BOUTIQUE queens? Supermodels? Pamela Barton, arch foe of hype, wouldn't give you two cents for the lot of them.
''Trade, that's all we are,'' she said firmly. ''As for all that cavorting on catwalks, nothing irritates me more. It's the clothes I'm there to see, not entertainment.'' What gives this sixtysomething matron the right to pass judgement? The signs at Esti Tahina, her shop in Star House, Tsim Sha Tsui, say it all: 30th anniversary.
Yes, three decades have passed since the amazing Pamela Barton blazed the trail that has since exploded into a multi-million-dollar industry in Hongkong. An industry which a local bank manager once told her didn't stand a chance.
''When I asked for a loan to start my first retail dress shop,'' she said, ''I was told I couldn't possibly succeed because everyone had their clothes tailor-made. As the manager put it, 'Tailoring will always be the number-one way'.
''I had some shares, so I went to a broker friend and asked him to sell them for me. When I explained why I needed the money, he wrote out a check and said, 'Pay me back any time you want to'. That was Francis Zimmern who later became chairman of the Stock Exchange.'' Pamela Barton has never lacked for friends and few have been as loyal to Hongkong - or kept a lower profile.
''I'd hate to think people saw me as a goody two-shoes,'' said the vibrant Englishwoman who is currently president of the Hongkong RSPCA and was raising funds for the St James Settlement and other local charities almost as soon as she set foot in the territory.