I recently came back from a 2 week vacation to Manila and just wanted to share my Bal story.
After doing some research to see if Balenciaga was available in Manila, I was super excited to find out they had a boutique in Makati - Greenbelt 5! I was going to be using my Black RH Part Time as my travel bag and daily use while in Manila, and was pretty satisfied thinking that Bal wasn't that popular out there so my bag would be unique. Boy, was I wrong. As soon as I went around the city I saw many, many Bals! In fact, I was even surprised to see that my sister had one (greyish City with Silver GH!!) I commented on how I liked it, and my mom said it was actually hers, but it was fake. Disappointed that my sister was holding a fake Bal, I started to get upset at the fact that all the other people I saw carrying Bals were probably fakes too. It somehow pissed me off and almost took the pleasure out of me carrying my bag. Given I was in a country where you can find a designer knockoff everywhere, I was pretty miffed that out of all the designer labels to be featured in Greenhills, Bal had to be the one that was "in".
Aside from that, I've stated before on moments where the hardware on my PT has come off, and luckily I've always come aware of it right as it dropped to the floor. But the one night where I thought to myself I should make sure the rivets are screwed on tight - I forgot to do so! So the next day, while sitting in traffic half asleep, on the way to Makati, I jumped up to look at my bag and lo and behold, one of those little suckers came off! I had informed my husband right away while frantically looking around the car floor, my clothes, my shoes, everywhere!
DH said he would tell the driver and yaya to look out for it, but they never found it. I thought I would try to pass by the Bal boutique in Greenbelt to see if they would be able to do anything about it, and if ever I couldn't, I assured DH that I could take it back to Neiman's to repair/replace. But I really lucked out this time 'cuz they just happened to have one last piece of the rivet to replace the one I lost!
I was afraid it would cost at least $50 to have it fixed, but they only charged me Php400!
Anyway, that's all! Just wanted to share my Bal experience in Manila