Keeping her eponymous brand on top for 40 years is no mean feat, but designer Josie Natori is not about to rest on her laurels. In fact, the best is yet to come

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Beginnings are almost always difficult; but like an uncommon pattern, the fashion business of Josie Natori started without a snag. “It seemed almost too easy, perhaps because we had a very novel idea,” says the designer as she looks back 40 years ago. The year was 1977; the place, New York City. Natori was fresh out of a promising career in Wall Street but was looking for another path to take. Love for country and for fashion found a common ground in embroidered blouses by Philippine artisans.

She presented her products to a Bloomingdale’s buyer who gave her the idea to get into the lingerie business. “But it was Sak’s who bought my first clothes and gave me advertising exposure for free!” she recalls.

Natori always refers to her first break in the business as “a great accident” and says that she was just “there at the right place, at the right time.” She remembers all the big department stores in the city wanting her first collection. In hindsight, she thinks that she entered the scene when the peasant look of Yves Saint Laurent was the craze and her designs complemented it. “The first collection immediately flew; everybody bought it!” she says.

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Unfortunately, a great start is not enough. “It’s not how you start a business but how you maintain it,” Natori says, adding, “The hardships came later.”

Over the years, the business hurdled one crisis after another. A store once cancelled its order. The political crisis brought about by the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jnr in 1983 paralysed her operations for three months. Marketing mishaps, stiff competition—name it, she’s had it. Through it all, she has emerged unscathed, admirably positive, and always ahead of the game.

Gauging from the way her brand has kept its top position for 40 years now, this wisp of a woman has done well—very well indeed.

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Where the Action is

Wherever you turn, people are in different stages of production. Cutters and sewers, embroiderers and beadworkers, plus a design team comprise this beehive of activity and creativity somewhere in the eastern part of Metro Manila. The cleanliness is noticeable; the order, impressive; the discipline, awesome. Embroiderers work wearing face masks. There is no clutter, no one in a shabby uniform, and no banter going on. Is it because The Boss is in town and working just as hard upstairs on the second floor? Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. You get the feeling this is just the way it is in this main factory of Natori.

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“There would be no Natori if we did not have this factory,” the designer pays her employees the highest compliment. “It has allowed us to move with the times, change and evolve, and be distinct because, to me, the handiwork and the quality from our workers have given us our edge.”

Built three years soon after the business started, this factory has expanded from a room-size affair to two sizeable buildings on a walled-in property blessed with the shade of tall trees around. Huge windows bring in the light and the view, allowing a conducive place to create. With two walls dedicated to windows, Natori’s room is as bright and spacious, a place of retreat for the mind to think freely. Soon there will be another factory built, a bit farther east, in the hilly Antipolo area—but this first one will stay as the main hub.

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Though some of her garments are manufactured in China, she has the complex and the delicate work done here. “We have a higher quality of manufacturing in the Philippines. We have good hands,” she says with conviction. “True, we are more expensive than China or Vietnam, but we have very refined hands.” She observes that efficiency is also not the strongest point of Filipino workers but they compensate with the care they give to their work. “They take pride in their work,” Natori says.

Read our full story on Josie Natori in the latest edition of Philippine Tatler. Grab a copy from any leading newsstand or bookstore or download it on your digital device via Magzter, Zinio, or Pressreader.