with the setbacks.”
Says Yvonne, “I know a lot of people do have bad memories [of being a model], but I’ve only had good ones. I’ve met incredible people who are still my friends and it’s been a wonderful journey. If the girls can have the same journey I did, fantastic — then they can get married, have kids and eat cake!”
This Mother’s Day is a true celebration for the Tozzi girls, as doctors recently gave Yvonne — who had multiple tumours removed from her brain last May — the all-clear for another year.
“Last year was a bit stressful,” Yvonne says of her diagnosis. “It was Cheyenne who noticed things were different with me. She took me to the doctor and said she wanted me to have a brain scan. I thought, ‘How rude coming from you; you think I’m nuts?’”
At the same time, Cheyenne was recruited as a mentor alongside Naomi Campbell and Nicole Trunfio on The Face Australia, meaning she had an excuse to stay in Sydney with her mother for a little longer.
“I was so lucky to get that call,” she says. “The whole experience worked out well for me. Mum was like, ‘Can you leave?’ I go to the airport and call her seven times and she’s like, ‘I’m fne!’” “I just want them to have a good time,” Yvonne adds. “I’ve had an incredible life, so I’m quite happy for them to experience everything they can — not that I’m going anywhere, but I keep saying to them: ‘Know I’ve had an incredible life.’ I’ve been blessed with great family, friends and daughters.”
“Really great daughters,” Cheyenne interrupts before getting serious. “A lot of people have it worse. We can complain and say, ‘Oh why’, but Mum never said, ‘Why me?’ My mum went through all of this stuff already with her bowel cancer [Yvonne was diagnosed with and treated for bowel cancer a decade ago], and we were already saying it’s not fair. But you put it in perspective and understand that life deals you things and God only gives you what you can handle.”
In terms of Mother’s Day plans, Cheyenne — who divides her time between Australia, the UK and Spain, where she is based with boyfriend Tyson Mullane, the manager of her band, Van Hoorn — will be in Sydney. Or, at the very least, on Skype. “With Skype you speak with each other every day,” Yvonne laughs. “So you don’t really get a chance to miss someone. When I was living in London and my parents were in Australia, you’d send a letter or ring reverse charges every third week because it was so expensive. Now Chey says, ‘I’m in Spain’, ‘I’m in Africa’, ‘I’m in Paris’ and you feel like you’re there.”
Roxy Jacenko & Pixie Curtis
Roxy Jacenko, the founder of dynamo Sydney PR company Sweaty Betty, has built a successful business through hard work — with a little help from social media, a strategy that has also built a lucrative brand for Pixie, the two-year-old daughter she has with husband Oliver Curtis.
Roxy has more than 58,000 Instagram followers, while Pixie has just over 15,000 — could it be that little Pix is already starting to follow in her media-savvy mum’s footsteps?
“Instagram wasn’t started [for Pixie] to have a profile,” Roxy says. “It was started on the back of people sending her gifts and trying to be a bit innovative in the way we say thank you, rather than a note or an email or not at all.”
As vocal as the precocious red-haired tot was during our shoot, she’s still too young to give her opinion on the uproar often caused by her Instagram account, or her range of hair bows that launches next month. But Roxy is confident it does her daughter more good than harm.
“There are so many people with their opinions on whether it is right or wrong,” the 33-year-old says. “It’s copped a lot of flak, but at the same time there are a lot of people who think it’s great. She’s not on the internet with no clothes on — they’re very normal [shots of her] going to gymnastics or going to school. And it’s a bit of a piss-take on her mother!
“She looks at it, but she’s learnt the world ‘self’, so she wants a ‘family self’ all the time; it doesn’t matter if it’s five in the morning or 10 o’clock at night. As long as she’s having a good time and not in danger, each to their own.”
While it’s probably too soon to tell if Pixie will follow her mum into the world of PR, Roxy is hoping she chooses another direction. “To be frank, I probably wouldn’t want her to go into PR. I fell into the industry when I was 24. Would I do it again? I probably wouldn’t,” she says matter-of-factly. “It’s completely consuming — I’m working 24/7, there is no question about it.
“Let’s hope, unlike me, she studies her schoolbooks and can become a doctor or lawyer. While publicists work extremely hard, it’s a funny industry; it’s cutthroat and people aren’t particularly nice, and I wouldn’t want to subject her to that.
It’s how I’m able to provide for my family, that’s why I keep doing it, but a lot of people get in to it and think it’ll be great and you’ll go to parties — ‘I’m the door bitch.’ I’ll support whatever she wants to do — that’s my role as a parent — but I’m going to make her study.”
It’s been a hectic few weeks for the already busy Roxy, who, in the final stage of her pregnancy, was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy — a condition that paralyses muscles on one side of the face.
“I noticed [something was different] when I was in the office and caught my refection,” she explains. “It just felt wrong, like my brain was telling my face to move, but when it was, it was in a strange and delayed capacity. I couldn’t smile properly — I’m bubbly and always smiling and having a joke and I couldn’t [on that day]. Heck, there’s nothing worse than those people who want to pull the blue-steel look for a photo!”
When diagnosed in March, her first thought was “I don’t have time for this,” but thoughts quickly turned to her unborn son, due any day now. “I was sad because I was thinking about when Pixie’s brother was born, I would want to hold him over my face to have a picture taken,” she says.
“Silly, but it’s what came to my mind instantly. Pixie is very sweet, she just kept saying ‘sore face Rossiii’, which is what she calls me.” With all that’s happening, this Mother’s Day is still an exciting one. “We can’t wait to have a brand-new baby to play with,” says Roxy. “It’ll be an interesting time and an adjustment. Pixie has been an only child and all of a sudden there will be another child to share the space.
“I don’t live a life of many plans, but I dare say we’ll have a family lunch at home. But I won’t be doing the catering! That’s not my domain — we’ll leave that to [Dad].”
Angus and Jan Logan
Usually stationed behind the camera, Angus Logan admits with a nervous laugh before Sunday Style’s shoot that he’s more comfortable directing than being the subject. But today, the brief for our Mother’s Day shoot fits the bill: for nearly 20 years he’s worked alongside his mother, Jan Logan, who founded her jewellery company of the same name in 1989.
Angus, 45, came on board as managing director in 1996 after returning from a stint in London working in marketing. Since then the brand’s opulent jewels have adorned celebrities such as Rose Byrne, Naomi Watts and Jennifer Lopez. Jan, 74, credits her son with the company’s expansion from a single boutique in Sydney’s Double Bay to stores around the world — including Melbourne, Hong Kong and in London’s Selfridges.
“It’s great to have him as part of the business and inspiring to have him as part of the decisions that are made. He’s certainly responsible for all the growth and I’ve been taking special vitamins to keep up,” she laughs.
Far from a planned partnership, however, Angus — who has two brothers, Mike and Andrew — started working with his mother through “serendipity”. “It wasn’t a conscious decision. I was working in London and I came back and decided to help, which grew into a joint decision to grow the business,” he explains.
While working with family would make most professionals cringe, Jan and Angus agree it’s a dynamic that works well for them. “We have our moments,” Angus admits, “but it does gel. The hierarchy doesn’t exist — it’s a case of a joint ambition of where we want to take [the business] and we work together … It’s about getting it done and it comes very naturally to us.”
Spending their nine to five together doesn’t mean Mother’s Day will be any different. Plans to catch up with Jan today are high on the agenda for Angus and his wife, Georgi, and their three children. “We usually plan a day out, but we’ll definitely all hang out with the kids,” he says. “It’ll be fun.”
Kerryn Pheips & Jamie Fronzek
Growing up watching her mum, well-known GP Kerryn Phelps, 56, flourish in the field of medicine, Jaime Fronzek knew she wanted to follow suit. Although she seriously considered the same career, in the end Jaime completed a degree in nutrition and has worked as a dietitian for the past six years, practising in her mother’s two clinics.
“I thought it was a perfect fit for her,” Kerryn says with a smile as the two sit side by side, Jaime the spitting image of her mum. “Ever since she was little, what she loved to do most was stand up on a stool and do anything in the kitchen to do with food. She shopped with me and I made sure I prepared her foods fresh and [taught her] how to cook from a very young age.
“From my perspective, as a doctor, I saw that food as medicine was an incredibly important part of children being healthy, and we both see that in our professional life. In effect, what we do in a clinical sense complements each other.”
To Jaime, working together in the medical practice has brought the pair closer. “Our careers are important to us and we’re really passionate, so being able to talk about work as well as all the other mother-daughter things is special,” says the 32-year-old. “We both know what the other is going through, not to mention having the most incredible mentor — going into my career, the information was invaluable in terms of what to expect and the ways to do things that would help me get to where I wanted to be.”
Not only has Jaime followed Kerryn into health, but she is also studying for her master’s degree — another move Kerryn says is reminiscent of her own move into academia. As well as juggling two clinics and a successful career as a speaker and advocate on everything from health to human rights, the former president of the Australian Medical Association moonlights as an adjunct professor at the University of Sydney.
Today, however, it’s time for Jaime to shine as she takes charge of the Mother’s Day menu, cooking for her mum, stepmother and Kerryn’s wife Jackie Stricker-Phelps, brother Carl Fronzek, 30, and sister Gabi Stricker-Phelps, 14. “It’s our Mother’s Day tradition,” she smiles.
What are you doing for Mother’s Day? Tell Mel on Twitter @melevans and download the Sunday Style app here
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