Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand - February 2013
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Todays classic, and apologies to any French who may read this.
Over dinner tonight we had a European history lesson. One of the thing I explained was the "Hunded Years War" between the English and the French. Haraki's comment which Sarina had to translate between fits of giggles….
"Fighting the French for a 100 years, that's like flogging a dead horse!"
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Do not jump to conclusions and do not make assumptions…
I have been talking to Pronto for some time now. Indeed I met Chnanon, the owner, in Berlin lat summer. A nicer more unassuming person you would be hard pressed to find.
His low key bearing, combined with both his decision to concentrate on his home market and the fact that I have very few direct Thai customers, led me to assume, Pronto was a nice little niche denim store in a country with dubious demand for Japanese denim.
I got an inkling of how wrong I was, when his orders started coming through, they are large. I won't tell you how large, but I started to concentrate.
This guy has 7 stores, with plans to open a few more this year. I only saw two, but they were amongst the best I have seen anywhere.
I popped into the Siam Square store today unannounced and on my own (the Japanese lightweights needed a rest). Chnanon was there, so we got to talking.
I asked some questions about how many of X, Y and Z he ordered. The answers made my eyes water. When I told Haraki, his eyes popped.
If I learned one thing from this trip it was do not judge a book by its cover.
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And yet Pronto is the only retailer in Thailand.
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Popped into to Pronto in Siam Square this afternoon and saw 2 things that interested me…
Throughgood/Pronto collab Roofers...
A great mod to the 43200G. Get ready for some surgery Unity…
Popped into take 5 for a look/see. great shop and great people…
And had to buy this for Seul…
Am now waiting patiently at Bangkok Airport for my plane to whisk me home….
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More great pics here…..
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.602759019739757.150986.314908188524843&type=1
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What's the Union Special mod?
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Looking forward to having the denim pimp back in Blighty
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have a safe trip G. and thanks a bunch for all the pics and story telling…I really enjoyed your tour and Sarina
All sentiments backed!
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Stole this one from the Pronto FB page, I'm pretty sure you gents won't mind
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The oil reservoir on top of the machine. Normally there is just a trap door though which you add oil to lubricate the main bearings. The oil reservoir allows a much larger volume of oil to be added and thus longer time between oil top-ups.
Ah, couldn't figure out what it was. That does sound like a smart addition.
