So many clothes, so little time.
This is always the case when visiting Bangkok. Their wares change quickly as if they are in the part of the hemisphere that has four seasons.
Fashion in Bangkok is very updated that it is quite impossible to resist the urge to shop. In my case, it’s this line every time, “Just one shirt by a local designer.” But of course, that never happens. One can be a very lonely number, and misery loves company (agree?). I never did like making anyone (or anything) feel miserable and neglected, so I buy something else to keep it company. You feel good after. Try it! It’s more fulfilling than handing your money to a shrink who’d tell you what you’ve already heard.
What makes the whole experience more exciting is when you are in the company of another shopaholic, someone like Beth M. She loves shopping and will scour every aisle, nook & cranny of Bangkok’s stalls and malls, goes through every piece and handpicks a couple or maybe three things she loves and moves to the next shop.
By the end of the day, she has twenty kilometers (or more) in her meter and two armfuls of shopping bags (the earlier bags she has dumped in our hotel room) and moi? One. We go over our purchases over dinner in some Thai restaurant, praise each piece, imagine it on Jo, Tet or Vicky heading out to lunch or cocktails.
It’s the same story the next day and the next. Until she moves on the next mall…… in another country (it’s the other passion we share, traveling. It’s inseparable – traveling and shopping.)
The funny thing about Beth’s buys (sounds like Best Buy, doesn’t it? You bet it is) is it’s not hers but for you. All the stylish yet timeless pieces she selects are things she would love to wear and would want you to own as a “wardrobe investment”. Consider her your personal shopper and stylist, something she has been doing so for friends and clients here in Davao for the past---years.
These choice picks you will find in her nook called Beadworks tucked in a corner in Damosa Gateway. Her friends who frequent her shop just love the privacy of her place, the select items that carry her assurance of “no duplicates”, the frequent new stocks she displays on the shelves and the variety she offers, items that she took home with her from her trips to the US, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and even Europe. It’s no wonder Beadworks has successfully grown from a couple of shelves to the entire shop it has expanded to. Beth took it one small step at a time and she got to her destination.
August happens to be the shop’s anniversary month. And, for Beadwork’s third year anniversary, Beth is filling her shop with stuff she has gathered from her recent shopping sprees in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore. What’s more exciting is she’s putting everything on sale on the August 26th.
You’ll find me in her shop on that date. We would be reminiscing on the Bangkok pieces, admiring others while she’d be styling her friends and clients one garment at a time with her new-and-soon-to-be-their acquisitions.
Though the 26th is just around the corner, I can’t wait to hang out with this good friend and plan our next shopping trip. I have a strong feeling I just might bump into you at Beadworks while Beth is styling and sharing her fashion tips with you.
Which leaves me with this question that I find impossible to seek an answer to: How is it possible to just window shop?
Published in Sun Star Weekend on August 21, 2011.
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