A familiar sight seen twice in Shanghai. This one was taken in Hongqiao.

When you’re away from the Philippines, nothing feels warmer than seeing a familiar sight reminding you of home. I traveled to Shanghai to cover a furniture show some time back, and the autumn cold and the absence of a companion whom I could converse with in English or Filipino made me depressed. Seeing this ad of a popular Philippine brand made me smile.

Homegrown retail clothing brand Bench, owned by Ben Chan, first opened an outlet at SM Makati in 1987 and has since built a strong local presence, now with big show-biz names among its endorsers, including talk show host Kris Aquino, actor Richard Gomez and wife Lucy Torres, and drama actor Piolo Pascual.

This one was taken across Shanghai Mart.

Today Bench has more than 50 stores and franchises in 21 cities in mainland China, aside from those in the United States and the Middle East.

Its entry into the mainland wasn’t all that successful at the start. According to the Philippine Business Magazine, Bench closed its first mainland outlet after three years of operations but staged a successful comeback with two Xiamen stores and one in Shanghai.

In an interview with Philippine Tatler in May 2007, Chan looks back on Bench’s twenty years. Read the article here.