My favorite People

One of the best thing about having a shop beside doing what I love is to meet like minded people.  Evangelina and Miles are one of the loveliest individuals that I ever met.  They are sweet, kind, and so wonderful.  I have been very lucky to have met so many amazing friends through the shop.  Also, this season my mother got to be a part of all the shows.  She has been my inspiration, my rock, and my biggest fan.  Without her  and my father, there won’t be IDOM.  I count my blessings daily of how fortunate I am to be living this good life.  There are always lots of struggles, but also lots of joy as well.

Miles, Evangelina, and my mother Chintana.  Evangelina is wearing a Sea Urchin dress that was worn at her reception party for her wedding.  My mother is wearing a Maura dress.  They were cheering for me at Portland Fashion Week.  I was so happy to see all the friendly faces there.  And thank you to my sweet friends Caitlin and Salwa for making it all happened back stage.  Stay dry today.  It is gray and rainy in the P town.  Ta, ta.

Meet Sally!

I am truly a lucky person to have been meeting so many wonderful friends here in Portland.  It is refreshing to meet another kindred spirit.  I met Sally the co-owner of Pin Me Boutique on North Mississippi at our shop a while back.  She has been so kind and very much fun to get to know.  I adore her.  Sometime it can be a lonely place being a business owner.  Everything is on your shoulders.  You are the one that has to make all the decisions.  Most of the time it can be pretty over whelming.  I am thankful that I can chat with Sally about work, life, traveling, designs and anything in between.  It is such a gift when you find a great friend. She sent me this photo of her in an idom hand woven tunic.  She looks beautiful.  I’m so pleased that she is a big fan of anything woven.  These pieces are my first love.  They are often inspired by architecture and Japanese sensibility.

Sally in her woven tunic.  She looks fantastic!  Thank you so much for the pic.  I am also a big fan of Pin Me Boutique.  I love the fact that her business supports independent designers and fair business practices.  I get so many compliments from my earrings and Orla Kiely pieces.

I have been admiring these Melissa shoes.  These shoes are amazingly chic and comfortable.

Please visit Pin Me Boutique and the exquisite sally at 3705 N Mississippi
Portland, OR 97227.  You can always visit Pin Me online as well.  Please click here.

I feel privileged to live in a city that inspired entrepreneurship.  It is rare to have a city of this size with so many interesting shops, restaurants, galleries,  and music venues.  People move here and visit here because of its beauty and its creative environment of Portland.  It is up to all of us to keep that spirit alive by choosing consciously to support each other.  Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Meet my friend Jessie

My dear friend Jessie is a surface designer behind Pattern People.  She is one of the most amazing designer that I have ever met.  Her style is so chic and always so creative.  It means the world to me when she wears my clothes.  We just got new woven tunic pieces.  This line is my first love.  They are hand woven 100% cotton and natural dyed fabric from northern region of Thailand.  I only have one size made for this collection.  All the pieces are meant to be worn oversize.   These lovelies have more modern architectural shapes.  This aesthetic has been with me since childhood living in Asia.  The Japanese have been taking this approach for many years.  Also you can see much of this silhouette in Scandinavian countries as well.  These pieces are dear to my heart. 

Promise to get more pics of these pieces.  Salwa is also a proud owner of the very same tunic/dress.  When I first met Salwa she understood these pieces right away.  Most people will ask of “why they are so big?”  She got it right away.  Plus that was the first piece she bought from me.  I knew she was a keeper!    My friends do keep me sane.  Thank goodness for my girlfriends!  You should check out Jessie’s blog from Pattern People here.  Their blog is so full of great inspirations from prints, to fashion to home interior and much more.

Please meet my village

Many people have asked “how are you doing all of this by yourself?”  Running the business, designing the clothes, minding the shop, doing PR and marketing,  graphic design, online e-commerce, photo shoots, clothing production, logistics, legal matters, accounting, buying new products, cleaning the shop and much more.  As I mentioned before, it takes a village to make things happen at IDOM.  I could not do this without the help from my amazing group of friends, my sweet partner, and my brave parents.  Their relentless faith and love for me are beyond my imagination.  It has been two years of tough struggle to make the business work.  These are the people who have stood by me through the good and the bad times.  We had a delightful celebration of our new IDOM home on NW 23rd Street on Monday night.  It was lovely to see so many of my dear friends.

Marc to the left (so sorry we didn’t get a better photo of Marc).  He was our prop master, stylist and our guest window dresser for this month.  He has been a vital part of IDOM.  His beautiful wife Nicole is in the middle.  She designed our current look book and was our model for Fall 08.  Her wonderful best friend, Maura was also our model for the underwater shoot.  Salwa our delightful buyer was forced to mind the counter that night (again sorry that we don’t have better pic of Salwa either).  IDOM would not still be here without all of their love and support.

The stunning Maura in the Maura dress.  The piece was inspired by her.  Maura is so amazing inside and out.  The most kind person you will ever meet.  I’m so lucky to have met her.

The most beautiful and fashion forward physician ever!  She is the proud owner of an Amanda dress.  Linda has such an exquisite style.

The sweet Fuchsia to the left and Jessie to the right.  Jessie designed our online website layout.  She is a fantastic print designer of Pattern People.  The green dress in the center was named after Jessie.

Does this mean that I need to designing baby clothes?  Josh to the left with baby Thomas.  My dearest friend Sarah wears her Sarah blouse.  She is holding her baby Charlotte.  Sarah has been doing all the PR for our label since the beginning of time.  She was still hard at work while being pregnant with baby C.  This makes Charlotte a true IDOM baby.  Our friend Dan and the cute Jonah.  The great Trevor is married to Sarah.  To the farthest right is my husband, Brad.  He is my legal depart and enduring being married to a self employed small business owner.  He’s the best partner I could have ever hoped for.  Thank you for always supporting my dreams.

Delicious cookies from Two Tarts Bakery and lots of drinks.

Sorry Marc, I still don’t have a better pic of you.  Angie is in the center.  She is a do it all girl.  The blog layout and the online shop has been designed by her.  All the product photos and e-mail blast are under Angie’s department.  She is the most loving person and a wonderful designer.  We are saying goodbye to Angie at the end of August.  She is leaving us for a design school in Denmark.  We will miss her a lot.  My friend David to the right.  He wrote our online purchasing policy and a true IDOM cheerleader.  He is a brilliant film maker and a fantastic editor.

Gorgeous Jackie is in the hand loomed Tracey Ikat dress.  She has been so good to me and our little IDOM.  The dress fits her just so.  Thank you, Jackie!

Funny moment.  These two tried on the same blouse.  Heather to the front took home the Jackie blouse.  Jackie to the back is the person that the blouse was named after.

Please meet our talented photographer, Elizabeth.  She is the one behind all the beautiful images from so many of our collections.  Elizabeth is in an Elizabeth dress.  I LOVE working with her and Marc.  I wish we could shoot together every week!

Andrea to the right.  She has been helping us at the shop quite often.  The flowers were sent from Jennifer my old neighbor from Alberta Street.  The flowers are arranged by Beka of Origin Flowers on Alberta.  Thank you for the lovely flowers.

My friend Mary who has been with me since day one was away on her holiday.  She always keeps me grounded.  Also Lance the illustrator and the graphic designer behind the IDOM identity was ill and could not make it to the party.  Sorry that there are not any good photos of Nicole, Marc, Miles, Evangelina, Salwa, Caitlin, Beka, Jonathan, and Brett.  Next time I’ll get better photos of you guys.  Many thanks to all of my friends from New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Bangkok.  All of your US and foreign currencies really helped support IDOM too!  Thank you to my friend Sue for always letting me invade her house in New York with many trunk shows!  I’m also sending my mum and dad much love.  Thank you to them both for always believing in me.  And thank you to my lovely village!  This is truly a labour of love.

The best day at IDOM!

Sometime it is difficult to be at the shop all the time dealing with the public.  I am developing a much thicker skin as a designer and a human being.  I often get ignored when I say hello to people that come through the door.  Most often they don’t say goodbye or thank you.  Some even verbalized unbelievable comments about our clothes or our shop without any consideration for anyone feelings.  I always wanted to ask them “if they were raised by wolves?”  Where are the manners and the respect?  Should their parents be proud of the way that they behaved?  These are my fantasy lines.  No wonder that some retail people are so aloof to the public.  They have been hurt too many times.

So when great people appeared in my life.  They truly make my day!  I am so touched by their nice and pleasant interaction.  I met the most fun loving and great people today.  The day like this really makes me happy to do what I’m doing.  Yesterday was fantastic as well.  So sorry I didn’t have my camera to proof my evidence of a brilliant day.  Big shout out to wonderful New Yorkers, sweet LA girls, Minneapolis wonderful mom and daughter, and our own hip Portland Fuchsia.  All of you made me a happy camper!

I met the delightful beautiful Tara today.  She made me so ecstatic as a designer.  It is a pure joy to see my work on her.  She is a new proud owner of an Elizabeth dress.  Hooray!

Maura blouse also found a good home with Tara.  I adore the blouse with her jeans and her shoes.  Want those shoes.  Tara was so lovely and so sweet.  I had such a fun time chatting with her.  Thank you so much for letting me take your photos.  And thank you for supporting our IDOM.  You made my day so much better.  Thank you!

It was my lucky day to meet so many nice people.  Valarie to the left and James to the right took home these heart shaped rings from Bangkok.  James bought her auntie Valarie the matching ring.  The most wonderful people.  It was great to see James again.  I met her when we were on Alberta street.  These two women are looking beautiful.  Thank you for allowing me to take your photos.

Many thanks to all of you for making my day so much brighter.  I am so touched by your kindness.  My heart is full of joy.

Meet the beautiful Salwa

One of the best part about having my own shop is to meet rare wonderful individuals.  I have met some of my dearest friends in Portland through the shop.  I have mentioned about my friends Maura, Nicole, Marc, Angie and Caitlin before.  Yes, they are my best IDOM supporters.  I adore all of them tremendously.  Salwa is also one of my dear friends that I have met at the shop.  She found IDOM from Lucky magazine and tracked us down.  She also moved here from New York.  I really enjoyed chatting with her right away.  We have so many things in common.  I have said before that we were separated at birth.  Our sensibility are so alike.  Sometime we felt like that we were twins.  It was a perfect fit that she would be our IDOM buyer.  We are so pleased and very happy to have Salwa join us on this journey.  We are looking forward to have her sophisticated touches in our shop.  You will be seeing her blogging about all things beautiful via IDOM.

Salwa looks amazing in this new Jessie dress.  I changed the colour from deep dark blue to this spring papaya green.  I love it on her so much.  I might have to keep one for yours truly.

Mary dress and Salwa.  Come by and check out these new summer pieces in person.  We also have new jewelry collections. Stay tuned for shoes.

Maura and Billy

My friends Maura and Billy were one of the luckiest people to experience the Inauguration festivities.  I am very happy to see all of their fantastic photos.  Thanks Maura and Billy for sharing your images with us.

The stylish couple.  Maura and Billy on their way to an Inauguration party in Washington DC.  Maura is wearing an IDOM dress called Koh Samui.  She and her best friend Nicole were the models for this current Fall 08 collection.

Maura in Koh Samui dress for the underwater shoot.

At an exciting Inauguration day.

Billy and Maura at Inaugural Ball.  They both look so beautiful!

Our President and the First Lady at Western Ball.  Thank you very much to Maura and Billy for their delightful photos.  Thanks for sharing!

The Beautiful Salwa

My beautiful friend Salwa made my day by sending me this photo.  She has this authentic lovely modern way of putting her looks together.  Very chic, sophisticated, and just exquisite.  Salwa was really kind to wear an idom goddess dress to her sister’s wedding over this weekend in San Francisco.  I love her gray tights and bright vibrant yellow shoes.  The colours all work so well together.  The best thing about Salwa is that she always love to experiment with clothes.  And she has fun with it.  Perfect outfit!