Word: fiona
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like Ports itself, Cibani arrived on Seventh Avenue via a 12-year detour in China. She was 19 when she decided to join her elder sister Fiona, then a menswear designer, at a Canadian company called Ports International. The company had its heyday in the '70s and early '80s when its clothes were carried by stores like Bergdorf Goodman. But by 1989 the brand had lost some of its stature and was purchased by Alfred Chan, a Canadian entrepreneur who was born near Xiamen and raised in Hong Kong. Chan married Fiona and made the unlikely decision to move...
...steamy, crowded Chinese city where the foreign population numbered in the dozens and not many locals spoke English. By 1994 he had worked with a few designers, and he persuaded his wife and her younger sister to give Xiamen a six-month try. "The deal," says Fiona, "was, if we didn't like it, we'd move home." Tia, who had been attending classes at Parsons School of Design in New York City, agreed to tag along. She left behind her friends and a boyfriend, "who said I was nuts," she laughs...
...first, both sisters had doubts about the sanity of their move. Neither had ever been to China or spoke Chinese. They understood little about their customers. "Our first season, we did a forest green for fall," Fiona recalls. "Ports had been known for that British look. But people here said, 'What is that? The mailman wears that.'" Meanwhile, Tia struggled with foreign suppliers. "Although Ports had a big reputation in North America, when we came here, we would go to the suppliers and say, 'Now we need our fabrics to come to China.' And they were like...
...Beyond Ms. Hilton, I extend the roster of potential exceptions to Jessica Alba, Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Aniston, Fiona Apple, Ashanti - in fact, to save some time, just continue alphabetically with celebrity females until Catherine Zeta-Jones...
Your fans, who thought the record company was holding you back, launched a "Free Fiona" movement. Were you touched? I was impressed they were so organized. They sent the record company apples. Did they have meetings? Did somebody have to figure out where to get the apples...