The King of Shanghai

by Ian Hamilton

  “How long will it take you to set up?” May asked.

  “We’ve been ready all morning.”

  “You assumed we would want to do this?” Ava said.

  “When Amanda said you were coming, I couldn’t think of another reason.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I like your brother,” Ava said to Gillian as Clark ran ahead.

  “He will care more if you like his designs,” Gillian replied.

  As they walked through the factory, the employees left their machines and joined in behind them. Ava felt as if they were leading a parade. Clark led the congregation to a ten-metre-long strip of red carpet that ran along the concrete floor from a black curtain to four folding chairs. The employees took positions on either side of the carpet. They whispered among themselves, some of them eyeing the visitors, others staring at the black curtain, which was strung between two steel poles.

  Clark directed the Three Sisters party and Gillian to sit and then disappeared behind the curtain. The cloth moved every time an invisible body brushed against it, and Ava could hear Clark urging everyone to move faster. Then the curtain opened ever so slightly and Clark slipped through the crack. The women lining the carpet clapped, and several shouted his name. He nodded in both directions and then slipped backstage again. A moment later the curtain was drawn.

  Standing at the end of the carpet was a tall, thin, fresh-faced young woman, her hair drawn back tightly. She began to walk towards the seated women. She was wearing a frock coat, the upper part fitted, hugging her body, and the bottom flaring out into a skirt. The high collar looked as if it was inspired by the traditional cheongsam. Down the front were four orb-shaped powder-blue glass buttons; two smaller buttons of the same colour and shape were on each wrist. The coat was made of white linen, and even in the factory light it shimmered. As the model drew closer, Ava saw that the collar was trimmed in light blue.

  “That is spectacular,” May said.

  For the next thirty minutes, four young women modelled Clark’s work. There were jackets, coats, skirts, dresses, and blouses, all of them made from linen and all of them radiating colour in an array of reds, blues, purples, and pinks, by themselves or in combinations with white. Ava wasn’t a fashionista but she was her mother’s daughter; she could recognize quality, and Clark’s work was quality. Like the frock coat, the clothes hinted at their Chinese origin: collars she had seen on cheongsams, the voluminous sleeves associated with a man’s formal shenyi, jackets and skirts that combined elements of a Mao suit with the classic pien-fu style, and wide-bottomed pants that flowed as the models walked.

  After May’s initial reaction to the frock coat, no one spoke. Gillian repeatedly glanced at the other women. But the factory workers weren’t so quiet. They greeted each design with applause and shouts of encouragement. When the last model slipped behind the curtain, they knew the show was over and began to clap rhythmically. Clark emerged and stood among the four models, two on each side. He bowed, reached for the hands of the women nearest to him, and walked with them towards his sister and Ava, May, and Amanda.

  As they neared, Ava stood and began to clap herself. The others followed. Clark stopped a metre away from them and bowed again, his head almost touching his knees. When he looked up, Ava saw tears in his eyes.

  ( 7 )

  The four women walked back to the boardroom and sat around the table. Amanda began to speak but May cut her off. “Is Clark going to join us?” she asked Gillian.

  “Yes.”

  “Had you seen all those clothes before?”

  “Only piecemeal, never as a collection, and not on models. I hope you’ll pardon me when I say I couldn’t be prouder of my brother.”

  “And so you should be.”

  Clark arrived a few minutes later, his face flushed.

  “Bravo,” May said.

  “The clothes are wonderful,” Ava said.

  He lowered his head and Ava thought she detected tears again, but when he looked up, his eyes were dry.

  “How would you describe your style?” she asked.

  He sat down and took a deep breath. “I love the flowing lines of traditional Chinese clothing. I’ve been searching for ways to marry the attributes of something such as a cheongsam with a Western sensibility, to create a dress that a Western woman would feel comfortable wearing to a cocktail party in New York and a Chinese woman to a wedding in Hong Kong.”

  “You use the word comfortable,” Ava said. “That’s how I think your clothes look — things that a woman of any size could wear.”

  “That is my intention. I don’t want to make clothes only for women who have a model’s figure.”

  “Everything seems to be made of linen. Is that deliberate too?”

  “I worked with silk at first — Hangzhou silk, of course — but I couldn’t get away from its Chinese history and character. I found myself designing clothes that only a Chinese woman would wear. So I switched to linen. That freed my mind, allowed me to cross cultures.”

  “Isn’t the linen Chinese?”

  “No. We make linen in this country but it isn’t so natural to us, and the quality really isn’t that good. I looked to Italy, but the cost was prohibitive. Then I found fabric as good as the Italian in Lithuania, at a cost closer to what we would pay in China.”

  “How much does it cost?” May asked.

  “About twenty U.S. dollars a metre.”

  “And how many metres in the first coat we saw, or in a dress?”

  “Three metres in the coat, two to three in the dresses, and about two in the pants.”

  “And then you double the material cost to get the finished goods cost,” Gillian said.

  “So you can make a coat like that for a hundred and twenty dollars?”

  “Yes, something in that range,” Gillian said.

  “A coat like that would easily sell for fifteen hundred U.S. dollars in Hong Kong,” Amanda said.

  “The margins are healthy,” Gillian said. “And if we can get the name Po to mean something, then we can demand a premium.”

  “It is intriguing,” May said.

  Gillian picked up one of the binders. “I’ve prepared a five-year plan.”

  “We’re listening,” May said.

  For the next two hours, followed by a break for lunch, and then another four hours, Gillian painstakingly took them through the nuts and bolts of creating and growing the brand. It was a slow build, the first year devoted to laying the design groundwork and surrounding it with infrastructure and support systems. She wanted to roll out the brand at the end of that year, paving the way with an extensive public relations, advertising, and marketing campaign. Her plan was to first establish an Asian base and then gradually expand into Europe. She didn’t envision tackling the U.S. market until they had a presence and a track record in Europe. By year four she envisioned PÖ as a worldwide brand with sales in excess of US$200 million.

  Ava, May, and Amanda listened, often interrupting with questions. Ava made notes, as was her habit. Clark had pushed his chair back from the table, as if he had no interest in the business discussion. Twice he left the room for prolonged periods, but since he was so quiet when he was there, his absence was hardly noticed.

  It was late in the afternoon when Gillian closed the last page of her binder. “There, I’m finished. Thank you for your patience. Now, do you have any more questions for us?”

  “Yes, actually, I do,” Ava said. “We’ve heard from you today and from Amanda earlier that many of your clients have a very high opinion of Clark’s talents. Why didn’t you go to one of them? In fact, why didn’t you go to the company that bought your father and uncle’s business to bankroll you? It seems to me that they would be a better fit than us.”

  She saw Clark cast an anxious glance at his sister. Gillian caught it too, and then nodded briskly at him. “We did
go to them. We went to the company that bought the business, and then we went to two of the factory’s largest long-­standing customers. The new owner had no interest at all. Both of the customers were curious enough to kick our tires and then made half-hearted offers.”

  “Half-hearted?”

  “Basically they were prepared to put up a bit of money if Clark agreed to keep designing for their labels.”

  “I knew what that meant,” Clark said through tight lips. “Their labels would have all the priority. I could design my clothes in whatever pitiful amount of time was left over. And as for the money, what they offered was a joke. They were treating me like a child whose whims had to be satisfied so he could be kept under control.”

  “I don’t believe they were quite that condescending,” Gillian said. “But the money was totally inadequate, and the demands they would have placed on Clark to produce their own goods would have left him with virtually no time for anything else.”

  “Did you meet with anyone else?” Ava asked.

  “A couple of local people, but the chemistry wasn’t right.”

  “Thank you for being so honest.”

  “Can we take this plan with us?” May asked. “You have done an excellent job of taking us through it, but now we need to go over it at our own pace. And I’m sure you understand that any decision we make will not be based solely on number projections.”

  “Of course you can take the plan, and yes, I know the financials are only part of the decision-making process.”

  “Good. I know we’ll have questions when we’re finished. Can we agree to touch base again tomorrow morning? We know you don’t want to drag this out.”

  Gillian looked at Amanda, who to Ava’s eyes seemed uncomfortable. Had she made some kind of commitment?

  “No, I don’t want us to be kept hanging,” Gillian said. “You know, just as I do, that numbers can be massaged and manipulated, but I think my numbers are an honest representation of where we want to go and what it will cost. But all that aside, I think the big decision is whether or not you believe in Clark.”

  Ava glanced sideways at him. He was looking at them, each in turn. When his eyes caught hers, she saw something approaching defiance in them. There doesn’t seem to be any doubt, she thought, that Clark believes in himself.

  ( 8 )

  The car had barely cleared the factory gates when Amanda spoke. “You both know that I really want to do this. I really believe Clark is a genius.”

  “He is talented, and the clothes are beautiful,” May said.

  “But?”

  “Do you really think we’re just talking about ten million? It’s ten million to start, but that’s a very aggressive expenditure plan she has.”

  “We could cap it at that.”

  “No, I don’t want to go into this venture with that idea in my head. If we do it, then we have to be prepared to spend whatever it takes to make the venture successful. My problem is that I don’t know enough about the clothing business, let alone the fashion business, to be able to put a sensible number against it.”

  “I’m also uncertain how well we can do without our own stores,” Ava said.

  “You saw that Gillian has targeted high-end retailers as the initial selling vehicle,” Amanda said.

  “There’s still an entry cost.”

  “Yes, and truthfully it can be high. Some retailers would want us to provide dedicated staff, take positions in their magazines and in ads, and work with them at supporting margins. And there are always sell-offs and clearances,” Amanda said.

  “And, high entry costs or not, you still have to convince them that the clothes are worth carrying. The competition for space must be intense, and I’m sure others are just as willing to pay the price.”

  “That’s why, when you go over the plan again, you’ll see that Gillian has budgeted a ton of money for public relations and marketing. We need to get the name out there, both directly and indirectly, so we can create a demand that retailers can’t ignore. Actually, according to the people I spoke to, all we need is one retailer to champion the PÖ brand. But it has to be a company with a great reputation. We need to take our time laying the groundwork, but when we go to market, it has to be with a big enough buzz to draw that retailer to our side. That’s why she wants to spend so much money on a show to launch the brand, buying ads in the major magazines, and paying some celebrities to wear Clark’s clothes.”

  “And we can do all that for ten million?” May asked.

  “Gillian thinks so.”

  “Do you?”

  “We need to confirm it.”

  “How?”

  “I was going to recommend that we put Chi-Tze on the file. She did an analysis of the development and growth of the Shanghai Tang chain when she was at business school. She has a good understanding of what’s involved in creating a brand. I would like to bring her to Shanghai to sit with Gillian and take all the time she needs to crunch the numbers.”

  “We told Gillian we’d call her tomorrow,” Ava said.

  “We could always tell her we have an interest in moving forward with them, but that we need to confirm the numbers.”

  “Will she be okay with that?”

  “We’re the only people she’s talking to.”

  “You mean we’re the only ones left,” May said.

  “True enough, but she was honest about that, and she has told me more than once that finding the right partners is almost as important as getting the money. And they did turn down two offers, half-hearted or not, so they’re not entirely desperate.”

  “That doesn’t mean she’ll have the patience to wait,” Ava said.

  “There’s another question I have,” May said. “Assuming we decide to do this, is Gillian up to managing it? I have no worries about the design and production side, but this thing could succeed or fail based on how well they market. This isn’t a private label, where the goods you’re making are presold.”

  “I thought that either Chi-Tze or I could assume an active role. Being completely objective, I have to say that Chi-Tze has tremendous credentials.”

  May smiled. “It’s certainly sexier than running a trucking or furniture business.”

  “It’s also potentially far more profitable.”

  “I know. I was partly joking,” May said. She turned to Ava. “What do think? Are you prepared to risk a large portion of our capital on Clark Po? Are you prepared to jump into a start-up when we said we wouldn’t?”

  “I’ve always assumed there would be risk in whatever we did, and this is a case where the rewards might just justify it. But we do need to get a rough idea of how much money will actually be needed. I agree with Amanda that we need to bring someone like Chi-Tze into the picture, someone who has a better understanding of this kind of business than we do.”

  “Do you want to call her?” May said to Amanda.

  “I’d love to.”

  “Then do it as soon as you can, and if she’s agreeable, get her here as fast you can.”

  “She will agree.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. And she could get a flight into Shanghai early tomorrow morning.”

  “So you’ve already spoken to her.”

  “I called her this morning before we met for breakfast.”

  “Are we that predictable?”

  “No, I just asked her to be on standby in case she was needed,” Amanda said. “I’ll email her Gillian’s plans as soon as I get back to the hotel, so she can arrive at least partially briefed.”

  “Amanda, I like initiative, but don’t always anticipate I’ll go along with you,” May said, and then looked out the window as the Huangpu River came into view. “In some ways Gillian’s proposal is exactly why I wanted to get into this business. I just wanted to wait until we had our feet firmly on the ground. Nuts
-and-bolts businesses may be predictable and deadly boring, but they pay a lot of bills without a lot of stress. I’m not saying that I won’t go into something that provides some excitement, but we need to establish parameters. My appetite for financial risk is not unlimited.”

  “I agree —” Ava began, and then stopped as her words were overtaken by a yawn.

  “Jet lag?” Amanda said.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Are you going to be okay for dinner with Xu?” May said.

  “I should be able to stay awake that long.”

  “And Amanda, you’ll work with Chi-Tze tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before you do, I think you should call Gillian,” Ava said. “We told her we would get back to her tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of her spending the evening wondering what we’re going to do and then have to call her to say we’re bringing in Chi-Tze to look at the numbers.”

  “I think you’re being a bit too sensitive,” May said. “We said we would get back to her, and in my mind that isn’t necessarily with a decision. Gillian can’t think she can make us a business proposal and then expect instant action.”

  “I suspect it’s Clark who has the expectations,” Ava said. “Gillian is simply trying to fulfill them.”

  Traffic was light and the Oriental Pearl Tower was soon in sight. They crossed the Huangpu River and quickly made their way to the Peninsula.

  “Dinner is at seven and the restaurant is about a fifteen-minute walk away. What time do you want to meet in the lobby?” May asked.

  “Six forty?”

  “Perfect,” May said as the car stopped in front of the hotel.

  “Will you need us for anything?” Ava asked Amanda.

  “No, thanks. You can assume that Chi-Tze will be here first thing in the morning. I’ll take her directly from the airport to the plant.”

  “I’m sure it will go well,” Ava said, leading the way towards the elevator.