No more clothes replay - STARBYTES By Butch Francisco

For the longest time, I must have been the one person who regularly comes out on television with the fewest number of clothes: Two pairs of jeans, three pairs of slacks (black, brown and blue), half a dozen long-sleeved shirts, two dozens polo shirts and a pile high of T-shirts.

That may still seem a lot — but that is only if I worked in a bank and wore a uniform to work. But for someone like me who came out twice a week on TV then (with guest appearances in various shows in between) when I was still on ABS-CBN, I had to repeat clothes every so often (a mortal sin if we follow the strange rules of show business).

I would, for instance, wear the same shirt five or six times a year. In fact, I can never forget the look on Cristy Fermin’s face every time I would walk into the studio wearing a shirt I had already worn previously on Showbiz Lingo. As I came face to face with her, she would only utter one word: “Rewind.”

But to show you how surveys can sometimes be so inaccurate, I once ended up in a best-dressed list in the mid-’90s.

When I moved to GMA 7, I was given a clothes budget and I no longer had an excuse to replay clothes. It then became part of my routine to visit malls every week to buy clothes and it was around that time that I realized why I always had very few clothes all my life: 1.) I’m not particularly fond of clothes (my father had to cajole me into coming with him to department stores so that he could buy me new shirts to replace my outdated ones that I wouldn’t part with; 2.) I don’t like the idea of going from store to store looking for clothes because I don’t have the patience for it; 3.) I hated trying on clothes, especially in those cramped fitting rooms of department stores; and 4.) There were very few clothes off the rack that I liked and that fit me well.

And so even with the clothing allowance, I sometimes still ended up wearing the same shirt — to the delight of my executive producer because that meant savings for the show.

It was easy for me to repeat clothes by this time because I had already accumulated quite a lot with my weekly excursion to the mall in search of new shirts. This was until a fire gutted the compound where my former driver lived and I had to give away clothes, which I gladly did because some of the shirts were starting to get moldy after getting stored in the closet for sometime. Eventually, I was the one without clothes, but, hey, what spacious closets I had after that.

Then came the offer for me to endorse the new clothing line called Jewels. The consultant from the company, Von Arroyo (yes, also the talented singer), came over to the house to show me samples of their products and immediately came a realization: I finally found the shirts I liked. The fabric was cool and comfortable and the shirts fit me well — like these were sewn into my body.

In time, I went to visit the various Jewels stores in SM malls and saw the entire collection: Cotton shirts you can use for semi-formal affairs, stretchable shirts that are casual and sporty, pants (all kinds) that I never thought they carry and really fabulous jackets that I now sometimes wear for formal occasions and which I find so practical because these need not be sent for costly dry cleaning because there are no satin linings underneath (a good hand wash will do the trick).

Once I sent GMA 7 stylist Sander Andan to the Jewels branch in SM San Lazaro to check it out and — the finicky person he is when it comes to clothes — he was impressed with clothes in the store, particularly the material. He immediately gave me the thumbs up.

And now, I’ve been endorsing Jewels for almost a year and am very happy with the company and its clothes. As co-endorsers I have TJ Trinidad and Tanya Garcia, whose pregnancy may just inspire the Jewels owners to come up with a maternity dresses line. Recently, Erich Gonzales was also tapped to endorse Jewels, except that I have yet to meet her in person.

Sometime ago, we had another pictorial to show Jewels’ new line and here on this page are a couple of the photographs taken by Dominique James.

Meanwhile, gone are the days when I am going to repeat clothes on TV and that’s a relief for me because I’ve been scolded in the past for that (that’s not supposed to be a big issue, but that’s showbiz for you!). And I have to thank Jewels for providing me with clothes and for making me realize that it’s never too late to appreciate clothes — good, reasonably-priced clothes.