Chinese New Year Fashion Show

at the Heritage hotel as part of their Chinese New Year celebration. Some students and teachers from school were asked to design and sew modern Chinese inspired outfits for a fashion show during the event. We only had one week to make the clothes. Our models were the hotel’s sales/marketing representatives. The real bodies (as opposed to the standard model sizes) were a good challenge for us. My garment originally was supposed to be peach with charcoal trims but peach was hard to find apparently and so I was given old rose and silver satin. I got inspiration from an ancient Chinese dress called shenyi, more specifically the quju form of it. It was worn by women and I tried to do a more modern version, incorporating other typical Chinese clothing elements like frogging (those lovely swirly buttons) etc.

Photos from the show: (you may hover over photos to see the captions or adjust slide speed)

Project Runway Philippines Finale

We saw the Project Runway Philippines Finale last week (thanks Sir Lev=) ) and I really appreciate the effort that the final 3 designers put into their collections. There was a bit of ‘cheese’ before the actual show, which I guess I should have expected, seeing as how everything in the country from politics to fashion is mixed in with the local kind of showbiz. Anyway, it opened with Philip Tamus, who sent a swimwear look down the runway first. He knows the female form which is seen from his clothes- lots of women would be able to wear them and look and feel great. I really liked how he can pile on the details on a bodice without losing the beautiful womanly shape. Then again, the color palette did nothing for me and I felt like I’ve seen them before. Nothing really new but he did a great job using his strengths and coming up with flattering gowns despite the fact that they’re in the most difficult color for a woman to wear- quite a feat.

Veejay Floresca went next and the Linkin Park track really got me excited to see what he’ll show. And I guess that was why I got so disappointed. You know how certain kinds of music makes you visualize a certain look/color/mood? It was like Jerome Lorico’s last season’s show, when his choice of music sort of gave me a preview to his collection. I was stunned then, I wasn’t with Veejay’s. The first few notes got me thinking of black and new metal and edgy models with attitude. Suffice to say I wasn’t expecting at all the colorless minimalist outfits trickling down the runway. I started wondering why he has almost the same colour palette as Philip, and I thought maybe they were prescribed to use eco-fabrics like in one episode of Project Runway (US) or something like that. And while I was thinking about that, the designs all started melting into each other and my eyes just glazed over.. I thought he even sent a dress walking twice. The fit wasn’t that good either. I felt really bad because I wanted him to do well since he has a lot of heart and I know all about the different sacrifices and pains that goes into producing outfits like that. I think about it now and the clothes (which reminded me of the desert area Luke Skywalker grew up in at Tatooine and Queen Amidala’s fighting outfit), considered individually, are actually really great but during the show, I guess they just didn’t make an impact at all. I myself am only starting to learn that it’s better to “wow” in a show and create toned down, more wearable versions of the showpieces later than to be too safe. But I’m not worried for him, he’s young, is learning and there are more shows to come his way.

Aries Lagat showed his collection last and although I wasn’t crazy about his palette, I was just happy that he used colour at all. I loved the sparkling hoodie look for men and the floating lapels and the backs that looked as good as the front. Everything was incredibly well-made and fit the models so well. It was great how the audience clapped when one model went out in one outfit, got unzipped by two other models and turned her one outfit into three new looks for all of them. He’s so good with pattern making, I like how he thinks and he has great showmanship. I think Aries might win, just for showing something new, clothes that got people excited.

My friend told me about a badly written article about this in one of the local newspapers and I have to agree. Someone who would write “a striking bald model (for the theatrical factor)” theatrical factor??! in parentheses no less! after “shift dresses” and “flowing gowns” when talking about what went down the runway is disappointingly getting it wrong in fashion as with the written word. Reading further I came upon the proclamation that according to the author regarding Aries’ clothes and choice of print: “difficult to judge if these pieces would still work when worn in the streets.” Huh. Makes me wonder if the author has actually been out walking in the streets here and the billions of streets in the world, observing what people are actually capable of wearing. I guess that’s why Manila unlike Harajuku and elsewhere has no ’street fashion’. Too many people are too scared to dare wear whatever they like because too many people are too judgmental. And anyway, whether the outfits can be worn in the streets shouldn’t even be a concern anyway, they’re certainly great for parties and special events. But yknow what, maybe an ‘author’ who says “achitechtural” shouldn’t be taken too seriously anyway.

YoU mag launch, among other things

I promise myself I will update more frequently. I have such a long backlog of entries that won’t make sense to post now so my past few (super late) entries have been about the more important bits of my ‘fashion life’. This one will be not different but it will be the last of these late posts. Promise!

Two Saturdays ago was the launch of YoU magazine and along with four of my schoolmates, I showed two punk rock inspired outfits at their show. I shall have proper photos taken as soon as I get them back, right now I only have a not-so-detailed runway shot of one of them.

So yea, it looks like a puff of pink because I did make a puff of pink.. a hot pink tutu. I’m especially happy about the back of the bustier, where the zipper is attached tot he bodice using rows of safety pins, but as I said, I’ll just post detail photos here next time. It was a nicely done show all-in-all, the place was really packed. So full, in fact, that I got stuck in the middle of it trying to get out for around 10 minutes without getting one inch closer to the exit. But it was all nice, really. The other schools who showed outfits were Colege of St. Benilde, SOFA and FIP. None of them went up the stage when they were called though.. wonder why. So I don’t know them.. if they were students of faculty.

Okay have to go, Pattern III class is about to start.. and kacci and gloomy apparently have some pressing chika to tell. Haha.

Un Nuit Au Maroc

Thursday last week, Amanda Agnes and Sari Lazaro organized a fashion show for their production class. It was one night of fashion in Morocco. Designer students from our school, LaSalle College International, showed their stuff: Athena Tandoc, Finela Gregorio, Engie Garcia, Marge Regala, Kristine Bautista, Miki Hahn, Sari Lazaro and me. It was a great show, thanks to Amanda and Sari.

The location nearly ruined everything but it still was a great show, thanks to Amanda and Sari, everyone who helped and the designers. The place, and I mention this only once, was Warehouse 135. It was such a bad experience I shall never come back there again of my own accord, but the YoU Magazine launch this Saturday (in which I will be showing some punk rock clothes) will be held there so that will be the last time. First, they had to be told to turn the a/c on while we were setting everything up. And there was no help or any kind of assistance from them at all. When we arrived there late afternoon, the place, looking all dilapidated under the unforgiving lights was dirty, with cigarettes butts everywhere, probably from whatever went on the night before. The toilet had a lot of cockroaches. The backstage was upstairs and I was always scared to leave our things without someone we know because this dodgy crook-like man was always hovering nearby. He won’t even fetch water for my friend who needed to take some medicine. And while the models were undressing, the crook-guy and another goon were stealing looks! Athena had to tell him to give us a bit of privacy and he took one step back. We had to compensate and hide from them when they should be helping make things better. While the show is on-going, I was watching from the balcony backstage, waiting for my turn, and one guy came up to me and had the gall to tell me to tell everyone else to not nudge the stupid tables because the club’s power breaker thingy whatever will explode. What?! That totally doesn’t make sense. And it isn’t even my problem if they have some hacked-up electrical wiring that could cause major accidents with a single nudge of a table. It’s their problem and they either fix it or someone ought to investigate that. They were really gross and rude and unprofessional. I don’t know where the people who work there come from or how they were trained (if there was any training at all) but since they represent that “club,” everything about it was revealed to me in very poor, but clear light.

So next time you think about going there, don’t be fooled by the sparkling lights that hide all the ugly reality and stay near the exits because someone just might nudge a table and cause an explosion: you are in a warehouse that declares the fact in cheap tarp in front and that’s all it really is.

Thanks to:
stylebible.ph
Flip TV
Konrad Ong
LCI photography students
everyone who made it a nice event.

Fabric Fashion Show @ Embassy Fly

We had a show about two weeks ago. Myself, and my friends Kristine, Karl and Charmagne with the theme Emotionally Hardcore in Saving Mother Earth. We thank(?) Sir Lev for coming up with that idea. It is Emo + Eco/Global Warming fashion in one, essentially. Both inspired by some lesson topics we had discussed in class. Why emo and global warming? Emo because it is a fashion phenomenon that’s spreading so much it cannot be ignored. Since the emo culture is honestly quite a selfish way of life, it’d be interesting to relate being emo for a completely selfless reason: saving the earth. And global warming for the simple fact that it affects everyone, whether you choose to notice it or not. How we relate the two different inspirations together was up to us.

My collection is all about penguins with an emo twist. One of the effects of global warming is the melting of polar ice caps, home of the penguins. So they are affected first and worst. In the popular series Heroes’ world, it’s ‘Save the cheerleader, Save the world’ but in reality, it’s ‘Save the penguins, Save the world’.

That’s the idea. And ideas are always easier on paper. Haha..

A lot of the cautionary lessons I was told before were affirmed and there were a lot of new lessons learned. A fashion designers’ world isn’t as glamorous as it seems. It really isn’t. It involves a lot of work, you can’t do everything on your own and since it involves a lot of people, you run into characters ranging from midly annoying to frighteningly offending. It’s easy to overlook many of the little details involved along the way. And it really does pay to be nice. Nice, not gullible.

Needless to say, the whole thing was an experience that was totally different from anything I’ve ever known. The preparation was neverending, the wait was nerve racking and the actual show was intense but over in an eye blink. It was all both very real and surreal. And I’d be so lucky to keep doing this as long as I can.

More photos in a coming post. Backstage photos in my Multiply.

Special thanks to:
Imagine
Manila Bulletin
Manual
Inquirer.net
Fudge
Gadgets
Mtv
Fashion TV
Sugar Sugar
stylebible.ph

And thanks Sir Lev. =)