The French Label

Last year, before I returned to where I'm working now, Ben called from KL & said he planned to bring in a mid-market French label, Axxxx, as their KL/Spore franchisee. So he's looking for someone reliable to run the show for Spore's. Axxxx ever made its presence here years ago, in a boutique in Scotts Shopping Centre & I used to like this brand after buying a nice pair of pants. I also bought some pieces when I was in Paris. Their collection now is so different &I must say it's undoubtedly a good change! After a week's exchange of emails & smses, Ben came to Spore together with A's Managing Consultant, Ziad, from Paris.

It's an interesting afternoon. Ben, Ben's nephew (grandson of Sxxxxx Group who'd just graduated.. a humble & friendly young chap), Ziad & I had lunch in Paragon. After lunch, all we did was walking in the malls... Ziad was formally from Mango in Spain & being an expert in setting up new boutiques all over the world, he's here to observe the fashion trend & identify places with good human traffic flow that's suitable for A. It's fun talking with him... he seemed to have endless stories & jokes. He even said if I joined A, I'd be invited to the Paris fashion week or even some fashion shows in Milan;) Ziad was really bent on bringing A into Spore soon.
So we 'walked' Paragon, Ion, Ngee Ann City, 313, Mandarin Gallery & the last stop was Vivo. Moving around wasn't a problem as Ben had his Estima from KL & I just needed to give some road directions to the chauffeur. In the evening, hubby joined us for dinner at Vivo.

Hubby felt excited for me too. The half yearly buying trips to Paris seemed really attractive plus I've all along been interested in this line. But couple of days later, after all the WOWs & ecstasies of the possiblity of working in the fashion business, I thought about the number of hours I'd have to put in every day... including Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. It's not gonna be easy as manpower wouldn't be sufficient at the startup stage... it'd be like working office hours + retail hours (though could be flexible in the working hours). So I was like 50-50. I couldn't let go of the stable working hours yet I was greedy, couldn't resist the opportunity to do something I liked when it came my way.

We prayed about it & asked God to take control. Few weeks later, Ben called & said it's a no-go for the moment as he hoped he could focus on KL market first. Disappointed... yet I was very relieved that I didn't need to clock irregular/prolonged hours. God closed the door for me :) Then, since end last year I'm back to where I started 3 years ago.... after switching a few jobs, trying to find myself. So a 9-5 job is what I really cherish now and thank God, my health is getting better ;)

Recently I saw Axxxx in the fashion magazine. Ziad must have had brought in the brand (now selling @Robinson's) through someone else.