If you ask my husband what my favorite things are, he would probably tell you they are: sleeping, traveling, fashion and shopping.
Now what if you could combine all these pleasures in one thing?
I used to have a favorite traveling outfit — a pair of loose but tailored pinstripe pants and a warm, padded jacket — until I forgot to dry clean and the maid washed them. They shrank.
Since then I’ve been searching for an outfit that would take me on an 18-hour flight without having to change into track pants mid-flight.
Now comes Eairth, an organic clothing line from US-trained designer Melissa Dizon. They are so chic and comfy you could even sleep in them.
First time I saw Eairth was more than a year ago at a home and bed store called Soumak at Greenbelt 3.
I walked in, attracted to the earth colors, the hand-dyed, hand-made-looking clothes hanging from S-hooks.
They looked like clothes with a soul.
At that time, however, the sizing and texture did not suit me and I forgot all about it, until my friend Daphne started wearing pieces from Eairth.
This year, stylist Michael Salientes started dragging people to Melissa’s showroom at the corner of Zapote and Metropolitan Avenue in Makati.
I’m not usually the type to go gaga over locally made clothes, but I am now.
As soon as we entered her studio I felt some sort of kinship with Melissa and her design sensibilities, she and I having both lived in New York at the same time.
I saw racks and racks of her current collections in earthen colors. Because they are hand-dyed, no two pieces are exactly alike.
Melissa encouraged us to try on her clothes and enjoy them.
I put on a scarf, a furry hat, a neck piece, and hooded top I had seen on Women’s Wear Daily online.
I was surprised to find out we could actually buy them — they were not mere samples for wholesalers or buyers. She could cut them to our size and specifications, ready for pick up in a few days.
She’s easy like that.
I came back a couple more times to photograph a model and interview Melissa. While my photographs are amateurish, you can see how comfy, current and urban her stuff is, and you can see why we think Melissa is the coolest thing to hit Manila fashion in a very long time.
Why is there an “I” in Eairth?
My sister and I came up with the idea because all my siblings and I are earth and air signs and originally we wanted to found a company that would combine all our talents together. So it’s an acronym that combines “earth” and “air.” And then, everything just came into place, coming here and discovering pigments, discovering all this green stuff. I never intended to start a green company.
How long ago was this?
About a little over a year. It’s just only our third season.
Why did you come back? Michael said you were feeling some emptiness…
Yeah, it was hollow. You know, growing up in the States as a Filipino doesn’t make you feel like yourself. I thought I was American and then the whole time there was always something missing. I think I never verbalized it, or figured out what it was.
Finally I found an opportunity when my son Lucien was going to college. I was like, hmmm, maybe I could resign from my crazy, heavy, corporate job and do a startup.
When I left San Francisco, I was working for Levi’s at that time. So that was the last place, but all my life I’ve been in New York since I was nine. I studied in Parsons New York and L.A.
I was head designer for Express, Todd Oldham and Theory. I worked at BCBG for a year and a half. I was global director for design at Levi’s.
I was working a lot. I was always just working. I was a working mom. Even my days off, I was still working.
What do you love about being in the Philippines?
I love the colors. I love the people. I love the weather. And I love it that I feel Filipino. I feel like I finally figured out what I was all this time. Because I’m like, always trying to fit in.
In America, there’s so many different tags that you had to fit in to. But now it’s just like natural.
Do you speak Tagalog?
Konti lang.
So what inspires you?
Michael! (laughs) Really, no…a lot of different things. The last year, simple things and surfing and nature.
How do you think your love for surfing is reflected in the pieces? Are some of these resort pieces?
I don’t even think it’s so much the resort, I think it’s more the sensibility and the feeling of the clothes. They’re all very relaxed, although when you look at the shapes, they could be quite urban and forward.
So it’s like the combination of those things because I did grow up in the city. That part of me I could never get rid of, the grime, you know…
And there’s also the feeling of sleepwear…
Oh yeah, cause I love sleeping. Sleeping is the one thing in my life that I love so much. I only discovered that I loved that when I moved here, cause now I can really sleep.
How long do you sleep?
Eight hours. When I sleep, I really sleep.
Do you have nice dreams?
Oh yeah, now I do.
Any sleeping rituals?
I read poetry. I love Pablo Neruda, Hemmingway, e.e. cummings. I’m really romantic, it’s kind of scary.
What inspires you?
I love art, I love films, I love garbage, I love digging through trash, like other people’s clothes, things, books. I really love picking through stuff. Magazines, recently not so much. I’d more so go into books and newspapers and poems, cause I write poems.
Could you name some of your clients?
Daphne Oseña really loves the clothes. Gretchen Barretto, the Zobels, Sofia Elizalde — she really likes the stuff a lot.
Do you have any favorite designers? Besides yourself? (laughs)
I’m not my favorite designer. I don’t even think of myself as a designer. I’m just an artist. You know the clothes, right now, are really what I’m absorbed in. I mean, in the future, I’m already starting to work with my aunt with furnishing, interiors. I really love structure, three-dimensional things. So it’s not just the clothes.
But I love Raf Simmons right now. Margiela is my top, top, top.
I like Ann Demeumeester. Of course I like Yohji and Comme. I love Taka from Number (N)ine. And Lanvin, Alber Elbaz.
Tell me about your aunt, Yola Johnson.
She was the founder of Soumak. She’s like a renegade in herself, for her time. She’s still an amazing artist. She works a lot with the local artisans, north, south, east, and west. You know, weavers, wood workers. She’s really one of my major inspirations when I came here cause I wasn’t planning to stay here. I just came here to surf and take some time off after I resigned to figure out what I was going to do, you know. And then, I couldn’t leave.
What will happen to us if you fall in love and leave?
I’m not ever leaving. I’m staying here.
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Melissa Dizon’s Eairth is sold in Japan at Cul de Paris and Beams, and in the U.S. at Fred Segal, Steve Alan, Jussara Lee and Theodore in L.A.
In the Philippines, you can check out Soumak at Greenbelt 3 or go directly to her showroom on the street level, Bormaheco Building, Zapote Street corner Metropolitan Avenue. Open daily except Sunday (tel. 890-7785).