MANILA, Philippines—It always starts with a vision.

And for somebody who likes clothes, he would always be reminded of his vision whenever he went to a mall.

Ten years ago, Ronald V. Pineda told himself that one day he too would have his own clothes shop in a mall.

That vision has materialized 35 times over (and expected to still grow) in the FH/Folded and Hung chain all over the country.

The Ronald today is far different from the one 20 years ago. He wanted to be a good son so he took up dentistry knowing his father’s dream was for his five children to become doctors or lawyers. Not really wanting either, Ronald settled for the closest degree to medicine—dentistry. After studying high school in Dau, Pampanga, he went to Manila and enrolled in a university.

The Pinedas were an above average family, financially. At least before the Pinatubo eruption.

They had a gas station where all the children were asked to help out at an early age. Thus Ronald said he knew about accounting at age four when his mother would make him sit beside her by the cash register and ask him to count coins.

Aside from the gas station, they also owned a shop that sold PX or imported items. In 1991, Pinatubo happened. Nobody knew just how much a 600-year-old volcano that spewed out pyroclastic materials would change their lives.

Residents lost their homes, buried several feet in lahar; the Americans at Clark Air Base packed up their belongings and left; businesses closed, including the Pinedas’ PX store—their bread and butter.

The gas station was reopened but, Ronald recalls, most cars were buried in lahar, along with the passenger jeeps, so there were not too many people to sell gas to. But they were still lucky because their home survived the eruption.

Before the event, three siblings were studying in Manila, including Ronald. They were all staying in their own apartment.

But with hard times, they all had to move to dormitories. Ronald says he had seven roommates with whom to share a single bathroom. When he was younger, he says his mother would bring him to Hong Kong or the United States to buy stuff to sell in their shop in Pampanga.

Although he says he was more of a bodyguard to his mom, he learned to spot things that would sell, and was soon buying his own goods to sell to friends from the Mongkok market in Hong Kong.

He realized he had a passion and a flair for trading.

So, in his freshman year, when a friend asked him to join a bazaar, he would say yes. They sold boxer shorts, which was very popular in the late 1980s.

They would have these made in Pampanga or Pasig to sell in various bazaars.

“Whatever we saw, we sold,” Ronald describes his early trading years. He did the selling on the side on top of his studies. As he neared the end of dentistry however, he had to stop his business. Graduation came soon enough and Ronald and three of his friends decided to set up their own clinic, each putting in P200,000. Ronald earned the money from his trading business.

But he realized soon enough his dental practice was not enough to sustain his needs, so it was back to trading. He got a spot in Greenhills, home to some of the more successful entrepreneurs in the country. Soon he abandoned his dental practice and focused on selling.

“I found happiness in what I do. Clinics are boring,” he says.

After a few years of selling anything that came his way, Ronald knew there was more to doing business than doing everything by himself, as is typical of start-up entrepreneurs. He decided to study and enroll in a nondegree retail management program of the Philippine Retailers Association with Bing Limjoco as his mentor.

“There I learned that 50 percent of what I was taught I was already doing. But there was so much more. I learned to get consultants and to hire people to professionalize the business.”

He realized he needed to build a brand if he wanted to go somewhere with his retail business. He needed a name and asked a steward friend to find him one from his travels abroad. The friend suggested folded and hung.

At first Ronald was skeptical, thinking that the name sounded like a laundry shop. But he used it and, with earnings from his Greenhills tiangge, he opened his first shop at the Robinsons Galleria Mall.

He incorporated creating Adenip Inc. He hired an interior designer to do the store, invested in good photos, using a model to don his clothes. From a six square meter store in Greenhills, Ronald got 50 square meters in other malls. He says Glorietta liked his shop and offered him a spot in Makati. He hired his siblings to join him. Ronald says things were tight at the start. But he decided to open more shops, scrimping on everything else. His strategy was simple, Ronald says. He simply copied designs.

“We translate the latest fashion catwalk trends from the US and Europe into RTW and sell them at a much affordable price. Chic fashion at cheap price!”

This is the same strategy used by known Spanish clothes brand Zara. A week after the fashion shows, Zara mass produces the clothes at way below their designer tag prices.

The tipping point for FH was getting actress Claudine Barretto to become its signature model.

He invested in billboards featuring a Claudine with a totally different look. He says sales jumped to double digits.

In 2000, three years before getting Claudine, he shortened his brand name to FH since “who will remember the name Folded and Hung.”

In 2002 he went into franchising, but only for those interested in opening in Visayas and Mindanao. So far there are eight franchisees.

Ronald says his target market is 15 to 35-year-olds who are young, hip and trendy. Although he used to design all the clothes, it is now his younger brother and sister who do this. Another sibling does the finances.

Ronald’s role now is merchandising—deciding how many of a particular shirt will go to this store and that.

In 2002, Ronald’s new vision is to become an Asian brand. He plans to do this by strengthening his brand awareness and hoping that investors will come knocking to bring FH abroad. Some local clothing brands are already selling in Asian countries such as Gingersnaps, Plains and Prints and Bench.

Ronald admits times are “challenging” with double-digit growth rates difficult to achieve. But he says “we’re ok.”

Meanwhile, he tapped another popular actress, Angel Locsin, to boost sales.

And even if times do get tougher, Ronald is not fazed. “I’ve been there. I know how to scrimp.”