By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas

With the dizzying technological changes, the tastes and lifestyles of people are also changing in the same way. Everybody in business big or small had been mulling changes in their outfits to keep pace or to cope. With the lapse of the pandemic, the time of thinking ended. Time now to implement what had been percolating in everybody’s head. The only thing that might have been cautioning people is how fast can the market really go back to pre-pandemic levels. Is this the right time to really go full speed?
In my case, it think it is, but there are things holding me back, my health concerns. Yet it is really time to get moving, though going full speed is beyond my wildest dreams. Perhaps this time could be some sort of a warming up stage. Then slowly pick up the pace as the market or the environment, particularly the market, also picks up the pace. As my health concerns would also fade away.
What decided things for me was the opening of the Vans Shoes Store at SM City Baguio last Tuesday. I was invited to its blessing and, boy, was I awakened. I got inspired by what I saw.
For decades, I had been seeing friends who came from abroad using Timberland shoes. As they attested, they’d been using them for years and years and yet they are still in very good condition. Others acquired their pairs from ukay-ukay stores and yet, despite their age, they could still be counted on in terms of comfort and in keeping away water from seeping to the inside. One even used his as rain boots during the rainy seasons. And everybody knows the kind of downpour we get during such times.
The Vans Shoes company is the sister ccompany of one producing Timberland shoes, boldly advertised to be FOR THE BOLD.
Browsing at their display in the Vans store just before the priest arrived for its blessing, they really looked durable and long lasting—in addition to their being stylish. Even their pants and shirts and other apparel.
From my short conversation with the firm’s young and beautiful CEO, I found out their stocks-in-trade were manufactured in California. This brings me to the other point why I was there. To really see how high the quality of their products were and perhaps try to inspire local manufacturers to aspire to such standards.
In this highly competitive world, the assurance to survive through the coming decades is to be competitive with those who pride themselves of producing the best.
The real test of course on how good really are Vans products would be in the “using.”
So I can’t wait to start implementing my expansion plans for this paper and its online version which will be to cover the outdoors. It will present innumerable opportunities to really test the much ballyhooed high quality of Vans shoes and the company’s other products.
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