Fashion buying is one of the world's most envied professions -- imagine, shopping for designer clothes and getting paid for it. But the reality of fashion buying can be much grittier -- it all depends on your style.

Zhao Feifei delves into the world of fashion buying and comes up with two very different buyers. Nine out of 10 Shanghai men would rank going on a shopping spree right up there with a root canal. But for Mason Shen, window-shopping is one of the top ``must-do'' things on his daily agenda, and ``to buy or not to buy'' is the perennial question that buzzes, like a persistent mosquito, in his head.

What's the deal? To answer the question, Shen, who is 1.8-meters-tall and burly to the point that he could be mistaken for a bar bouncer, rolls up his sleeves, revealing deeply tanned arms.

``I've got the suntan of a certified sun-worshiper,'' says Shen, 34, laughing as he runs his fingers with a crisp stroke through his crewcut hair. ``But I didn't get it on the beach, I got it from working: This tan is the result of a two-month stay in Italy, driving a minivan all the way from Bologna to Milan, with loads of purchases scouted from racks upon racks of clothing.''

From the flashy urban showrooms of Milan to the gritty warehouses tucked deep in the Italian interior near Florence, Shen travels 12,000 kilometers in a single month in search of fashion. The ballsy boutique owner revisits old connections and follows new leads, stocking his stores with high-fashion merchandise by infiltrating the designer factories that dot the Italian countryside. He repeats this exercise up to four times each year.

``If you ask me, the work of a fashion buyer seems to be more physical labor than anything. And you always have to spend endless hours to make ends meet,'' he says. Shen is insistent that despite the ``fashion'' moniker, there's very little glamour in this work. During his strenuous fashion hunts in Italy, Shen drives day and night and ``smells like dead fish.''

``It's an effective weight-reducing program,'' he quips. Shen is one of these fashion buyers who don't play by the accepted rules of the industry. He's not a traditional fashion buyer who seated on a designer chair, sipping espressos, writing respectable orders six months in advance of any given season and then waiting patiently for their delivery.

Instead, he courses through the small towns of Tuscany and the Apennines mountain range. He makes rapid-fire decisions. He goes to the small factories authorized to produce designer merchandise with over-runs or canceled orders, and to the independent agents who are only supposed to supply retailers in a defined geographic area. A former restaurant operator in the United States and Switzerland, a turn in fortunes had Shen heading back to Shanghai, and a new calling. In 1997, he started his 7-square-meter boutique on Shaanxi Road S. He began travelling back and forth between Hong Kong and Shanghai, wholesaling and retailing clothes made in Hong Kong. Since then, he has never looked back.

Two years later, he relocated the store to Maoming Road S. and began carrying glamour labels like Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Ermenegildo Zegna and Gianfranco Ferre. Now he plans to open a 1,000-square-meter boutique to house these well-known Italian menswear labels. Shen has also received authorization to run an Emporio Armani concept store, which will be opened this year. In addition, he has set up a showroom at Westgate Mall.

Shen's boutique, which sells high-end fashions at bargain prices, is like finding the Holy Grail. Situated near the business district, he has a serious professional clientele who love labels -- and low prices. Through the connections he's established in the industry, Shen fills the boutique with off-season pieces, canceled orders or overstocked pieces. Nothing is irregular. It's all first-quality merchandise. But showcasing clothes that are maybe a few months old means that the store can offer brands like Cerruti and Versace at up to 60 percent off.

``It really meets the demand of the fashion-conscious group,'' he says.

``I think some posh shopping malls blatantly overcharge customers for their off-season collections. I would say that 90 percent of our business is word of mouth. Everybody who comes seems to tell someone else.''

Buying clothes with a connoisseur's eye did not become his stock-in-trade overnight. Shen's fashion radar, his ability to predict the swinging Zeitgeist underneath the vanity industry was born from his trips to Italy. The routine is always the same. Following a flight from Shanghai to France, he takes the train to Italy, where he rents a minivan to Florence. That's where the fun begins. Shen adheres to a grueling schedule, with many of his appointments separated by hundreds of kilometers and treacherous mountain driving. This is the only way to reach the smaller ``mom and pop'' factories and distribution warehouses willing to do business with the rebel buyer who owns an independent business

. ``Small shop owners like me have to remain nimble and must maintain a large pool of sources,'' he pontificates.

``Timing is everything. Sometimes you show up and they have nothing for you to buy. You have to know when a distributor is going to be particularly receptive to cutting a deal. Fashion becomes old very fast.'' In stark contrast to Shen's guerrilla-like buying tactics, Paul Chen goes about his buying business in a much more laid-back fashion. Chen is the store manager for Fendi at Plaza 66 and the one responsible for the seasonal trawling task for the Chinese mainland, a role which offers worldwide travel opportunities. Chen, 31, began working for Fendi in 2001, when Fendi was poised to join French fashion conglomerate LVMH group. Chen, decked out in Fendi accessories from head to toe, frankly admits that he didn't start out as a gifted interpreter of trends. Instead, it was a multilingual background that led him to fashion, and from here, he honed his knowledge of the mechanics of fashion buying. Chen studied English at university, picking up French on the side.

After graduation, he worked in a foreign trading company for four years, before enrolling in the MBA program at China Europe International Business School. During this time, he studied Italian and Spanish on his own, with the former proving useful when he attended the Scuola di Direzione Aziendale, a private MBA school in Milan, as part of CEIBS' three month international exchange program. The astute MBA has a very different approach to fashion buying from the streetwise Shen. Every season, he travels with the Asia-Pacific merchandising team to Milan. Being creative and having a great eye for color and coordination, Chen says, are not enough. ``You need to be highly organized,'' he continues, ``able to stick to your buying budget and accept feedback regarding your buying decisions without taking it personally.'' Fendi creates a brief profile for every client. The information gleaned from these profiles helps Chen understand the needs of the local market.

The first few trips, Chen would go along with the opinions and decisions made by the rest of the buying team. The accumulation of learning phases and retail experience has now enabled Chen to confidently hazard some educated guesses in Milan. Although their styles differ, Chen agrees with Shen that this is a job that requires a high degree of energy. ``You have to be willing to put in very long hours,'' Chen emphasizes.

``You've got to be willing to keep up with current trends and styles by reading market reports, talking to consultants, attending fashion shows, and keeping in close touch with your customers. You have to develop fashion themes and choose items for each season, balancing current trends with customer demands. You have to take responsibility for making sure that the department's sales and profit goals are met.''

Chen will fly to Italy in mid-January to stock 2004 Fendi winter collection while Shen headed there over Christmas to clinch the franchise rights for Alexander McQueen on the Chinese mainland.

It's a never-ending cycle of shopping, but like a wealthy ``taitai'' (wife), they actually seem to relish it. The grit and glamour of the fashion buying biz

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