Ideas & Opportunities

In 2010, clothing retail store Freeway officially launched the fourth collection in its National Artist Collector’s Series. The event showcased around two dozen new pieces of women’s apparel—from graphic tees, dresses, blouses and tunics—all inspired by the works of Ramon Valera, the first designer to be hailed as National Artist for Fashion. Indeed, the 14-year-old brand has come a long way from being a line offering basic pieces for teenagers.

Although she wasn’t a newcomer to the fashion retail industry, Gotuaco admits that launching her second brand presented a bit of a learning curve. “It helped that we had Ensembles because we already had a system for training the sales team and for operations,” she shares, “but as with any new brand, it’s a challenge to find the market and know what they like.”

Daily sales reports helped Gotuaco determine which silhouettes were a hit with the market and how to develop a healthy merchandise mix. She also tweaked the operational side of the business—improving the audit and inventory system, for one—to turn Freeway into a viable brand.  

Eventually, people took notice as offers started trickling in to franchise Freeway. “We had offers for franchising in Manila, but we always turned them down,” says Gotuaco, who prefers to be hands-on with all of Freeway’s Manila outlets. But she does entertain franchisees who want to bring the brand to the Visayas and Mindanao. “We look for partners who can help us look out for the brand like it is their own, and who have good locations in those areas that are difficult for us to reach,” she explains.

While Freeway has been growing at a healthy pace—there are now six franchises in the VisMin area and 19 branches in Metro Manila—Gotuaco acknowledges that managing the competition is a persistent challenge. So it is critical to keep coming up with the next big thing.

“It was a very big risk on our part because we always had actresses as endorsers for Freeway,” says Gotuaco. “We didn’t know how the market would react to it, but we wanted to give it a try because these artists are our national treasures,” she explains. To kick off the collection, Gotuaco chose to launch the Nick series, Joaquin being a National Artist for Literature.

In between the Joaquin and Valera series, Freeway launched two more collections featuring the works of National Artist for Visual Arts Ang Kiukok and National Artist for Literature Jose Garcia Villa. With National Artists being proclaimed every three years, Gotuaco is confident that Freeway can sustain what has become a defining and revolutionary concept for the brand. The public can also expect the National Artist Collector’s series to become even better interpretations of the talents it honors.

“We want to push the limit in terms of technology—the way the beadworks or cuts are done—because the higher the technology, the more we can highlight the works of the artists,” explains Gotuaco. “There will be a new story every year in Freeway because of these artists, and we believe that this is something that can stand the test of time.

• Twitter your way to marketing success
• Freelancers united
• Free entrepreneurship classes for May
• Startup event offers opportunities to Visayas-based entrepreneurs
• 7 most common challenges of Pinoy biz

• Hot home-based business ideas
• 10 Most Inspiring Entrepreneurial Stories of 2010
• Making money while staying at home
• 10 businesses you can start today
• 10 business ideas for Christmas