A Pinoy makeover for the Queer Eye

We love the Fab Five stars of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Isn’t it obvious? When we created our new Wednesday men’s section called "M," we even made a regular feature called "Kikay Eye for the Straight Guy" inspired by our gay icons.

So when we learned that the Fab Five were coming, we thought: why not a makeover by the Kikay Eye for the Queer Eye? How about a hip and modern Filipino look for them? How would they look in the Philippine barong tagalog?

"Sounds good," said Ayala Malls vice president and deputy group head Rowena Tomeldan, as she gave the thumbs-up.

The traditional barong in jusi or piña may be a bit too stiff and old, we thought. We remembered that when Ben Chan introduced a hip and modern barong shirt at his Bench and Human stores, guys really loved it. They loved it too much, however, that it is sooo out of stock! Too bad, it would have been perfect.

Then we remembered Mel Meer’s barong line at Rustan’s and at his Bergamo shop in Greenbelt. Mel’s barongs come in cotton and linen, and in different colors, and modern designs.

Quickly, Mel delivered to the presidential suite of the Makati Shangri-La several barong samples in the Fab Five’s sizes (four medium, one small). The Fab Five instantly loved the barongs! Kyan Douglas chose black linen with very subdued embroidery. Ted Allen went for a light blue barong with while burda and tucked it in. Carson Kressley liked the sheer greenish turquoise sheer barong. Thom Filicia picked dark blue with white geometric embroidery. And Jai Rodriguez put on the cream barong with floral embroidery, saying: "See, this design is so like the Hugo Boss orange shirt I wore today!"

Ted started emoting, and asked: "What do you call this shirt? Barong? With the barong, you can’t go wrong!"

And in came Carson, prancing and punning: "If it ain’t barong, why fix it!"

Our Kikay Eye team – Ana Kalaw, Cecile Zamora Van Straten and myself – tried to help the Fab Five roll their barong sleeves. But Carson obviously had his own "tsuzh" style of folding – he coined the word, remember?

So, with their sleeves rolled, they stepped forward in their flip-flops and sandals (only Ted and Jai wore shoes) for the pictorial and asked: "Can we keep the barongs?"

But of course. The Fab Five love our barong tagalog! Sounds good.

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Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Fab Five visit to Manila was made possible by Ayala Malls and ETC Channel in partnership with Bench.