Trouble & Triumph: A Novel of Power & Beauty by Tip "t.i." Harris

Author:Tip "t.i." Harris [Harris, Tip "T.I."]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: UFS2
ISBN: 9780062067692
Amazon: 0062067680
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: 2013-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

The sexual union with Seiji had taken place eleven months ago. As a result of her marriage to him, everything in Beauty’s life and the life of her father and sister had changed. Seiji had promised them, and for all indications was giving them, the world. He immediately agreed to Akira’s plan to open four other stores in Tokyo and one in Hong Kong. Two Sisters had become a high-fashion chain in a matter of months. In terms of construction, redesign, and staffing, Seiji had worked miracles. Because of his influence with unions and government officials, everything seemed to happen overnight. His resources were limitless. All Beauty and Ryoko had to do was design the clothes.

If individually they worked with tremendous intensity, together they were five times as energized. As a perfectly harmonious team, they pushed each other’s creativity to new heights. They laughed as they worked, they exchanged ideas, they extended their reach into the outer limits of fashion. Their blouses and dresses, their skirts and sweaters and scarves and pantsuits, looked like works of modern art. The styles were sleek, loose, flowing, often overstated, slyly funky, and always marked by a certain casual ease that characterized their relationship. Each piece had a personality—friendly and daring.

The grand opening of the Hong Kong store, on the street level of the tallest skyscraper in the most madcap shopping city of the world, was a much-heralded event. Seiji had pulled out all the stops. He had hired Frank Gehry, the celebrated American architect who had designed the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Gehry rendered the exterior of the store in sheets of undulating metal, each sheet carrying the Two Sisters logo. The interior was super-sleek, with floors of shiny titanium and walls painted by Asia’s most outrageous post-punk graffiti artists, whose scenes of urban life—street signs and street vendors, subways and motor scooters—added to the electric buzz. Dance music charged the exceedingly large space—twenty-three thousand square feet—and the salespeople were notable for their wild hairdos done up in yellow, green, and shocking pink.

The official opening was at eight P.M. on a Saturday. By seven, the sisters were dressed. Beauty wore a retro taffeta turquoise dress. Ryoko wore a jagged-hemmed skirt of distressed denim dotted with discarded pieces of costume jewelry, splashy fake emeralds and sapphires. Her blouse carried reproductions of menus from Hong Kong’s favorite fast food restaurants. As a token of love, Beauty had designed a special pair of dark glasses for her sister—cat’s-eye shades whose frames were fashioned from elephant tusks.

The mayors of Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, and Shanghai were set to attend. Seiji had invited every major Asian film star. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who were filming in China, had promised to show up. An army of publicists had been hired to control—and heighten—the media frenzy. An army of security guards had been hired to maintain some semblance of order. Business had kept Seiji in Tokyo until the actual day of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.