Kids still good at some things
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Flynow Group founder Somchai Songwatana has been there and done that in his three decades in the fashion industry, but he still hasn't quite seen everything
What’s been surprising him lately is the “power” of the young generation of clothing creators. “I’ve been relying on young designers while expanding my business and I’ve got to say they are the cream of the industry,” he tells Soopsip. “They are much better than I was at the same age.”
While Somchai is busy broadening the market for Flynow III and his other brands, the young upstarts are showing their skills at both design and sales, and his son Now’s wife Chailairat – nicknamed “Bi” – is running her own boutique, Bi Chalai, at Siam Center. Its clothes are feminine, trendy and not cheap, and draw celebrities like Patchrapa “Aum” Chaichua, who’d spotted the dresses on Instagram.
Somchai was pleasantly “jealous” when his daughter-in-law posted Bt1.5 million worth of sales in her first five day after opening on January 10. That, says the “old man”, is how much Flynow banked in its first month.
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Oh, well
Hollywood and global movie audiences are just going to have to go without Thai comedian Petthai “Mum” Wongkamlao a while longer. It turns out that he’s not going to appear in a film opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme after all.
Mum, star of several Thai movies that did well overseas, including “Ong-Bak” and “The Bodyguard”, sounded enthusiastic earlier this month when he declared he’d soon make his debut in a foreign film but, asked more recently if the contract was signed, only mumbled something about Van Damme being “very much in demand and so am I”.
“So I don’t know if I can really make it, but if I can’t, it must be destiny. If my fate is to do a foreign film, then I will have a chance,” he explained, sort of.
“I won’t waste my time regretting it if I lose this opportunity. If I were that kind of loser, I’d be pedalling a tricycle-taxi in my hometown right now.”
