The Couturier of Milan

by Ian Hamilton

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Can we get hold of all our existing customers?”

  “I don’t see why not, since most of them are here in Asia. A few went to London, like Carrie Song, and some may even go on to Milan, but we have contact numbers.”

  “Then you, Chi-Tze, Gillian, or Clark —whoever gets along best with the particular account —should call all of them as soon as they’re open for business tomorrow. If they’re going to hear something ugly, it’s better that it come directly from us, with our spin on it.”

  “What is our spin?”

  “The truth. VLG tried to buy PÖ. We turned them down. Now they’re being vindictive.”

  “If that becomes public, Ventola will deny it. It will be our word against his.”

  “When isn’t it someone’s word against someone else’s? We have to believe that the people who know us will grant us some level of credibility,” Ava said. “And while you’re at it, get Chi-Tze or Gillian —not Clark —to send a letter to Fashion Times stating the very same thing. They tried to buy us and we declined. This is their payback.”

  “Gillian is officially the CEO.”

  “Then she should sign the letter.”

  Amanda drew a deep breath. “I thought it was too good to be true today. Nearly every prospective European and North American customer we contacted gave us a positive response.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to call them all back.”

  “Some of the Americans flew home after London, and it’s the middle of the business day there. We should be able to reach them and the Europeans before the end of the day.”

  “Let’s reach out right now. Most of the industry is already in Milan for Fashion Week, and the fact that they’re on VLG’s home turf already gives Ventola an advantage. We don’t want him talking to them before we do.”

  “There will be a great many awkward conversations.”

  “For all concerned, I would imagine.”

  “Yeah, well, let me start the ball rolling by calling Chi-Tze. No one in Shanghai, or me for that matter, is going to get much sleep tonight.”

  “I’ll talk to May. Some of our Asian customers are friends of hers. She might be able to help.”

  “How about Carrie Song?”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “She flew back to Hong Kong after London.”

  “I’ll call her myself first thing in the morning.”

  “What’s the best way to keep you updated?”

  “Phone me. I’m not going anywhere and this has my full attention.”

  Ava closed her eyes after she ended the call. She couldn’t remember the last time a day had gone bad so progressively. Crummy weather. Grandmaster Tang. Maria. And now this.

  Her phone rang and she almost jumped from the chair. She glanced at the number. It was her mother. She hesitated before answering, afraid that more bad news was about to be delivered.

  “Hi, Mummy.”

  “I’m so happy you’re back. It sounds like London was terrific.”

  “It’s too soon to say.”

  “I was going to invite you to dim sum. There’s a place I’ve discovered in Richmond Hill that’s the best I’ve eaten in years.”

  “Mummy, you do know it snowed all night and I’m not comfortable driving in ice and slush? Besides, traffic will be a nightmare.”

  “It isn’t so bad up here.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “But not too early. I have a mah-jong game and it will go on late.”

  Ava smiled. At least one person in her life could be depended on to be predictable.

  ( 14 )

  Ava called May Ling’s cell, but it wasn’t on. She left a message and called her office phone. That led to another message. She then sent her a text and, for good measure, an email. They all said essentially the same thing: “We have a big problem. His name, to no one’s surprise, is Dominic Ventola. Call me whenever you can.”

  She went online and found Fashion Times but couldn’t find the Ventola story. She guessed it hadn’t been posted yet and then immediately began to worry if it had been premature to tell Amanda to phone customers. No, she thought, the direction she’d given Amanda was correct, and it was the same that Uncle had always given her: If there was bad news for a client, it had to come from them. Coming from anyone else always made it seem worse than it was and in the process made them look untrustworthy. “We may not always be able to succeed,” he said, “but we can always be honest, and that will be remembered.”

  How would their current and potential customers react to the story and their explanation for Ventola’s comments, she wondered. She didn’t like to think that their existing Asian customer base would desert them based on an article in an English-language publication, especially given their sales success. But she actually wasn’t sure how they would react, given the strong influence that European brands had in Asia. The companies they were wooing in Europe and North America were another story. PÖ had no track record in either of those markets. Why would those companies support them when Dominic Ventola deemed the collection a failure? How many buyers would be brave enough to tell their bosses that the great Ventola’s assessment of PÖ was wrong?

  Her phone rang and she saw Amanda’s number. “Did you reach Chi-Tze?”

  “I did, and then she conferenced in the Pos,” Amanda said.

  “How did it go?”

  “Badly. Even though they knew it was a possibility, they obviously didn’t believe Ventola would go through with his threat.”

  “How bad was it?”

  “Gillian was really upset, and so was Chi-Tze. For the first five minutes Clark pretended that it didn’t bother him that much, but then he fell apart. I think he was crying.”

  “I’m surprised he was able to even pretend,” Ava said. “He’s worked all these years to get to this point, and now his work is publicly lambasted by the same man who two days ago called him a genius. It has to be devastating.”

  “Gillian and Chi-Tze are being incredibly supportive.”

  “Are they all, including Clark, prepared to call customers?”

  “Of course, and I’m sure it’s happening already. Clark did pull himself together before we ended our conversation, and he said he will do whatever is necessary.”

  “It’s the best thing to do.”

  “That’s what Clark said.”

  “Now we sit and wait.”

  “Not for that long. I imagine we’ll have some idea in the next hour or so about how things are going.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “I will,” Amanda said. “Have you spoken to May?”

  “No. I couldn’t reach her.”

  “Chi-Tze thinks that May’s gaunxi is so strong that her friends will never go against her.”

  “You think you know what people will do, but then money gets in the way and all predictions are off,” Ava said. “Call me when you have any updates.”

  She knew that waiting to hear back from Amanda was going to be torture. What can I do to kill time? she thought. The twelve-hour time difference between Toronto and Asia was seldom an issue, but now it was. She couldn’t reach May, wasn’t going to call Carrie Song so late, and had nothing to contribute to what Chi-Tze and the others were doing. She looked out the window. A mixture of sleet and snow was falling again, discouraging any idea of going outside.

  She went to the living room and turned on the television. She scanned the English cable channels for something to watch, but nothing captured her interest. She checked the Chinese channels. There was a soap opera on one, a news show on the next, and —to her delight —one of Pang Fai’s early films on the third. The film, called Family, followed the life of a young woman who was trying to support her parents, her younger sister, and two aged aunts during the Cultural Revolution. The film ended on a sombre note with the young woman’s death. Made by the wrong hands, it could have been a maudlin tear-jerker. But the director, Lau Lau, was brilliant and Pang
Fai was magnetic, so emotionally raw and bare that it didn’t feel like a performance.

  Lau Lau had been in his thirties when he made the film. Pang Fai was in her early twenties. He had discovered her during a casting call for a supporting role in an earlier film. They had moved in together and then married, but the marriage didn’t last long. Fai had left him just as the government began to withdraw financial support for his films and his career started a slow fade. It was common now for the Hong Kong tabloids to characterize her as an opportunist, marrying Lau to advance her career and then dumping him when he was no longer of use. Ava wondered if that was true. Maybe she’d have a chance to ask one day.

  Regardless of what happened to him in later years, Lau Lau had made a number of films that were to Ava’s mind some of the best ever to come out of China. Family was at the top of that list. Even though she knew the storyline in detail, Ava watched it again with fresh eyes and quickly became absorbed in Pang Fai’s performance. She physically inhabited the role, her body language subtle but powerful and her eyes large and luminous. There was a scene late in the film when her character confronted a government official and begged him for food for her family. The look on her face as she made the request and then when he denied it moved seamlessly from hope to humiliation to despair. Ava wept every time she watched it. Now she wept again.

  When the film ended, she went to the bathroom to dry her eyes and splash some cold water on her face. When she came back, her phone was ringing.

  “It’s Amanda.”

  Ava looked at her watch. It was almost one-thirty. “What’s the news?”

  “Well, some of the calls were very complicated, particularly with the prospective customers. Frankly, some of them weren’t pleased to hear from us.”

  “Had they seen the article?”

  “I don’t know if any of them had seen it, but they’d all heard about it,” Amanda said. “The reporter at Fashion Times wasn’t the only person who heard from Dominic Ventola or his company today. Senior marketing people at VLG have been at work trying to poison our business with every major retailer in Europe and North America. They started contacting them around noon, Milan time, which was after we’d closed shop for the day in Shanghai, feeling very good about ourselves.”

  “My god, they’re eager. Many of those companies will be in Milan in the next day or two. You would think they’d have waited to talk to them then.”

  “It sounds like their plan was to coordinate the calls with the release of the Times article. Then the news would dominate the talk in Milan.”

  “And it was employees, not Dominic or Raffi, who made the calls?”

  “I guess Dominic thought it was beneath him or Raffi, at least so far.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They pretended the article was the reason they were making contact. The message was ‘We don’t know if you’re considering carrying that new PÖ line, but if you are, you might want to read what Mr. Ventola has to say about it in Fashion Times.’”

  “I can’t believe those companies would buy into what he has to say. Surely they’re capable of making their own judgements about Clark’s work.”

  “Yes, but some of the mainstream retailers are quite conservative. They want a sure thing. They don’t want to gamble on a relative unknown, especially when Dominic Ventola, as you said earlier, publicly decimates his work.”

  “Did they tell you that?”

  “Not directly, but they made it clear they weren’t going to be buying from us anytime soon. We were told to come back in three to six months. They said they’d reconsider the line then, based on how well PÖ was doing in the market,” Amanda said. “They just want us to go away.”

  “How many companies are we talking about?”

  “We were negotiating with ten different companies. That conservative group represented six of them.”

  “What about the other four?”

  “This is where the conversations between our team and the buyers became a little bizarre,” Amanda said. “Even those who still maintained that they liked Clark’s work and wanted to carry it wouldn’t make any kind of immediate commitment. When we pushed them, two said they didn’t want to have issues with VLG.”

  “Issues? What does that mean?”

  “Evidently when one of the buyers told the VLG representative that she still intended to carry PÖ, the rep said it would be unfortunate if she found herself having to decide between carrying PÖ or the entire VLG line, because it was unlikely she could carry both.”

  “Good god.”

  “Chi-Tze was stunned when she heard it.”

  “So how many new accounts do you think we have a chance to land?”

  “As of right now, none that amount to anything,” Amanda said.

  “Are you worried about the existing ones?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? So are Chi-Tze and Gillian. We’d like to think we’ve built some solid relationships and developed a loyal following, but how are those customers going to react if VLG drops a big hammer on them?”

  “As in either sell VLG or PÖ but not both?”

  “Exactly. I can’t even begin to count how many designer brands VLG controls, and that includes shoes, clothes, perfume, bags, and even liquor. They have to represent a big percentage of those retailers’ sales. We’re a sliver, a decimal point.”

  “Do you really believe that VLG is willing to throw away business to get at us?” Ava said, and then quickly answered her own question. “Of course they’re not. They know damn well that the retailers have only one option.”

  “Drop PÖ.”

  “Yes. But we are making the assumption that VLG will take the same approach with our Asian customer base as they did with the European and North American companies. I don’t think that’s necessarily certain. They may be less willing to try to strong-arm an Asian company to drop an Asian supplier.”

  “Ava, I know it’s nice to think that VLG might be culturally sensitive, but they know this is all about money, and that’s how our customers will think as well. We can’t expect them to stay with us because of our home base. But we’ll know soon enough. We start making phone calls to Asia at eight.”

  “I’m going to call Carrie Song then as well.”

  “That will be an interesting test case.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Have you talked to May yet?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach her.”

  “Well, the way I look at it, if you can’t convince Carrie to keep us in her stores, and if May can’t get her friends to hang in there with us, we’re not going to have much of a business left,” Amanda said. “We need a break of some kind. Maybe the story won’t run.”

  “Just a second,” Ava said, checking her computer. “The story is online now.”

  “So much for a break.”

  ( 15 )

  Ava contemplated the hours she had to kill before she could call Carrie Song or expect to reach May, and she knew she’d never last that long in the condo. She bundled up again and headed outdoors. She walked to Lowther Avenue and knocked on Grandmaster Tang’s door, but there was still no answer. She walked back to Avenue Road and began heading south, but then she came to an abrupt halt, turned, and walked north.

  The snow had turned to sleet and the wind had picked up, driving more fiercely into her face. She pulled down her tuque as far as it would go, burrowed her chin into her scarf, and concentrated on taking one step at a time.

  She walked for close to an hour in a straight line towards Upper Canada College, the all-boys private school for Canada’s elite. She knew from her running route that it was just over three kilometres from her condo to the school, a distance she usually ran in twelve to fifteen minutes, depending on traffic lights. If the sidewalks had been dry, it would have taken her thirty minutes to make the walk, but this was a slog.

  As she reached the college, the pale winter sun began to ebb behind a bank of clouds. The greyness suited her mood. She stopped and tu
rned south. She walked methodically, one foot in front of the other, trying not to slip.

  “You bastards, you fucking bastards,” she said under her breath more than once.

  It was completely dark by the time she got near Yorkville. She wasn’t sure of the time, but she’d walked long enough to focus her mind, work off some anger, and build up an appetite. There was an Italian restaurant near her condo that she liked, but anything Italian was anathema to her right now. It came down to a choice between Chinese and Japanese. She opted for Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant on Yorkville Avenue.

  It took her several minutes to warm up enough to take off her hat and scarf. She sipped tea while she read the menu and then ordered hot and sour soup for two, steamed bok choy, and a glass of Chardonnay. While she waited for the wine, she took her phone from her pocket and checked incoming calls. May had phoned an hour ago. Ava hadn’t heard a ring or felt any vibration. “Shit,” she said as she hit May’s number.

  “May, sorry. My phone was in my pocket and I was outside walking and didn’t hear it.”

  “I got your messages,” May said.

  “It isn’t a good situation,” Ava said.

  “I know. A few minutes ago I got a call from one of my business acquaintances who put the PÖ line into her stores in Hubei. It isn’t a big operation, only four stores, but she does well enough. She told me that the local VLG rep called to say they had been told to pull all their lines out of her stores unless she dropped PÖ. I couldn’t reach you, so I phoned Amanda. She told me what’s going on.”

  “I was hoping they’d tread more carefully on our home turf,” Ava said. “I’m surprised at how direct a threat that is.”

  “It could be a case of the VLG rep getting a general directive and then taking it to the extreme. The closer you get to the ground, the more ferocious the competition.”

  “I hope it’s an isolated incident.”

  “I don’t think it is. I’ve talked to some other people and they’ve received the same message, although not quite as blunt.”

  “How are they reacting?”

  “They don’t want to cut and run from PÖ, but from a practical viewpoint they don’t want to lose VLG. I have a friend in Wuhan who owns a high-end designer-label boutique but is also the agent for VLG’s liquor business in the province. I can’t blame him if he chooses to drop us. Others are hanging in there, probably because they’re more afraid of me than VLG.”