The Secret in the Suit Shop
How on earth had our CEO managed to win over New York's fashion magnate? The reason was beyond him. Even so, Ralph Warren received Jo Sudeok with a deep bow and every courtesy in the world, affection showing in the fineness of his gaze and in each careful turn of phrase. Jo Sudeok had only just finished marveling, all over again, at the CEO's way with people.
"I'm sorry to come bursting in without so much as a call."
"As if I'm anyone important enough to need one. Come by as freely as you like."
Ralph Warren promptly offered him something to drink.
"Will coffee do?"
"O-of course."
He brewed it himself: the finest Hawaiian Kona, the sort that ran well over a hundred and fifty dollars a cup. While the coffee sank by half, the two of them talked at an easy pace. For the most part Ralph Warren spoke of his daughter, and Jo Sudeok listened.
"The truth is, I had more or less given up on her studies."
"...?"
"But after she entered Royal School—more precisely, after she grew close to CEO Park Jihoon—the whole atmosphere changed. And so, I suppose, I've grown greedy myself."
"Greedy how?"
"I went and dropped a hint that she ought to aim for Oxford. CEO Park is bound for some famous university everyone knows, I told her, so shouldn't you be studying too?"
He spoke almost as if he had already marked the CEO for a son-in-law. Ralph Warren seemed to catch the implication himself.
"Here I am keeping a busy man and talking only about myself."
He hurried to change the subject.
"Now I'd like to hear a little from you, Professor."
"Ah, well—the truth is, I came because I have a favor to ask."
"A favor?"
"Yes. I came to New York on the CEO's orders. But whether it's my own lack of ability or not, the schedule keeps slipping."
"Don't be shy. Tell me. I'll help with anything within my power."
And so Jo Sudeok emptied out every last scrap of the information he had been given. New York. A skateboard. A young man with an eye. By rights the answer should have been, Is that all? Astonishingly, it was not. Ralph Warren's mouth curled as high as it would go.
Inside the moving taxi, Jo Sudeok turned Warren's words over again and again.
As it happens, there was a fellow I'd already had my eye on. The trouble is, his sensibility doesn't sit with our brand. In New York, out at the far edge of SoHo, there ought to be a surf shop. A young man sells T-shirts there on a shop-in-shop basis. Take one look and you'll think, This one's the real thing. You'll know at once.
No wonder he could have scoured the city and never found him.
I thought it was a skateboard. A surfboard, of all things!
Still, better to learn it late than never. A short while later the taxi set him down before a surf shop so worn it was practically falling apart. Not the West Coast—what was a place like this doing in the middle of New York? Jo Sudeok was still hovering out front when the glass door opened and a young man stuck his head out.
"Age doesn't matter when you're riding waves."
The young man studied Jo Sudeok's face and went on.
"Of course not. A man who's already weathered the waves of life—what's a little ocean to him?"
An impressively shameless line. What mattered more was the black T-shirt he had on.
"Remarkable."
"Right? Surfing, you see, is basically—"
"The T-shirt you're wearing."
"...?"
"Do you happen to sell it in the shop?"
"Ah. My little brother made this."
Oh! They had said one look and the feeling would hit you—and it was true.
"Might I meet that brother of yours?"
"He's in California right now."
"C-California? What for?"
"What for? To surf, obviously."
At that, Jo Sudeok's Adam's apple bobbed, hard.
That evening, at Royal School.
"You want an outing pass?"
At my request, Gary Pink's eyes narrowed.
"The weekend's almost here. Why not go out then?"
"I was under the impression we could leave when we had a legitimate reason."
"And the legitimate reason would be?"
"I'd like to find an office."
"...?"
"I'm thinking of starting a business."
"Hmm."
Gary Pink leaned back in his chair. An outing pass was hardly worth fretting over. What a wealthy freshman meant to launch—that was what had caught his interest.
"Do I need to submit a business plan as well?"
"Hardly."
He sat up straight.
"You'll need to write a brief account of what you did off campus and turn it in."
"If that's the procedure, of course I will."
"Good. Then from after class today until ten..."
He was rummaging through a desk drawer, about to write the pass, when I spoke again.
"Make it two, please."
"...?"
"I'll have company."
"Who?"
"Olivia."
The teacher seemed to be picturing the two of us together. Then he reached a conclusion.
"Are you going into business as partners?"
"Not partners. I want her advice."
"If it's business advice, I might be more useful than Miss Olivia..."
"It's to do with fashion."
"Ah. Fashion."
Gary Pink was a man who dressed, head to toe, in clothes that merely looked expensive, with no particular taste behind them. Perhaps that was why. At the word fashion, his neck drew in.
"You'll write the second outing pass, won't you?"
After class, Olivia and I left the grounds. The unexpected outing seemed to please her. Most kids her age would have been wondering what to eat for dinner. She went straight to business.
"You're starting a fashion business?"
"First I want to build a hideout."
"A hideout?"
"A place every man would dream of."
Every business needs a story. If this was to be the birthplace of a legend in fashion, the beginning had to be something special.
"From the outside it looks like an English suit shop. The farther in you go, the more a completely new mood opens up."
A question mark might as well have bloomed over her head.
"You walk in an English aristocrat and walk out a freewheeling American college student."
An English gentleman's suit, turned into Ivy League casual. From speakers that had been pouring out classical music, electronic beats would come thumping down. The concept must have amused her. Her eyes lit as she asked,
"You mean like a secret room?"
I nodded.
"Like a spy film—pull one book and the shelf swings wide open?"
"Bingo."
What man doesn't love a secret hideout?
"So you build a menswear shop and open another shop inside it?"
"No. I want to go into a shop that already exists, as a shop-in-shop."
"Where?"
"Somewhere you know."
It's been a while.
The shop that had become the model for the film Queensman. There could be no better space for a men's hideout.
"This is where we had our uniforms made."
Olivia recognized it at a glance, of course.
"Will it work?"
"Will what?"
"He's a master craftsman, knighted by the Queen herself. There's no way he'd agree to your proposal..."
"We won't know until we ask."
I strode into the shop. Fortunately, Sir Lewis welcomed me.
"It's been a while, my friend."
I grinned. It must have been right after we had talked about art. I remembered what he had said.
What does the number of years you've lived really matter? If you can look toward the same place, that makes you friends.
A glimpse of the man's character. I was grateful for the sentiment, but I bent at the waist all the same.
"Do you dislike keeping an old man as a friend?"
"Of course not."
"Then from now on, instead of that cumbersome bow, shall we simply shake hands?"
I answered with a bright smile, and then he asked,
"But aren't you forbidden to go out on weekdays?"
"Usually, yes. If there's a special errand, though, they let us out."
"And the errand?"
Sir Lewis looked me up and down, as if wondering whether something was wrong with the uniform.
"Nothing seems particularly amiss."
"Could we speak somewhere quiet for a moment?"
Ten minutes later, having heard my proposal, he asked with widened eyes,
"So you want to open a small shop inside ours?"
"Yes."
"Well, well."
"It isn't something I'm doing to make money. I don't intend to make the place public for the time being, so it won't inconvenience the shop."
Sir Lewis leaned back, chin propped on his hand. How long he stayed like that, I couldn't say. At last he asked, carefully,
"Why our shop, of all places?"
"Because of what it symbolizes."
"Symbolizes?"
"It's as good as the pride of English tailoring. Here we take in the inheritance of traditional dress, and then—"
"And in the secret base, you prepare a new age?"
I nodded. Sir Lewis seemed to turn my words over slowly. It was a proposal some people might have found offensive.
"Hmm."
Fortunately, he didn't seem to doubt my intentions.
"I knew you were no ordinary boy from the moment we talked about art."
That conversation had been little more than a quiz, in truth. All I had done was look at the masterpieces hanging in the shop and name their painters. Even so, it seemed to have left quite an impression. Sure enough, Sir Lewis leaned toward me.
"I expected you would walk a different path from other people. I did not expect it to be this soon—or that you would need my help."
"Does it unsettle you?"
"About half of me."
"And the other half?"
As I had done, he answered with a smile. It might have looked ambiguous at a glance. I grinned. Spend enough time with people and you develop a feel for them. Sir Lewis was deeply interested in me, and fiercely curious besides. As if to prove it, he spoke first.
"A secret space would require construction worthy of it."
"Yes."
"And the shop would likely have to close for a while."
Of course I meant to cover whatever he lost while the doors were shut. But Sir Lewis seemed to have something more important than money on his mind.
"As you know, this is a shop chosen by the royal household."
I nodded.
"That doesn't mean they interfere in how we run it. Still, I would need something to say to Her Majesty."
Here he looked at me steadily.
"You said you would take in the inheritance of traditional dress and prepare a new age."
"Yes."
"I should like to confirm the sincerity of that."
Sincerity.
Sir Lewis pressed on.
I gave him no answer. I only smiled, and the smile was full of confidence.