New designers connect to roots for CSB fashion show

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OVER 90 young designers showed off their work at Sinulid, the graduation fashion show of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde’s (DLS-CSB) Fashion Design and Merchandising (FDM) students. A lot of the standout collections took inspiration from their roots, showing how their past might influence their future in fashion (and if they someday make it big, ours).

The show, held at the PNB Financial Center in Pasay, was themed “Awanggan,” an archaic Filipino term for “infinity.” The show was divided into three parts: Takipsilim (twilight), Hating-Gabi (midnight), and Bukang Liwayway (dawn).

There are two collections that we felt really stood out: Elmar Pascua’s Kabsat and Shagami Felizco’s Walang Tamad sa Quezon.

Kabsat, the Ilocano word for sibling, showed massive white dresses on the runway: expertly draped and gathered to create billowing silhouettes. One gown had a hood lined with native woven material; another had a collar made of native woven fans. The lookbook says that it drew inspiration from traditional weddings from the province, and uses vintage inabel sourced from his mother’s siblings. The billowing techniques are inspired by table skirting techniques used at these provincial weddings.

In Walang Tamad sa Quezon (Nobody’s Lazy in Quezon), we saw a giant basket used as body armor over a gown, and a large, beaded, ruff-style collar with beads hanging around it, reminiscent of Quezon’s Pahiyas Festival. The last dress in this collection showed a trailing train made out of woven banig (grass-woven mat). The collection pays tribute to Quezon’s forgotten hand-beading tradition, as seen in the ruff and a terno beaded with wood.

We also liked Joaquin Rubio’s Paparazzi, Press, and Power, a commentary on celebrity culture. A red and black tuxedo, reminiscent of Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, was covered in strips of film, while a dress was made using velvet ropes used to separate fans from stars. The final outfit was a newsprint catsuit. “It’s a reminder that chasing fame comes at a price. Some learn to play the game, while others get played,” said Mr. Rubio.

Jennica Aquino took on a dark theme as well, with a collection called Eyes on Me, an exploration of facial dysmorphia. Hand-beaded faces and beaded eyes covered a cocktail dress, while distorted faces were painted on a more drab outfit.

Ecce Homosexual by Justin Hernandez explores his relationship with religion as influenced by his gender. “Ecce Homosexual, I unwaveringly declare, inspecting the scars of a gay kid admonished by a religion he wished to embrace. The language of couture documents the unexplored limbo that exists between Catholicism and homosexuality,” he said in the lookbook. The collection, with white drapery, and a flesh-toned dress (that looks like a distortion of the Crucified Christ) takes on the appearance of unfinished Greek marbles.

Efflorescent Dreams by Alliyah Camporendo uses fabric to create living flowers, such as in a sculpted dress covered in fake petals, wrapping around its wearer’s head.

Finally, we were amused by Chloe Uy’s Flowing Within — she manipulated fabric to appear like water (a spinning applique was a bonus).

Ionica Abrahan-Lim, program chair of the Benilde Fashion Design and Merchandising program, said in an interview that part of their strengths as a fashion program include their textile manipulation lessons (“We don’t just ask our students to buy retail”) and their facilities. They’ve been using software that allows students to create patterns and place them on an avatar to predict what their clothes would look like, bypassing several stages of manual testing. Also, after graduation, they allow their graduates to come back and use the facilities to create. “They can go back to school and develop their ideas and new concepts. The mentoring is still there.”

She also noted the collaborative nature of their design courses: “When we’re doing the curriculum, it’s not just fashion design,” she said. “In the end, you will see that mix of architecture, or interior, or industrial design.” — Joseph L. Garcia