The merry mavericks of art

On a weekend night at Greenbelt, the restaurant and bar strip is bustling with Manila’s young society – a cacophonic throng of button-down polo shirts, faded denim jeans, strappy stilettos, layered salon-styled coifs, and different variations of the tube top. Close to the stroke of midnight, the so-called witching hour, a small band emerges – one by one, or in pairs – slicing in a different vibe. It’s a vibe that raises a few eyebrows – their dress code is a style that would have been welcomed in London or Japan, but is still a source of fascination in the Makati night scene.

It’s a vibe where men comfortably wear eyeliner and black nail polish, where women don’t have to show their clavicles to be considered stylish. It’s a vibe that screams unusual and daring, passion and heaps of creativity that can drown the unimaginative. This small band of renegades walk past the ogles, barely caring that in the hub of conventionality that is Greenbelt, they are eye candy more than the collegiate night owls who frequent the "see and be seen" crowd. They’re here to party. Some of them are here to work. Not that it matters. For most of them, work and play is interchangeable, both approached with a passion so strong that it can’t help but influence and inspire.

They are the new vanguards of Philippine art – figures and faces that are slowly reshaping the way we dress up ourselves and our homes, the way we party, how we’re entertained, and how we appreciate life and its most basic pleasures. They’re often tagged "avant-garde". But that would be putting them in a box when what they want exactly is to get out of it. They are seekers of the unconventional. Nightowls. Sunrise worshippers. Fashion editorials in the flesh. And some of life’s biggest fans.