Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Tracking Back

The sight of this shit depresses me.



Sunday, May 20, 2007

Progress

In addition to the few sites that have featured us, we have been featured in Highsnob's New Dandyism column. Our project and the New Dandyism store have a similar direction which is why it made sense for us to be featured there. Footurama did a feature too. Thanks to Chris Torres and Max Suriaganda for their support. Have a look:

http://www.highsnobiety.com/the_columns/new_dandyism/index.htm

http://www.footurama.com

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Prep Work

Some of the boys came down two weeks ago to help with the store prep. I got Rish and Inny to come and work on some stuff with me. The apartment was a shithole but I had no choice. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for neatness. I prefer calling it that. The others call it being anal.

I believe you can carry out tasks without making a mess if you're careful enough. Some others don't believe that. So anyway, we all started taking stock and tagged all the clothing that weekend. The guys pretty much chipped in and we got all the stuff rolling. Some were allocated store duty which meant they had to go to the store to check on the renovation progress and some had to sit at the apartment and get work done. Nonetheless, when push came to shove, all of us were shoving.

The boys also understood my frustration when they too would go to the store to find that things weren't getting done on time. They basically knew I wasn't going to move into the store that weekend. Not a problem, Rishi wiped away my concerns with a $463 purchase. Thanks for that mate. I appreciate it.

When they left, Eugene and myself went ahead and sorted out all the other admin stuff. It somehow flew by and then my parents came. They were real useful as well. My father could also see that shit was just taking too long or not getting done and that pissed him off as well. We decided to take action and basically claim the store space back and start moving into the store. By Friday evening we had our prayers and then we moved in.

I'm not real religious but I felt the need for them anyway. I need all the help I can get.

The move to the store turned out well. Everyone chipped in again and that made it a lot quicker. In no time we unpacked and got the place ready. We have basically now started running the place. There are a lot of little things in store like leaks and damages and what not that need to be sorted out. The place is real old so we get problems there that most people don't have to face when in a mall. The cockroach count has reached 7. The glass roof leak repair count has reached 5.
We also need to add mats and other things to the change room.

The website also needs to get finished. That should be done very soon. The response on the forums really warrants for us to get this thing up and running. That'll help us identify ourselves better.

Here are some photographs from 2 weeks ago. Tough time!









We finally got there.

The store is now open. It's taken us a while but we're finally there. We opened today for a short while at 4pm. Tomorrow will be our first full day.

Eugene and myself have been running around a whole lot. It's felt like a long week and it's only Tuesday. We are both looking forward to a good response after all the other preparation work we've had to go through.

See you all very soon. Come b(u)y sometime to just sit around and what not. Thanks for the support through and through.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

More fun stuff




Further Progress

Okay so what turned out to be Monday or Tuesday to get keys is most likely going to be this Friday. The main cashier/desk didn't come out as it should have so I got penalized with a slight delay. They also painted the floors and the lights came in. We had to throw our weight around a little bit to get things done.

The parents and myself are going to have some prayers for the store on Friday at about 3pm. According to them I need all the help I can get. I'll post up some pictures after.

We are going to move in right after. Eugene and Myself will be working throughout the night and hopefully we'll be done just in time to rake in the cash on Saturday. I'll be sure to post up how we did on that day.

Come see us on Saturday.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Progress Report

Sorry for the long hiatus. I have been stuck in trying to get things running. As of now I am officially 3 months behind schedule. This is a tough town and I have figured it out the hard way. Enough crying already, here's the plan.

I get the keys from the contractor on Monday or Tuesday next week. For some reason we keep getting delayed everytime it rains in this city. I don't usually pray but I have been a whole lot these past few days for the sake of this weather. We need warm and clear days so that the spray painting works can dry. It is all of these little things that have been hindering our progress.

The plan is to go in by Monday or Tuesday and set up everything in there. The store will be open sometime next week but I ask all of you that come in to bear with Eugene and myself. Not everything will be perfect as we will still be ironing out all of the little issues around the place. I just want to get this store up and running so that those "When is your store opening? People build buildings in 5 months!" sort of questions and remarks will end. So there's my explanation just in case you all didn't know already. Everything won't be up to par when you come into the store but I hope it will be appreciated nonetheless.

We have been unpacking all the goods and doing stock. We had some issues with Julian Red and Rag & Bone but everything else was smooth sailing. I am finalizing the costing of the goods and yes, I will be pricing everything so it's easy on everyone's wallets.

The Website should be up and running soon as well. I just have to finalize all of the photography and the content that is going in it. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible and believe me, that can sometimes be quite a challenge. However, my focus is on getting the store space open so that will be the main focus.

The second floor should be up and running in a couple of weeks. I need to finalize the work being done to it. In the meantime, we will operate downstairs while the contractor's crew work upstairs. Again, that's not going to make it too comfortable a working environment but that's we don't have many choices.

That's the progress. See you all next week. I'm going to upload some pictures of my hell week so far. I'll do that later on.