Beauty and the blah

Philippine Fashion Week is all about the next big discovery. Whether one has been toiling over a sewing machine in sartorial anonymity for years, or happens to be a breakout upstart with loads of connections, Fashion Week provides the platform where they can all make a case for their genius in front of editors, buyers, and the general clothes-loving public, to whom Fashion Week shows are democratically open for viewing. Luxe Wear B featured designers who are not necessarily new to the scene but who are honing their skills on the runway, polishing their act, refining their visions. With 14 of them trying to make an impression in just around five minutes each, watching the show felt a bit like fashion speed-dating. A few were forgettable, a few were bad enough to be hard to forget, but all in all, the level of skill, talent and creativity we have in this country just keeps on rising. The standouts — and there were some of those too — will make you believe.

Alex Pigao

Alex Pigao has toned down the whole ethnic mountain warrior look and offered gathered, layered and ruffled dresses in step with the times, still evoking the “tribal princess” look without being too literal and thus kitschy. In a palette of warm tones however, a silver tuxedo dress was way out of place, as if someone took a roll of insulating foam to a wedding. His menswear still seemed to suffer from the deconstructed patchwork disease of the ’90s, but overall the dresses were flattering and wearable.

Ferdie Abuel

Here Abuel combines many of the recent runway trends to good effect — the Greek goddess look, the slave chains, metallic fabrics and drop crotch pants all looked sexy and young, and edgy without trying too hard. While the gowns were reminiscent of Natalie Portman in Lanvin in ’05, the silver spacesuits brought a refreshing futuristic feel to the mix.

Dexter Alazas

One of the few Moorish-inspired collections of the set. The Cebuano designer takes his laser-cut techniques to capelets, obis, collars and even barongs, infusing a sense of origami-like delicacy to architectural details. The soft ochre and violet colors worked in adding depth to what could otherwise look like paper doilies.

Melvin Lachica

Wait, didn’t I just see a collection of Moorish-inspired dresses with laser cut-outs? While Dexter Alazas varied on a theme, Lachica’s were redundant and narrowly-focused. The blah colors didn’t help much either. We would’ve liked to see more creative muscle flexed from this guy who can obviously design a dress.

Edwin Alba

There were some good ideas here, a lot of sculpted details mixed with slinky, flowing fabric that should have made for a powerful hard/soft combo, but the dresses were just so ill-fitting that even the most anorexic of models looked lumpy. It would help for Alba to pay more attention to the way a woman’s body curves and not just how he envisions a dress to be ideally structured. 

Eric delos Santos

When the models for Ilo-Ilo designer Eric delos Santos came out, there was a noticeable perk in the audience’s attention. Perhaps because after the parade of pretty gowns, here was something a bit more...elemental. The rivulets of texturized stitching and odd formations on brown fabric channeled lahar flow. Ruched burgundy ribbon trims added a militaristic jungle feel to it, but made me think of the Burberry Lowry bag.

Ronaldo Arnaldo

This might have been the case of saving the best for last, but Arnaldo kicked everything up a notch with his whimsical homage to op-art, a riff perhaps on the successful cut-out foliages of Eric delos Santos’ spring/summer showing at the last Fashion Week, but Arnaldo takes the concept to more geometric realms. A prim dress straight from the secretarial pool of Mad Men is cut open to reveal Art Deco graphics. The same yellow is used in a svelte suit with black-and-white shapes spilling out of the shirt. The pattern on a very mod-ish shift dress is rearranged with Mondrian-esque cutouts, and a big trapeze dress is given three-dimensionality with layered cuts. This is the perfect example of using one technique in different, non-repetitive ways — every ensemble was a pop-up book of delightful design.