Olympia Le-Tan

Olympia Le-Tan can be appreciated on many levels. The book can be so many different things to each reader depending on the reader’s fashion education or trend exposure. This book is part journal, part look book, part visual diary, part love letter, part enigma, and a lot of “look at me.”

Depending on the reader’s frame of reference, Olympia Le-Tan can be evaluated on multiple levels that all yield different final opinions. If you are the fashion reader who is up on and following every trend as well as every hyped up new designer of the moment, this book has your name on it. The more seasoned and educated fashion reader might find that you just can’t make up stuff like this. Then there is this reader/reviewer who after completing the book in its entirety came away with the notion that some people are definitely born into the right family; by that I mean it is not what you know but who you know.

None of this detracts from the charm of the book or from its outstanding packaging. Le-Tan is one of those fashion phenomena that only the media can create. You have to ask yourself if her talent lies in being a designer, a brilliant marketer, or if she’s just in the right place at the right time.

What the book lacks is context in that with all the visuals and all the explanations, there is no text as to the actual path that was taken and explains how the “book bag” catapulted Le-Tan to fashion fame.

Of course, there is still one more way to view the book and that is as a fairy tale of sorts or a success story where a young lady realizes her dream of becoming a fashion designer and is hailed as a great talent. Again, what is really missing is the details of how this all came about: how she started the manufacturing process, and how she expanded her product base, and all the bare facts of how a loving hands at home small business morphs into a big business.

In the end, let’s just say it’s good to be Olympia Le-Tan!