The Worlds of FASHION, INTERIOR DESIGN and ART often go hand in hand.

Balance, simplicity, quality in workmanship, perfection, elegance and integrity, all these characteristics were woven, stitched, detailed and manufactured into the very foundation of a clothing empire named Ports International.

It’s early beginnings started with a deceptively simple, classic, exquisitely crafted, tailored blouse adorned with delicate ocean pearl buttons and appropriately

named ~ Number 10,

designed by none other than Mr. Luke Tanabe himself.

A man not only with a vision in merchandising but also a man with implacable taste, class and style, and the founder of Ports International.

Starting in the 1960’s the chain grew to 38+ stores spreading across North American, the Atlantic and on to Bond Street, London.  

Head offices, with stunning water front views, were located at Queen’s Quay Terminal, Toronto, and by all accounts it was a “Canadian success story rooted in a philosophy of perfection and integrity.”

I loved working with them and for them.

I started in sales and advanced on into Visual display for all of Alberta (15 stores Men and Women).

Having grown up primarily in Europe, my love of fashion is somewhat inherent and had started early, Ports International, was international, diverse, global and its philosophy resonated.

Clients, everyone, loved the product and the showrooms, their environment were beautiful and so fun to work in, we had amazing teams in the stores, groups of design and fashion loving people, with amazing supervisors all the way to the very top.

Mr. Richard McDonald (Visual Canada) one of them, a class bar none!

The worlds of Fashion, visual display and merchandising, interior design and decoration, and art are so interwoven. Ports International was such a world.

I fall back on my own love of fashion often, my sense of style has often guided many of my own interior design choices over the years, and it has also helped in many ways in my interior design career and vice a versa.

I owe a great deal to my background, hard work, education, travel, but also, to my very early days and time with Port International.

I share with you visual display snapshots from my time working with them in the mid eights and early nineties!:)… Vintage!:)