Natori:: Indulge yourself

She wasn’t talking about a banana split, of course.

She was referring to the indulgence of luxuriating in beautiful clothes and the softest of bed linen.

She told PeopleAsia magazine, whose cover she graces this month: “Natori is a mindset. It’s a total way of being and living. It’s making a woman feel good, letting her enjoy luxury every day, and enriching her life.”

“For me, it’s all about indulging a woman. Indulgence is a necessity!”

Philippine-born Josie Natori was in Manila lately for the launching of her Fall-Winter Collection, which is inspired by the opulence of Istanbul, with its Ottoman palaces, precious gems and rich fabrics. The collection was unveiled at the Presidential Suite of the Raffles Hotel in Makati.

 “I drew inspiration from Istanbul, the ever dynamic crossroads bounding with pampering baths, eclectic markets, glittering palaces and whirling dervishes,” says the designer.

While the sitting room displayed mannequins in Natori, the bedrooms beckoned with beds clothed in indulgent Natori sheets.

For the Josie Natori RTW line, intricate patterns, stitching, and centuries-old handiwork make their way on sharp, tailored dresses and cover-ups, while an old-world Byzantine influence is featured in cuffs, earrings, and necklaces. The Turkish story continues with the Josie Natori collection, taking inspiration from intricate Turkish tiles. The collection features a color palette of blues and reds tempered by silver and white, trimmed with lace and embroidery. Finally, the Natori line offers cozy knits and silk charmeuses adorned with lace and blossoms, and finished in a spectrum of jewel tones that call to mind the artful complexity of Byzantine mosaic. Balanced with neutrals, the collection is nothing short of wearable pieces that add an interesting aesthetic to one’s daily wardrobe.

The same meticulous attention to detail can be found in the exquisite collection of Natori Home, which features luxurious 400 thread count sheets, Euro shams, bed runners, throws, pillows and duvets.

Her satin bed sheets are opulent and divine, and she reasons, “I don’t understand why women don’t spend more on their bed when they spend practically one-third of their time there!”

“You deserve it!” she emphasizes. Because 100 percent of Josie’s clothes are manufactured in the Philippines, Filipinos will be the first to get a glimpse of her collection. Available locally only in Rustan’s, Natori’s FW collection has tapered waists, balloon skirts and sophisticated tops. Some of them are embellished with Josie’s signature embroidery — her ticket to fame as a designer was an embroidered blouse that she sold to Bloomingdale’s 38 years ago.

Natori has gone beyond clothes and is now into accessories,  furniture and bed and bath under the Natori Home label.           

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In Japanese, natori means, “the highest form of art.” In the past 38 years, Josie Cruz-Natori has assumed more than just her husband Ken’s name. She assumed its meaning. She has, indeed, made every Natori on the rack natorious.??

 Her femininity and light frame belie the steel backbone of the investment banker-turned-designer, the first Filipina to establish a world-class New-York-based brand, Natori. Josie’s femininity embroiders her life, the fabric of which is soft, velvety, but not fragile — it can withstand and has withstood the elements, lace embroidery intact.???

“I come from a family of very strong women. My grandmother Josefa Almeda was a very strong woman and I am the eldest of 33 grandchildren. I grew up in an atmosphere where there were a lot of expectations. My father (the late Felipe Cruz) used to call my grandmother ‘supreme commander-in-chief,’ and my mother (Angelita) was the ‘commander-in-chief’.”???

Having come from a home where the hand that rocked the cradle held the purse-strings, Josie, even in NYC, was never daunted. “No one stopped me from becoming whatever I wanted to be. I had no feelings of inferiority. I never had the feeling that I was less than the men. I always felt that I could be what I wanted to be. Nobody could stop me.”???

Her self-confidence and her lola’s entrepreneurial legacy encouraged her to think out of the box. Taking a break from Wall Street (she was the first female vice president of investment banking at Merrill Lynch) she presented some hand-embroidered Philippine-made blouses to a buyer at Bloomingdale’s.

They were such a hit that soon, Josie had to kiss investment banking goodbye. Turning an asset of her countrymen — dainty craftsmanship — into her strength, Josie would then lace the fashion world with a whole new way of dressing. From embroidered blouses, Josie turned inward to lingerie, and from that day on, fashionable women never took their lingerie for granted again. It became okay to let your slip show — as long as it was a Natori.???

“Lingerie,” says Josie, who learned to play the piano at the age of four, “is an expression of yourself. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you wear your crappy stuff. Lingerie is femininity. Because like fragrance, it’s the closest thing to touch your skin.”

?“If you were to ask me my two greatest assets, I would say number one, my being a woman, and two, my being a Filipina,” says the 88-lb. Josie.

And that’s why she’s natorious.