Filipiniana never looked better than in the Santuario de San Antonio’s “Francisfest” held at the Makati Shangri-La Ballroom with Joey Soriano as chairman and the brainchild behind this year’s fundraising event that turned into a fashion statement for our national dress.
The whole evening featured our romantic kundimans, Philippine ballet and a fashion show of beautiful ternos, kimonas, patadyongs, baro’t saya and Maria Claras, which showed our rich culture that transcended centuries of various influences — from the Spanish, Chinese, Malay, Muslim and indigenous tribes.
Lovely ladies wore their Philippine wear proudly and showed us that we should start using our native dress more often for social events. After all, our ternos were de rigueur wear for our grandmothers as these showed off our culture and tradition and were very flattering to our Asian build. Former First Lady Imelda Marcos wore it with aplomb in the 1970s and she always stood out at international functions.
My favorites were the three lovely twentysomething Concepcion cousins who proudly wore their Lola Victoria Araneta’s 50-year-old ternos that looked so au courant in the 21st century.
I may be biased but I think we have the prettiest national dress among our Asian neighbors, if not the world.
Isn’t it about time we started wearing Filipiniana with pride for social occasions?