Katia Kholopova

Sometimes I am so straightforward — I have been told by a few people they wish they could be as open. If I have a question, or a compliment, I always speak out no matter who I am talking to — even if it is a very important person. Same about criticism. My reputation within the company I work for is “never keep from saying it” so my opinion is considered as inevitable as fair.

People management can be a very difficult job… if one doesn’t like doing it. It then turns into a number of fruitless relationships. And, vice versa, if done with pleasure, it runs a risk of seeming easy — which it isn’t. You cannot go unprepared or be superficial. One of the very few things you can afford doing spontaneously is being sincere and being an example of sincerity. If you are not, you can end up with a bunch of robots without initiative who do their jobs without any real input.

One should definitely socialize with their colleagues. However, the thing about socializing at work is the distance. It’s OK to be friends, to go out together and do home parties — but don’t presume a personal repaltionship can or should let you change your work hierarchy or have any other “bonuses” against an existing order of things. This is the problem with us as a nation — We do not seem to be able to keep this sort of a distance. It is not part of our upbringing or official education and, as a result, it is missing in our communication culture.

The community here in Moscow likes “branded” opinions. We do have certain requirements to opinion makers in terms of their intellectual level but the main thing we want is that they are well known.

I do not believe men are “afraid” of women. Most men I know rather just try to walk away from, or not deal with what they are not comfortable with. “I am not wasting my time on what I don’t like” — this sort of a position. Not that I ever noticed any “fear”.

Bad language? I am just fine with it. I even see my generation expected to be using it just easily. It sometimes actually works as a kind of a “password” to certain circles, a key to accord.

Working for a luxury brand means going with your brand guidelines. Otherwise, if you do not believe they are essential, you fall into being a “local version” and you lose the brand identity. Yes, it is important to be creative and resourceful — but gudelines should indeed be your Bible.

I have less time for cinema than I would like to. I watch movies mainly at home and am totally influenced by a horror trash collectioner — my partner. Funny enough but I like this.

I definitely want to keep living in Moscow. I am a person of habit and would never be quite able to radically move out of here. I love New York but could not live there.

I cannot seriously believe or not believe in what I cannot see in real life. Like all these global catastrophes in the movies I was mentioning. World coming to an end in just one instance?! I see so many things happening slowly — like the “garbage island” the size of Texas reported to be floating in the Pacific Ocean and growing since the 50s — which can definitely cause huge problems and eventually possibly kill the Earth. Scary? Absolutely. But still I cannot visualize this.

One should have done something outstanding to be greeted with applause. I cannot imagine myself causing an emotional reaction from people I do not know by just entering a room. I try my best to do my job well but one should not count on becoming famous through that.

The thing I don't like is unwillingness to respect others’ time, or effort, or information by giving one’s attention. Again, this comes from our background as a society: My generation was born to no real social values, no proper information exchange, a false ideology and, as a result, a lot of hypocrisy towards the actual society and its rules and standards. It did not seem to make sense to be good, attentive, punctual etc. Then, as we grew up and the society changed, we started seeing that sense — but still we have difficulties updating our inner ideology. I react very negatively when I come across such cases — e.g. people asking for information, or making suggestions, or requesting action I need to spend time preparing, and never following up.

I think that in many cases what they believe bluntness is simply reluctance to understand things. This is not good for anyone — one really falls behind the reality if they don’t care to be smart.

I love reading and I like various genres. My only requirement is excellent language. Unfortunately, today’s quality standards in this market are very low. Bad translation, poor “mechanical” language, even grammar mistakes. This obviously comes from the market players’ neglect towards their product quality. Funnily enough, I personally have not seen a book that would have all brand names it mentions spelled properly. Look, if they care to check the spelling for street names, why skip the brands?

To me, inner harmony is coming to an agreement with oneself on doing things well without getting crazy over it. Estée Lauder whom I unfortunately never managed to meet used to say, "Whatever you do, do it well" - and it is as true as simple. Simple things are most important. Don’t stipulate too much, don’t overreact and never let yourself lose your sense of humour — this is the simple way. It helps so much to move ahead.