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67 How did Villa Del Corea come about? Villa Del Corea was founded in 2010 by three individuals possessing diverse backgrounds, yet we all brought a heightened appreciation for providing quality service, regardless of what the product or business happened to be. We felt that if we built high service stan- dards frst, strictly adhered to them and then wrapped those values around any quality product or business that we opted to pursue, we would have success. Additionally, market- ing would be easier because of the strength of word-of-mouth that would spawn from those service values. We took this approach to Villa Del Corea and our varied product oferings, and the rest is history. What is Villa Del Corea’s relationship with Italian tailoring and Italian suits? Almost all of the tailors who we deal with are straight from Italy. As a result of our success- ful model servicing the Korean market, we have a great reputation among Italian tailors. In fact, because we have an abundance of tai- lors seeking to work with us, we had to set up rigorous criteria to properly vet the tailors who we work with in order to yield the fnest quality and crafsmanship. For instance, we consider the lineage and heritage of the tai- lor; whether there are past generations of his family that have been involved in the trade. We also try on their suits ourselves over a few fashion seasons. We then thoroughly audit their ability by making numerous sophisti- cated tailoring requests. If they are able to get through these kinds of evaluations by us, then we would bring them to Villa Del Corea and entrust them to our valued clients. So the Italian tailors would come here? Yes, we plan a yearly schedule for our clients to indicate when our Italian tailors will be in Korea. Our clients can then schedule tailoring sessions with them at our location. So we’ve structured the Villa Del Corea environment for a dual purpose. Firstly, to showcase our tailoring crafsmanship for our clients, but also, we have comfortable on-site dwellings for our visiting tailors to stay in while here, along with a full kitchen. I can see where Villa Del Corea has applied their detail-oriented approach for quality. How has that been applied for service lev- els? We’ve set up painstaking tracking habits to deeply assess customer preferences, so we know how to center our business around them. For example, we go to such lengths as to remember if they are right-handed or lef-handed. What cofee cup they drank out of on their last visit, so we can provide them with something diferent on a future visit. We remember what brand of cigarettes that they smoke and go out of our way to procure handcrafed cigarettes that have their name on them. We learn about the art or music in- terests and where they hang out, so we can engage in focused conversations that are geared towards their interests. Teir visits can ofen last anywhere from one to four hours at Villa Del Corea, so we need to use that time to put all of our focus on them, down to the tiniest of details. In addition to tailoring, I see that you also specialize in eyewear? Right, and we take the same bespoke ap- proach and service levels to eyewear as we would for tailoring. We ofer a range of vin- tage eyewear for diferent budgets, but due to our upscale clientele, they ofen have a temptation to want to buy from our high-end selections of eyewear without much consider- ation and understanding of eyewear fashion. We consider eyewear fashion to be akin to wine. A novice wine drinker trying expensive wine might not be able to fully appreciate the distinct characteristics of the wine without having been properly schooled through the lower range of varieties. For this reason, we ofen encourage our clients to start of with wearing the less expensive styles of eyewear that we ofer so they can understand and get a feel for it over time before eventually upgrad- ing our more luxurious eyewear. Our goal is to establish vintage eyewear cul- ture in Korea at a level that no one has been able to do. We can also provide insights on the history of eyewear; why eyeglasses were made of gold, the explanations for the change from using materials like gold to using acetate (plastic) and also their evolved designs. Our company is not just about sales. We’ve been trying to spread knowhow on eyewear culture and history, such as why the eyeglass- es made between the 1910s and 1970s have much fner quality compared to the present. We always try to get well-ftted sizes (suited to eye sizes, bridge sizes and temple sizes) for our clientele because everyone has a diferent size. Even though we’re dealing with vintage eyewear, we can meet even the most minute requests from clientele. Te most powerful thing is that we have the greatest repair and organizing system. When an antique frame leaves RetroSpecs & Co. headquarters, our frames dealer, it re- ceives a registration number. Tis number is recorded in the bridge and temples. In addi- tion to general design information, the bridge width (5 size), lens size (14), temple length (8) lens shape (over 100) are recorded, as well as the color of the frame (white, yellow and rose) and lens (seasonal). With over 10 mil- lion possible variations, a registered number specifc to each frame is stamped on a card to be given to the customer to ensure the quality of future service. RetroSpecs & Co. antique frames have a one- year warranty and a lifetime guarantee that the parts will be available for the frame.