If you wanted to see the world in young Glecy Tantoco’s eyes, you simply had to see her purchases after a trip to Los Angeles, New York or Europe.
Whatever it was she saw, she made sure to bring choice pieces home to her friends. With so many of Manila’s prominent ladies flocking to her place, she soon had a “little shop” going, eventually blossoming into a store.
A legend in her lifetime and beyond. A trailblazer in the field of luxury retail. An exponent of high style. An Advocate of Philippine Arts and Crafts. These are but some of the appellations of the iconic lady entrepreneur Gliceria Rustia Tantoco, or GRT to the executives and workforce of the business empire that she founded, the Rustan’s Group of Companies.
She was a lady of many firsts, her distinctions alluding to a woman who aspired and dreamt and backed up her dreams and aspirations with hard work, tenacity, commitment and integrity.
Glecy R. Tantoco, whose birth centenary is on 21 December 2024, founded the Rustan’s Department Store, the foremost luxury retail establishment in the Philippines, the purveyor of elegant living and stylish grooming.
To many who were used to shopping in the top stores in cosmopolitan cities like New York, London, and Paris, she was the Empress of the Philippine and Asian Luxury Retail Industry
As a pioneering woman entrepreneur and business executive, it was she who first brought the top international brands to the Philippines in the post-war era.
Through the exclusive and tasteful merchandise that she sold, she set the standard for top quality, thus capturing the market for women of the smart set, industry leaders, movers and shakers of society with discriminating taste.
Gliceria “Glecy” Tantoco was a woman ahead of her times.
And to this day, her influence on the socio-cultural and artistic spheres of this country remains palpable in the shopping choices and preferences of the educated and fastidious Filipino consumer who has learned to enjoy and appreciate the best that the world can produce.
Glecy R. Tantoco is Rustan’s and Rustan’s is Glecy R. Tantoco. No other description would fit the importance, significance, and contribution of Rustan’s Department Store better.
Luxury retail in Philippine Commerce and Industry, from its beginnings to the present, is Glecy Tantoco. She is its pioneering spirit, its symbol, and its face for all times, more than four decades since she departed for the great beyond.
Through the succeeding decades, Rustan’s would stay at the top as the ultimate hub for exclusive, exquisite, and high-end merchandise.
Destined by fate
Glecy Rustia was the only daughter of a famous lawyer father, Juan Rustia, from Baliuag, Bulacan. A principled man whose heart was for the poor and downtrodden, he represented farmers and tenants in their land disputes with the big hacienda owners of the time.
Glecy’s mother was Filomena Dimaano, a winsome and beautiful Batangueña from Lipa.
An only daughter, Glecy was a joy to her parents. In her teenage years, Glecy herself blossomed into a young beauty, a muse of Lipa who often stood on floats during town parades, much admired and courted by the local swains.
As her early popularity would foretell, Glecy would bring fame to her family. Other than her father’s good name and her mother’s exemplary life as a good daughter, wife and mother, Glecy took after her father’s honesty and principled commitment to a cause.
In her case, she would give her all to serving her country in the best way she knew best — through free enterprise, one that focused on the best of international products for Filipinos to enjoy, one that gave employment to a multitude, one that allowed Filipino talent in design to flourish and reach the international market, and one that showed the best of Philippine craftsmanship alongside the most exquisite from various parts of the world.
Dream come true
It all began when Glecy’s husband, Bienvenido R. Tantoco Sr., or Benny, was sent by his uncle and boss Ernesto to the United States to visit the different offices of the movie industry represented by the Rufinos in the Philippines. It had only been a few years after the war and Benny brought along his wife, Glecy.
In the course of the trip, while Benny attended business meetings in Hollywood and New York, Glecy went shopping — not only for herself, but for her friends. Initially, they were intended as pasalubong, or gifts for home, but at the same time, the entrepreneur in her decided on buying more items that she thought her friends would be interested in, too.
In Europe, she visited the famed fashion boutiques, and called on Christian Dior. He was the first of the many top designers that Rustan’s would represent in the Philippines. She also convinced him, the first to do so, to give her the license to manufacture the Christian Dior in the Philippines.
On their return to Manila, she invited her friends to come over and showed them these beautiful items, which she displayed in the family’s game room. They were delighted with what Glecy brought home and immediately lapped them up. Word traveled fast about Glecy’s purchases from abroad, including lace from Switzerland, fans or abanicos from Spain and bottles of perfume from Paris.
It was in 1951 when she started selling to her friends. In 1952, she opened her home to whoever wanted to see her merchandise. The “little shop” thus became a byword of exclusive luxury shopping. And thus began the story of Rustan’s.
Business empire
In time, Glecy would operate a Rustan’s store in the burgeoning Makati Commercial Center. This would be followed by a branch along Quezon Boulevard in Quezon Cty, then the nation’s capital. From its original site in Makati, Rustan’s would move to a four-story structure, an architectural landmark for its blue-tiled façade.
Through it all, Glecy looked to the fashion capitals of Europe, including Paris, London, Rome and Milan and Geneva, and bought home the best brands, among them Christian Dior, Chanel, Gucci, Charles Jourdan. Le Must de Cartier, Lanvin, Guy Laroche, and Van Cleef & Arpels.
In the 1970s, Rustan’s opened its superstore at the Araneta Center in Cubao, a pioneer in the sprawling mall concept that combined a supermarket, a department store and specialty shops all under one roof. Then came the branch in Harrison Plaza, Ayala Alabang and finally, in Mandaluyong, all these in a span of five decades from Rustan’s founding as a home boutique in 1952 toward the final decade of the 20th century.
The dream that was Rustan’s has since evolved into a business empire and, 40 years after the matriarch of the Tantocos passed on, her legacy of world-class quality of merchandise and excellence of service, continues through the various companies that now make up the Rustan’s business empire — Rustan’s Commercial Corporation, Stores Specialists, Inc., Rustan Marketing Corporation, Rustan Coffee Corporation, Royal Duty Free Shops, Inc., Rustan Design Specialists, Inc., Sta. Elena Golf and Country Estate and Adora.
If she had planted the roots of Rustan’s, which she achieved with the able support of her husband, Ambassador Bienvenido R. Tantoco, who, in his own words, “took care of the backroom of Rustan’s,” Glecy had also raised children who, through the years, have proved themselves rightful heirs to her legacy of honor, honesty, excellence, world-class quality and high distinction.
These children are Bienvenido Jr./Rico, Zenaida/Nedy, Maria Lourdes/Marilou, Carmencita/Menchu, Maria Elena/ Marilen and Maria Teresa/Tokie.
Today, the third generation of the Tantoco family, under the leadership of Nedy, who is the chair and CEO of the Rustan Group of Companies, continues to uphold the values, principles and core visions that have sustained the family corporation through the decades, as begun by the couple Benny and Glecy. These third- generation scions are Bienvenido Tantoco III, president of the Rustan Commercial Corporation; Antonio T. Huang, president of Stores Specialists, Inc.; and Noey T. Lopez, president of Rustan Coffee Corporation.
With Rustan’s being taken care of by her children and grandchildren, GRT could only smile from heaven, assured that all that she had worked for all her life had not gone for naught, as the Rustan’s Group of Companies remains to be a steadfast contributor to the Philippine economy while keeping its lead as the purveyor of the refinements of life.