POWER TO THE SHOPPER!

(From the Editor, the editor's letter, in the monthly Sense&Style, November 2007, under the theme "Shopping!" with Josie Natori on the cover.)

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Christmas starts as early as September at our editorial offices, especially at this point when, as of this writing, we are not only putting the finishing touches on this shopping issue, but piling up the pages for our big holiday issue in December.

Carrie: Honey, if it’s hurts too much, why are we going shopping?
Samantha: I have a broken toe, not a broken spirit
—From Sex and the City

I don’t know of anybody who doesn’t like the frenzy of the holidays, except those too jaded to see beyond the commercial craze, which I don’t mind at all because I’m sure it helps that, thanks to the shopaholics among us, the economy is proving healthy enough for entrepreneurs to dream up stuff and make things better. Why, I’m very happy, for instance, that there’s a market big enough in the Philippines to translate the design sensibilities of people like Amina Aranaz, Tweetie de Leon, Twinkle Ferraren, Joyce Oreña, and Shiela Bermudez into pieces we can actually buy and own. Incidentally, these women and more, who have all developed a keen eye for what’s worth owning, collaborated with our editorial team to give you expert advice on your shopping spree (“The Experts,” page 127).
Heralding this issue that’s designed to help you through the maze of choices on your shopping expedition is Josie Natori (“Natorious,” page 120). Included in Time’s list of women who are “redefining the business of style” around the world, she is, indeed, in the words of the Fall 2007 Style&Design supplement editor Kate Betts, among “the handful of dynamic women, who drive the global luxury-goods business,” right in the company of Jimmy Choo president Tamara Mellon and YSL CEO Valerie Hermann. But Josie, at least in our interview, is quick to divert the honor to her customer, who is not only the end-user of her sartorial visions, but her muse as well. As she tells us, “In seeking inspiration, the most important step is always, always to listen to and understand [the customer].”
The same goes for everybody else, men or women, whose fashion genius—and business savvy—have brought them to the realms of greatness. Louis Vuitton and Coco Chanel, Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin, all of these great people, whom some of us now only see as luggage or dresses or shoes to die for, have been standing on the shoulders of legions of ordinary folks like you and me, whose patronage has made global empires of heels and hemlines, frills and fabrics, and stuff.
Long live the shopper, indeed! And here’s to deep and deeper pockets!

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com