Branching out

What began as a small stall in Greenhills soon morphed into a label that spawned more than 20 stores and advertising billboards that litter highways with big-name celebrity endorsers. Such are the stories of retail bigwigs. Just as Gap and Banana Republic’s humble beginnings changed radically, so has Plains & Prints’ fortunes.

Roxanne Ang-Farillas and her husband, Erickson, were in college when they began their business. When their little operation – with Roxanne creating clothes and Erickson assisting in sales, generally in the direction of Roxanne’s classmates – became profitable, the couple moved into a modest 10-square-meter stall in Shoppesville. One stall after another came and went, with the label currently tagging about 19 branches and 10 franchises all over the country.

Today Plains & Prints boasts not one but two celebrity endorsers. Gretchen Barretto opened the floodgates with a campaign that celebrated a kind of playful classicism. Her hair swept up, a smile perched on her lips, arms braced on her waist – it is a picture of a confident woman, the kind who makes sensible choices but still has an offbeat sense of humor.

It’s this lack of concern for trends that separates the label from the rest of the pack. Instead, Plains & Prints’ pieces are imbued with a kind of contemporary vibe. Puff sleeves are added to slim-fitting polos. Trousers are cut knee-length to achieve a boxy silhouette. Prints achieve a thinner, grainier effect on thin-as-air cotton. Jackets are ribbed with pale pink ribbons at the waist. It’s the little details that make Plains & Prints’ collections current, but it’s their affinity for classic style that gives them charm.

Their latest celebrity endorser doesn’t veer away much from the label’s formula: take one classic beauty, pair it with a zany sense of humor mixed with an artless sincerity.

Denise Keller is the last girl you’d expect to be a model. Not that she’s lacking in the looks department – quite the opposite, in fact. Rather, her oddball behavior makes her a standout in a crowd of cool and composed models too busy preening and looking beautiful to even laugh at a joke. The kind of behavior documented on Denise’s shows on MTV, where she is a VJ, makes her seem like the kind of girl you’d find at a coffee shop, trading jokes with the guys on a couch in a corner. But there she is smiling down from a billboard – with a Ford Supermodel of the World title tucked somewhere in her resume – her model persona miles away from the kind of laid-back, laugh-out-loud personality she presents on screen. Which makes her, oddly enough, perfect for Plains & Prints.

She says candidly, "I can look at my life and say, I love what I do and I’m lucky to get to do what I love."

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Plains & Prints boutiques are located at SM City North Edsa, SM Megamall, Shangri-La Plaza Mall, Alabang Town Center, SM Sucat, Robinsons Galleria, Market Market, Robinsons Place Manila.