18.05.12

He describes his six-month stint as a Unesco consultant in the beleaguered West Bank in Palestine as “loads of fun,” so you can tell that Leif-Erik Hannikainen can deftly handle any corpulent client who insists on dressing like Carrie Bradshaw for the Polo Club ball.

Erik, 32, is a personal shopper at Rustan’s Makati, a job that demands utmost discretion and diplomacy if he is to gently steer his coiffured clients from tacky to tasteful.  With three generations of diplomats in his family, including his father, Finnish Ambassador Heikki Hannikainen, it seems like a perfect match.  Erik grew up traveling and absorbing the nuances of “No,” “Maybe” and “We’ll see” from many cultures and skillfully applies them to the job.

A good personal shopper, he says, must not only know the product very well, but must also know how to listen to clients to find out what they’re really like and how best to match them with what’s available.  The main goal, he adds, is to make clients look good. So how does he deal with shoppers who whip out a catalog and demand that he help them get the model’s look even without the build for it?

Source: Inquirer.net