Love Affairs in Melbourne-Chapter 58 - 55: Mother’s Support

Yan Yan’s mother, Lu Bingran, didn’t look at all like someone who ran a machinery factory.

Lu Bingran was a beauty-loving and very fashionable woman.

Mrs. Yan was very firm, adamant about never leaving the house without makeup.

Such people are common nowadays, but if you look back to the 1970s, there were very few girls who started wearing makeup as teenagers.

It wasn’t that girls at that time didn’t care about beauty, but in an era of scarce resources, cosmetics simply weren’t accessible to every young girl.

Since the day Yanlu Shoe Machine was founded, Lu Bingran had been a beautiful and unique presence in the factory.

She was like a fashionable lady, moving among the dusty workers in the workshop, creating a stark and striking contrast.

From her teenage years, Lu Bingran had often asked relatives abroad to send her cosmetics.

Decades before the birth of Taobao and personal shoppers, Lu Bingran had already mastered the skills and methods of finding "personal shoppers."

Yan Yan’s initial thoughts about brands were largely influenced by her mother.

Lu Bingran not only found personal shoppers for herself but also put a lot of effort into her daughter’s wardrobe.

When Yan Yan started junior high school, she was ostracized for her "weird" clothes, a situation entirely created by her mother.

At a time when everyone else dressed "normally," Lu Bingran dressed Yan Yan in semi-transparent skirts and bell-bottom pants.

For junior high students in China at that time, such attire was indeed overly fashionable and quite "abnormal."

After being targeted to the point where she only dared to wear her school uniform, Yan Yan’s outfits became "normal" to her classmates.

In an era when everyone dressed plainly, being too fashionable was a normal reason to be targeted by middle school peers.

At that time, Yan Yan, who innately possessed a distinctive aura, lost her true self in the desire to fit in with everyone else.

Because she strayed from her true self, it took Yan Yan a long time to understand what her own style was.

During her high school years, Lu Bingran often lamented that such a fashionable mother could have a daughter who only loved to wear school uniforms and looked "sloppy."

Fortunately, after Yan Yan started dating Qi Yi in her second year of high school, her personality and fashion style changed significantly.

After moving to Melbourne, Yan Yan even further enhanced the fashion genes inherited from her mother.

Now, Lu Bingran’s favorite activity when seeing Yan Yan was shopping together, picking out clothes for each other.

Any particularly discerning store clerk who would say, "You look so young, you two look like sisters rather than mother and daughter," would cause Lu Bingran’s shopping spree to skyrocket.

Every time Yan Yan returned to Wenzhou from Melbourne, she needed a layover, and Lu Bingran would fly to the "transfer station" to meet Yan Yan each time.

Moreover, Lu Bingran would make special requests for Yan Yan’s layovers:

"This time, come back on an All Nippon Airways flight, and I’ll meet you in Tokyo."

"Did you buy your Cathay ticket yet? I’ll meet you in Hong Kong."

"You haven’t been to South Korea, right? I’ll meet you in Seoul."

"I heard Singapore Airlines has excellent service; I’ll meet you in Singapore."

Yan Yan’s mom managed the human resources and finances at Yanlu Machinery, constant busyness prevented her from having much time to go shopping or leave the company for long.

Another big reason she was so keen to pick up Yan Yan at the "transfer station" was that it gave her a legitimate excuse to go shopping.

Moreover, since it was just a "transfer," it would take only a day or two, perfectly suitable for someone like her who couldn’t leave the company for long.

As a tech enthusiast, Yan Dabang, despite being influenced by Yan Yan’s mother for decades, had never shifted his interest from mechanical engineering to fashion by even a slight degree.

Yan Yan always felt that her father and mother were people from two entirely different worlds.

Her father dedicated himself to technology, her mother was passionate about fashion.

But strangely, just like how her mother’s graceful figure quickly blended into the chaotic and rudimentary environment of Yanlu Shoe Machine’s early days, when placed together, these two people from different worlds managed to exhibit a contradictory unity.

"Don’t listen to your father, Mom supports your pursuit of branding in Europe," Lu Bingran declared.

"Really? You support me without even asking what I really want to do?" Yan Yan felt that her mother’s support came a bit too easily.

"No need to ask, just look at who gave birth to you. Mom believes in you, you’ll definitely be better than your dad one day," Lu Bingran proudly stated.

"Mrs. Yan, how did you manage to produce a daughter by yourself?" Yan Dabang criticized Lu Bingran’s pride with a technical critique.

Grandfather:

Answer=>

"Every field has its ’renowned characters’; if you mention a bunch of mathematicians to me, chances are I wouldn’t have heard of them either. So it’s perfectly normal that you haven’t heard of brands like KENZO.

I have no plans to go to Paris.

I was a maverick as a child and had my own views on art. I’ve always believed that since the Renaissance, Florence has been the world’s art center and the birthplace of fashion.

Before you came to Melbourne, I planned to first go to Florence, Italy, to see it for myself after graduation.

Among the top four leading international fashion colleges, three are in Europe; the French Paris Fashion Institute (IFM) sought by the Japanese is just one of them, and another is Italy’s Florence-based Polimoda Fashion College, not to mention UAL in London.

I’m not sure if the Japanese have any special sentiment towards Paris, but for us folks from Wenzhou, Italy is undoubtedly the best choice.

The relatives who returned from Italy say that in Italy’s Chinatowns, Wenzhou dialect is even more prevalent than Mandarin.

Italy was the starting point for the previous generation of Wenzhou people venturing into Europe, and I also want to see it for myself.

My original plan was to spend a year at Polimoda Fashion College to earn another degree after graduating at the year’s end.

Now, since I need to factor you into my plans, I’m considering only studying at Polimoda for six months, and spending the other half of the year possibly attending the only non-European institution of the top fashion schools.

Well, given everything I’ve said, you should be able to guess using your toes that the remaining school is in the United States.

However, the remaining FIT (New York State University Fashion Institute of Technology) is in New York, which is quite far from Stanford and Silicon Valley, where you are. It’s a bit of a pity, isn’t it?

If I go to New York, I wonder if I might be able to incorporate you into my plans half a year early~

Question=>

Am I now discussing everything and cooperating fully with you, am I being especially, especially good? (face begging for praise)