Natori opens boutique at Rustan’s –a first outside US

“It’s about time!”

Saying that together, Rustan Commercial Corp. president Nedy Tantoco and Josie Natori—the Filipina behind the global brand—introduced Natori to Manila, the brand’s first boutique outside of the US.

This is the Asian era, Natori said, and nowhere else would she try enter the region’s market than through her native soil.

“I’m always thankful for my Philippine heritage. It’s what made me produce [the Natori line],” she said, wearing her signature huge earrings, this time black hoops that framed her thin face and short crop.

As she flipped before the media the pages of the beautiful Natori catalogue, she stressed how her product lines—from fashion to home—are the fusion of the East and the West, the Asian aesthetics and sensibilities and the Western contemporary lifestyle. It is this that has made Natori a distinct global brand which has survived  economic crises, from the ’90s to the current recession.

From lingerie to high fashion, ready-to-wear, to beddings, and fragrance, Natori has become a lifestyle brand.

“It’s bringing art into life,” she repeats the collective description of her various lines.

Natori said she and the Tantocos, the family behind the retail giant Rustan’s, go a long way back indeed. The Tantoco patriarch, Ambassador Bienvenido Tantoco Sr., and Natori’s father, the construction magnate Felipe Cruz, were classmates in grade school and high school in Bulacan, where both families hailed.

Both in their 90s now, Tantoco and Cruz are blessed to still be leading relatively active lives.

Thirty-five years ago, Josie Cruz Natori, then a banker in Wall Street, started selling lingerie in New York. Given her and her husband Ken’s finance background, they were able to build a fashion line at a time when there were so few Asian names in the world fashion (Japan’s Hanae Mori and Kenzo, among them).

In a span of three decades, Natori became one of the viable and prestigious brands sought after by high-end US stores such as Neiman Marcus, Sak’s. Top US retailers have feted Josie Natori through the years.

Natori is now 64, with one grandchild—a two-year-old boy named Cruz—from her only child Ken, who himself is now at the helm of the Natori business.

At this stage in her life, she’s in a way revisiting her native soil, where her brand is concerned. “I want to dress up the entire country, in time,” she said at the media lunch.

She is not pessimistic at all about the retail economy in the US. “This is not 2008,” she said of the time when spending hit rock bottom.

As a former Wall Street banker, however, she now feels sad that the institution has come to represent unbridled greed. She expressed this regret as talk turned to “Occupy Wall Street.”

The Natori boutique at Rustan’s carries lingerie and loungewear—exquisite design, in silk and other fine fabrics, very figure-friendly silhouette. It has the Natori Fall collection. (The price is 10 percent less than abroad.)

The Fall 2011 collection is inspired by the art and spirit of the Samurai—shown through Natori’s redefined kimonos and origami shapes, bold colors and prints and intricate embroideries.

What makes Natori fashion so in sync with the contemporary woman is that it is as multidimensional as the lifestyle of today’s multitasking woman. A lingerie or loungewear—whether in black or neutrals, or in oriental print—can be worn from the boudoir to the plane or cruise ship, even to dressy evening affairs.

In time the Rustan’s boutique will carry the Natori RTW line and accessories.

“I grew up in a matriarchal family,” Natori said, “where my lola worked from early morning to evening. And she told me, never be dependent on men.”

Then she said what drew strong applause—women should “never apologize for spending.”