Any piece made by hand becomes more special when there’s a compelling story behind it. An artist can look within himself or at things happening around him to find an inspiration that will serve as the bedrock of his work.
For four emerging Filipino designers, the rich history of our country, the resilience of the nation and the optimism of our countrymen are stories that needed to be told to the world – in the form of fashion items.
Maco Custodio, Micki Olaguer, Thian Rodriguez and Jared Servaño represented FashionPhilippines at Fashion Utopias: International Fashion Showcase at the Somerset House in London, United Kingdom held on February 18 to 23.
For this year’s exhibition, emerging designers and curators from 24 countries shared their visions of Utopia through commissioned and curated fashion installations.
The Philippine installation, entitled “Utopian U-turns,” received a special citation under the Best Country Category. The Best Country award, which was won by Czech Republic, is given in recognition of exemplary overall exhibition.
“Utopian U-turns” was curated by TAO Inc.’s veteran curators Marian Pastor Roces and Judy Freya Sibayan. The two curators held a series of design workshops for the four designers to challenge them to create pieces made of materials that are rich with Philippine historical narratives of utopian ambition, disaster, re-imagination, failure of vision, and reversals into renewed optimism.
The special commendation of the Philippines is the highest recognition the country has had thus far in the years of our participation in the IFS.
“It affirms that the country is right on track in its aim of making the Philippines a center for creativity and design in the fashion industry,” said Rosvi Gaetos, executive director of the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions.
The IFS panel, for its part, was very impressed by the Philippines’ installation and its ingenuity. “With very little, you [Philippine delegation] did so much. It’s important that you are here, with all the positive messages and this beauty that comes out with thoughts, and love, and passion for what you do,” commented Anna Orsini, a strategic consultant for the British Fashion Council.
In the exhibition, the select designers manifested their grit savoir faire through their powerful collections that reflect their own personal utopian journey.
Top London photographer Darren Black took notice of Servaño’s abaca gown, and lauded, “When I look around there’s a dress that’s made out of banana… it’s amazing… it’s just so beautiful; I think it’s the most innovative. It looks like a McQueen dress. It’s so exotic… so bizarrely strange. For me, it’s a wonderful piece of mechanical engineering right there.”
Servaño personally chose to work with abaca or Manila hemp, a material that is ubiquitous in his southern Philippine home province of South Cotabato, for his IFS collection. Abaca, though considered as the toughest fiber in the world, forcibly yielded to Servaño’s hands as the fashion designer wrangled the fiber to conform to his ideas. Servaño was able to take the stiff and prickly bits of his homeland history and culture to wrestle a wild beauty out of it.
Drawn by the transformability of brass from ammunition to music-making gongs, Rodriguez saw a vacillation between aggression and seduction in the material. Inspired by this, Rodriguez’s “Utopian U-turns” collection presented leather design with metal grommets and bullet finials that cling and enwrap the human body, as if evoking pierced skin.
Custodio, using his years of honing his craft in design and shoemaking, fashioned footwear that spoke of dismemberment and re-configuration. Working with waste tetrabrick packaging as band to suture off-cuts of leather, Custodio made a bold statement on remembering and reconfiguring in quite a Frankensteinian manner while paying tribute to the loss of his beloved dog.
Traveling in episodes of utopia and dystopia, Olaguer’s creations for the IFS exhibit were a juxtaposition of both worlds through a jewelry collection of mother-of-pearl combined with silver and gold. Hers was a presentation that lamented perverse labor practices in the precious metal mining industry, placed in simultaneous contrast with the perfection that a mother-of-pearl demands from the pristine marine environment that created it.
FashionPhilippines is a CITEM-initiated industry brand that depicts fashion pieces created by Filipino design talents who use traditional and current techniques in manipulating materials into veritable works of art.