Roxanne Ang-Farillas, owner of fashion giant Plains & Prints, recently appeared on CHiNOY TV’s podcast, Rise Up. She is well-known locally to be an inspiring leader and creative business person with a love for fashion.
She started out from humble beginnings as a finance student, when she would sew clothes and bring them to school to sell to her classmates. Now, her business is one of the biggest fashion brands in the country with numerous branches in malls and department stores nationwide.
Here are 5 key takeaways for aspiring entrepreneurs from this podcast episode with Farillas:
1. Be original, get creative.
“It’s not just about creating and conceptualizing or just designing. It’s the whole package that I have to oversee,” Farillas said. She created a local empire that develops and produces clothes from scratch. Farillas also shared how her Filipino customers appreciate the brand’s creativity and that it’s locally made, creating jobs for Pinoys. “I still make it a point to make sure that we still give jobs to Filipinos.”
2. Collaborate and share the spotlight.
“[Plains & Prints] keeps on innovating ourselves from time to time by having collaborations,” Farillas explained. “It’s not just creating our own pieces, but we need collaborating with the different designers, photographers, and interesting people in the fashion industry to showcase and to show people the talent of the Filipinos, and for our clients to have a piece of the designers as well.”
3. Engage with good business partners.
“We are always in search of good business partners. I think that’s the key for us to really grow and tap into different areas, to different markets. It would be best if we can actually partner with great people as well,” Farillas said. “It’s very hard but I think with good partners and good franchisees, we are able to expand Plains & Prints and so [that] it’s more accessible to everyone.”
4. Pivot amid the pandemic.
“You know, 2020 has been difficult, I think for everyone, not just for our retail but for everyone,” Farillas said. “But for us specifically, we needed to … come up with something that people will actually be able to buy because they have shifted their preferences when the whole lockdown started last March.”
Since the pandemic brought about changes in the market, entrepreneurs must take action to sustain their business. “I was getting bored thinking, ‘What do we have to come up with?’ Now that it’s clear that people wouldn’t be shopping for clothes to go out because we are in a lockdown. So we have to think of products that people would really be interested in. So around April, we were thinking, why don’t we come up with masks? So what we came up with was the multipurpose outerwear,” Farillas said. “It is something that you can wear even after the whole pandemic.”
5. Don’t be afraid to learn more!
Farillas is aware that there are a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs out there, but they may feel discouraged due to the global crisis.
“You just need to be patient — hard work and determination. Don’t be afraid to fail,” Farillas advised. “Don’t also be afraid to learn more. Other people, kasi, don’t want to get told what to do. But it’s a never-ending process of learning and development.”
Farillas admitted that even up until now, she continues to learn. “I learn from my team, and my team learns from me. So it’s a two-way process. It’s not just teaching what I want them to do, but I’m also listening to what they’re telling me. So I’m also learning from them at the same time.”
For more advice on how to Rise Up, check out some of our previous podcast guests, such as Dr. Ging Zamora, Camille Co, Tim Yap, Nicole Cordoves, and more.
