Dare to bare and wear their ware

No money, no clothes
Image source: Desigual Blog

FOR CASH-STRAPPED Spaniards, Desigual’s end-of-season sales give them the chance to shed their fashion inhibitions . . . by shedding their clothes.  Yesterday, the flamboyant clothing brand from Spain opened their summer sale in Madrid with the nakedly daring “Come In Undressed and Go Out Dressed” campaign, where 100 people strip down to their undergarments to avail of free shopping.  Undressing may be a ploy to ensure that those shoppers really have no money on them.  Or have the most perfectly imperfect bodies to fit into those broken-sized end-of-season markdowns.

Romina and Arman mark five years!

Arman, Romina, and Naysan Imani
Image source: Shamelessly stolen by Paul from Arman's Facebook profile

IN THE flurry of my birthday on 16 June, I missed the fact that two of the most beautiful couples I have ever met celebrated their fifth year of togetherness on the same day. In 2007, my friends Romina and Arman Imani decided to live their lives in perpetual unity. It's been five years since I wrote excitedly on this blog about their getting engaged, and five years since I gushed over their getting wed.

Championing women’s heart disease

GUESS WHAT kills women more than any other illness around the world?  It’s not cancer; it’s heart disease.  How ironic that a woman sustains the lives of others by using her heart . . . and then faces death with a disease that plagues her own heart!

Turning 47

THE DOORBELL rang at eight this morning, surprising me with a home delivery of flowers and surprising me even more about its source: the management team of Globus Stores! I've received flowers on my office desk, but never brought personally to me at home—and that, too, from my professional leadership team. It sweetens the thought of being valued well, and the value of being thought well. It's a memorable gesture on a memorable day.

When I turned 46 last year, I reflected at how quickly I reached that age.  I wrote:

Now I understand why the first 30 or 35 years of your life seem to be the longest and slowest--you spend all that time building up a cache of dreams, hopes, triumphs, regrets, fears, and tears. 

Today, as I turn 47 and being remembered by my leaders at work, I look back to those first 30 or 35 years of my life, to remember another leader, one who forged my dreams and hopes in the most masterful way. He was my father, Catalino Ancheta, who passed away ten years ago.  His greatest legacy is my family's spiritual foundation: the Bahá'í Faith, which he introduced to my mother and to each of my five brothers and five sisters.  It's a gift that forever changed my understanding of how life must be lived, for oneself and for others.  It's a present that remains unmatched and irreplaceable, the greatest I've ever had and will probably ever have.

Turning 47, I honor my father . . . and all our fathers!

Related Stories: Turning 41 | Turning 42 | Turning 43 | Turning 45 | Turning 46

One year in Mumbai, this time

IT’S BEEN a year since I joined Globus Stores and moved back to Mumbai.  In fact, moving to India’s biggest city was one of the main reasons I accepted the new role in Globus.  This city was my welcome mat to Indian in 2005, the place of my happiest memories of adapting into a new, chaotic world and building lasting friendships.  When I moved to the sedate Kolkata in 2007, I didn’t realize how much I would miss Mumbai’s sense of self and camaraderie.

Globus returns to Kanpur

Globus Kanpur Store Launch
Link reference: Paul Ancheta on Vimeo.

GLOBUS STORES, India's premier fashion specialty store, opened its 36th branch last Friday at Z Square Mall in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.  This also marks the return of Globus to this north Indian city, having closed its first (and highly successful) store there a few years ago.  See how the new store looks like in the video below.