Paris Young & Talented Designers (Part I)

Paris was never my favorite getaway place. In Europe, London was the city that captured my heart. It wasn’t the city life and shopping that seduced me. It was in fact the rich history that made me love the place – the elegance of the old buildings and the very old regal castles. The British countryside was even more breathtaking, with its quaint houses built not with cement but with limestone bricks. And where else can you find those cool, old black classic cabs with chauffeurs? Only in London.

I didn’t like Paris the first time I went there. Maybe because I did more shopping than sightseeing. Oui, Paris may definitely be heaven on earth for fashion lovers and fashion makers alike. But it takes more than excellent haute couture to love a place.

Another trip to Paris via Air France — this time for the Paris competition for young fashion designers — changed all that. Maybe because this time, shopping was the very last thing I did. Or was it the flea markets at Saint Quen filled with centuries-old clothing and furniture that Josie Natori took us to, that made the difference? Or was it simply because Paris loomed in my mind as the place where young, talented Filipinos have made their mark?

It all started more than 10 years ago when Ethel Timbol, lifestyle editor of Manila Bulletin, attended the Paris competition, formally known as the Concours International des Jeunes Createurs de Mode. Mrs. Timbol told FDCP (Fashion and Design Council of the Philippines) president Lulu Tan Gan about it. With a commitment to making the young Filipino designer competitive in the world fashion scene, FDCP approached Air France in Manila with 10 outfits for the Paris competition. But the Philippines that time could only afford to send five entries and one representative to Paris. Needing someone well-traveled to handle the entries and the documentations for the freight, the FDCP asked Lulu to represent the Philippines and go to Paris for the 1992 competition.

There, Ariel Alvarez stunned the French at the UN Auditorium with his design and won 1st Runner-up. Even with a broken leg, Lulu Tan Gan fashionably accepted the award in his behalf. As she hobbled up the stage in red hot shorts and a scarf wrapped around her cast, the French could only say "L’original!"

In 1994, Filipino talent made its mark once again when Frederick Peralta proudly brought home the Grand Prize. In 1998, talented designer Jojie Lloren won another Grand Prize for our country. The year after, Dong Omaga Diaz was bestowed the special House of Lesage Award. And most recently, uber creative designer Ignacio Loyola made an impact on the French with his black rubber band jumpsuit.

For the 2001 Concours International des Jeunes Createurs de Mode, a fresh breed of five young outstanding designers – Reian Kagahastian, Yvonne Quisumbing, Ramon Esteban, Ray Kuan and Jun Jun Escario – were selected to represent the Philippines. YDG (Young Designers Guild) president Dennis Lustico was very proud and extremely happy for Reian and Yvonne. "Their advantage of course is their handiwork, it says a lot in a dress," he said backstage at the Carrousel du Louvre. "It will do good. I’m very optimistic."

Who can forget Reian Mata Kagahastian’s dress made out of Sobranie cigarettes? Even if it took this 21-year old 30 minutes to knot each cigarette and even if she used a total of three reams (P1,900/ream), it was definitely worth it. She had always dreamed of joining the Paris competition.

Although she never expected to be one of the five finalists to represent the country in Paris, she felt ready to join the competition. Reian owes her confidence to her victory in last year’s PNP (Philippine National Police) competition where she won the office attire category. Her entry was colored blue with three reflectorized strips on the left side symbolizing Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, and it was on the heart to symbolize the unity of the Philippines.

Twenty-six year old Yvonne Quisumbing had always wanted to take up something art-related. Studying at the Philippine School of Interior Design, she moved to the College of Saint Benilde to finish interior design. In a class elective under couture king Inno Sotto, Yvonne got inspired and shifted to fashion design.

She joined the Philippine Fashion Design Competition, which selects the contestants for the Paris competition in 1999, but backed out because she didn’t feel ready. She later joined the Japanese Makuhari competition under the mentorship of Jojie Lloren and was presented a special award from Japan Airlines.

For the Paris competition, Yvonne recalled: "My original design was different when I first submitted it. It was a butterfly sleeved-top made out of abaca. Filipinana para mas Filipino," she said. "I just designed and designed and it evolved into this – a theme of slumber. That’s why there’s a pillow. The model can fit anywhere she wants and fall asleep anywhere. The garter [top], diba sometimes you sleep then you wake up, ay, reality." The garter is what binds her, explains this Alexander McQueen fan.

Taking Yvonne under his wing for the competition, Jojie felt very hopeful for her entry. "First of all, the silhouette is very different. It’s very modern I would say. Her clothes are a fusion of hard core bondage and piercing but then there’s this frou-frou effect of the skirt and then there are the soft pillows," he said. "I like the idea, the melding."

But Filipino talent doesn’t come from Manila alone. Twenty-nine-year-old Cebuano Jun Jun Escario took his first bite of the fashion industry when he opened shop at 19. While taking up fine arts in the College of San Carlos Cebu, Jun Jun honed his creativity with his own RTW label Bacchus.

"I had fish scales made especially for the competition. I hammered copper, and chains with antique finish," Jun Jun explained. "Add to that elements of suede, jersey, copper beads, tassels, and a color spectrum of blue, brown, natural beige and accents of red orange, and you get a theme of ‘Egyptoid meets Grecian princess.’ I named her Dalma," he said of his creation.

A member of the CDG (Cebu Designers Guild), Jun Jun said he joined "just for the experience to see what I’m worth. I wanted to see kung ano kaya ko. Cebu is not like Manila where people are really fashionable. In Cebu, you have to be super tame, all my clients want serious clothes. Now in this competition, I was able to let go of my creativity."

Fellow Cebuano designer Ray Kuan couldn’t help but agree. Normally designing ready-made basic clothes, he was very excited. "Now there’s a challenge. This is the creative side of me," said this Nicolas Ghesquire admirer.

"I got my idea from my two loves – music and anatomy – the human form," Ray explained. "I don’t play an instrument but I do love anything that’s hardcore metal. I combined both so that’s how I got my idea. Female body form and something wild"

Dextrose, plastic tubes, yarns, beads, rubber wires, metals, tiles, stretch garters, mirrors and plastic bra straps were Ray’s ingredients for his entry. "I just paired it off with a skirt to make it more feminine," said Ray. He also used soft tulles and stretch fabrics. "I made it in layers so that para siyang layers of flesh. Para may transparency siya. Basic stuff but new treatment, layers and transparency."

A fine arts graduate of Cebu, Ray did part-time jobs for local garment factories. He worked as a ghost designer for different labels. He also did designing in Dubai for two years and supplied clothes to Shoemart under the label SM Classics.

"I joined because I wanted to prove myself and I wanted to know where I stand as an artist. This time, I’m just proud to be a part of this as a delegate for the country," smiled Ray backstage. "This is really for the country, to make the Filipinos proud."

Ignacio Loyola recalled how it was backstage the day before the competition. In the past, whenever the boxes of Filipino creations were being unpacked, all the other young foreign design students would swarm around the Filipino talents, curious and all-praises. And last December, they still did.

Around 30 countries would usually participate in this yearly event sending the best of their young talents. But for the 2001 Concours International, only 10 countries were present: Canada, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Peru, Philippines and USA. A fashion insider speculated it was because of the 9-11 tragedy.

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The Philippine Fashion Competition and the Paris competition can certainly do a lot for a young designer. Lulu explained: "If you go through the regular career building, it takes some years. First building your atelier. In fact some designers did not have shops when they joined. After the competition, they become entrepreneurs immediately. The exposure inspires them to continue the success they already have achieved, kasi na-expose na sila. While designers normally take 10 years to build their career, the young designers now are very fortunate. They’re able to build it in two to three years."

"To be successful," Lulu states, "you must have talent, hard work, and then timing. You take chances – to promote your label without any history at all is very, very expensive. It really takes time to build your profession. So activities like these allow them to fast-forward their careers. What they have to do next is to sustain their brand or label. Or to be more enterprising by going into business."

So what are the judges looking for? "In Manila, it has to be a design really different and unique," explained Dennis Lustico. "Actually, judges also look at the silhouette, then the material used and how innovative it is. You have to catch the judges, thinking that it’s possible pala to use that material. That’s a very important aspect. The organizers are also looking for a new form, a new interpretation of a dress."

Jojie Lloren recalled, on winning the Grand Prize in 1998: "In my time, I felt there was more couture involved anything else." Then the succeeding year when they had a theme for travel, the one that won was so street wear. So simple. No couture techniques whatsoever."

With a set theme of material and color for the 2001 Paris competition, we found it quite odd backstage that while all other countries used every color in the spectrum, France was the only country that had entirely neutral colored entries. Jojie, who just finished one year at the Chambre Syndicale, a school known for the technical side of the fashion business, shared that his classmates who joined the competition were complaining that "they were not told entries were supposed to be in a neutral color. So everyone that had color in the local competition here [in Paris] lost."

"The Paris competition is the same as the Manila competition," Jojie observed, "but the difference lies in the fact that here, you don’t know what the Paris judges are expecting."

(To be continued)