Nobody becomes a luxury concierge without learning how to carry a tray with grace

HBZVN: Loretana, seven years ago WeShopU didn’t exist. Today you lead a luxury personal shopping empire with a global following of over 347,000. Take us back to the beginning – what was the spark?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: It started long before WeShopU had a name. I was waitressing in New York City, learning – really learning – what it means to serve people. Not in a small way. In a way where you read a room, you understand what someone wants before they say it, and you know how to negotiate a good outcome for everyone at the table. That job gave me two things I still use every single day: an instinct for service, and the discipline of humility. Nobody becomes a luxury concierge to the world without first learning how to carry a tray with grace.

HBZVN: That’s a beautiful foundation for an industry built on discretion and trust. Who shaped your sense of ambition?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: My father, without question. Everyone calls him “Toto.” I grew up watching him move through the world of serious business – big deals, bold decisions, the kind of presence that fills a room before he says a word. And my mother, Loretana, whom I’m named after, was – is – a woman of extraordinary beauty and character. She didn’t need to raise her voice to change the energy of a room. Between the two of them, I inherited an unusual combination: my father’s appetite for business, and my mother’s ability to command respect simply by being herself. WeShopU is, in many ways, the child of that combination.

HBZVN: Venezuela is part of your story too. How has your heritage shaped the way you do business globally?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Being Venezuelan means carrying warmth and resilience wherever you go. We are people who know how to build something out of very little, and how to make anyone feel at home. I’ve taken that spirit into every market I work in – the US, Europe, and now clients reaching me from across the world. Wherever I go, I try to represent my country with pride, especially in moments that are difficult for Venezuela. I never forget where I come from.

HBZVN: Speaking of Venezuela – the origin of WeShopU itself is not what people expect. Can you tell us how it really began?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: People assume WeShopU was born as a luxury concept. It wasn’t. It was born out of necessity and love for my country. Venezuela was living through one of the deepest crises the world has seen, and the first boxes I ever packed and shipped weren’t full of designer bags. They were full of detergent and food, sent to family and to people back home who couldn’t find these basic things on the shelves. That was the real first version of WeShopU: a shipping service born from crisis, built to help people survive.

HBZVN: From detergent and food to some of the most coveted handbags in the world, how did that transformation happen?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Slowly, and then all at once. As I kept shipping and solving problems for people, I started noticing a different kind of demand – people asking me to source things that were nearly impossible to find: designer pieces, waitlisted bags, items that required real relationships and real patience. I realized the same skill set – logistics, negotiation, trust, understanding what someone truly needs – applied just as well to a Birkin as it did to a box of detergent. The vision kept growing and growing, until one day I looked back and realized those humble boxes had turned into some of the most expensive, most exclusive bags on the planet. That journey – from survival to luxury – is the truest reflection of who I am.

HBZVN: WeShopU has become synonymous with Hermès sourcing in particular. Why that house?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Hermès isn’t just a brand to me. It’s a philosophy. Patience, craftsmanship, exclusivity that can’t be rushed or forced. My clients don’t just want a bag; they want the story, the wait, the ritual of acquiring something rare. I understood early that if I could master that world – the relationships, the timing, the trust. I could build something no one else was offering with the same level of personal care.

HBZVN: You’ve been featured in Marie Claire, and now on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam. What does this recognition mean to you?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: It’s humbling in the truest sense. I think about the girl waitressing in New York, and I think about where I’m standing now – recognized by international publications for building something from instinct, sacrifice, and an obsession with doing things properly. This cover isn’t just a personal milestone; it’s proof that what we’ve built at WeShopU has weight in this industry, that it’s seen and respected on a global stage.

HBZVN: What does a typical client relationship look like at WeShopU?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: It’s never transactional. My clients trust me with their money, their taste, and often their privacy. That’s not a small thing. I built WeShopU on the same principle I learned waiting tables: listen first, negotiate fairly, and never let the person in front of you feel like just another order. That’s why people stay with me for years, and why so many find me through word of mouth rather than advertising.

HARPER’S BAZAAR: Running a business across US and European markets, with a global clientele, at the pace you do, what does leadership look like for you day to day?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Relentless, but calm. People assume luxury moves slowly, elegantly; but behind the scenes it’s logistics, negotiation, time zones, and split-second decisions on sourcing. I lead the way my father does business: decisively, but always with the composure my mother taught me. My team knows that no matter how chaotic the day gets, we never let the client see the seams.

HBZVN: You don’t lead alone, though. Your husband, Romer, is very much part of this story.

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Romer is my perfect counterpart. If I’m the vision and the fire, he’s the steadiness that lets that fire actually build something instead of just burning bright and disappearing. He supports every need this business throws at me, and he has a way of guiding me back to clarity when things get overwhelming. Running a company like this takes a certain kind of partnership: someone who can stand beside you in the pressure, not just in the success. Romer is that person. Everything WeShopU has become, we’ve built it as a team, even when my name is the one on the door.

HBZVN: You’ve mentioned your daughter, Dhana, is now your greatest inspiration. Tell us about that.

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Everything changed when Dhana was born. Before her, WeShopU was my passion. Now it’s her inheritance. I’m not building this empire for a cover story or a follower count. I’m building it so that one day, she can take what I started and go even further. Every negotiation, every relationship I build with a boutique or a brand, every client I earn. I think of it as a brick I’m laying for her future. She is the reason there’s no ceiling on what I’m willing to build.

HBZVN: From counting coins to feed yourself, to now leading a team of more than twenty people across the globe, what has that distance taught you?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: It taught me everything. There was a version of me who genuinely had to scrape together whatever she had just to eat. I don’t say that for sympathy; I say it because it’s the root of everything I’ve built. Today I have a team of over twenty people working across the planet, sourcing, negotiating, shipping, and I get to travel the world leading a business I built from nothing. But if it were only about the bags, none of this would mean as much as it does.

HBZVN: What do you mean by that?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: Along this journey, I discovered that a bag is never just a bag. For so many women, it represents something much deeper: empowerment. I’ve watched clients purchase a bag after walking out of a divorce, using it as a way of telling themselves: this is a new road, a new destination, and I am still worth something. I’ve seen women save for months, sometimes years, to buy one piece. In that process, they discover something powerful: that the bag isn’t an expense, it’s an investment, and so is believing in yourself again. That emotional weight is the part of this business no one sees from the outside, but it’s the part that matters most to me.

HBZVN: That’s an extraordinary way to look at luxury.

LORETANA BLARASSIN: It’s the only way I know how to look at it. Luxury without meaning is just a price tag. What I love about my work is that I get to hand a woman a box, and inside that box is so much more than what the industry calls a “piece”. It’s a reminder of what she’s capable of.

HBZVN: As you look at where WeShopU stands today, seven years in, recognized internationally, at the top of the luxury personal shopping industry, what would you tell the woman who was waitressing in New York?

LORETANA BLARASSIN: I would tell her: everything you’re learning right now – the patience, the humility, the ability to read people – none of it is wasted. I would tell her that her name, her family, her country, are not something to shrink from but something to build with. And I would tell her that one day, a magazine will put her face on a cover not because of who her family is, but because of what she built with her own hands. That’s the proudest part of this journey, knowing that WeShopU, and everything it represents, is entirely mine, made for Dhana, made possible by Romer standing beside me, and made real by everyone who came before me.

Loretana Blarassin is the founder of WeShopU, a global luxury personal shopping and styling concierge based in the US and EU, known for its expertise in handbag sourcing and its worldwide clientele of over 347,000 followers.

Photography: Manuel Hernández @manuelhphoto.
Makeup: Gustavo Gandarela @gusgandarela.
Wardrobe: Abisai Hernández @capptain_bond9.
Accessories: María Elena Headpieces & Accessories @mariaelenaheadpieces.
Handbag: WeShopU Collection @weshopu

Harper’s Bazaar Vietnam