Mother H made me do it. While Henri Calayag was doing my hair at the private room of his Greenbelt Residences salon, my eyes were fixated upon a Barbie doll, coiffed not the usual way a Barbie doll is usually coiffed at a toy store nearest you. I should have known that that doll’s hair received some magic from the hair master himself. I found out later that this particular Barbie, aside from getting special treatment, was going to dress fittings with the country’s most respected designers. Barbie was getting ready for the ball.
This is no ordinary ball. Yes, there was an unforgettable Barbie “Best Dressed Ball” staged last year by the folks at Preview magazine to highlight that year’s smart dressers, but this one, all eyes are on Barbie herself as she gets the couture treatment from the country’s best and brightest. This Barbie Ball is chaired by none other than Margie Moran-Floirendo, herself a living doll and testament to longevity and timelessness where beauty and charity are concerned. The beneficiary, Ballet Philippines, an institution that champions Filipino dance for decades now. Fashion meets philanthropy as fans of Barbie and the ballet come together for a great cause. Details on the Barbie benefit for Ballet Philippines will be released at a later date, but for now, we give you this.
This Supreme spread takes a sneak peak into the Facebook photos of some of our favorite Filipino designers as they re-interpret Barbie the way they see her now. Some of them chopped her hair (a la Rihanna), colored it differently, made her wear presidential clothes, transformed her into a muse of nature — a creature both of fantasy and their own style-induced reality.
Supreme dedicates this space to the Filipino designer, or to anybody creative for that matter — that we continue to inspire each other. Despite talks of “copycat” calls, no one can deny the ingenuity that is due to the Filipino. Instead of division and subtraction, let this be about multiplication and addition — the Filipino design community calls for unification.
Yes, dearies, you may be a Barbie girl in a Barbie world, and even if there will always be “plastic” — we should always choose to be fantastic.
The Ballet Philippines fundraiser event will be on March 17 at the Rigodon Ballroom of the Peninsula Manila
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