Rajo's creepy fascination

One wouldn’t immediately think of dragonflies, spiders and other creepy crawlies as stylish, glamorous things, but fashion stalwart Rajo Laurel thinks otherwise. “I have always been attracted to insects ever since I was a child! I find them so intriguing and really quite beautiful,” says the designer. “I love their coloring and the intricacy of their design. In fact I love them so much, I have an insect tattoo on my foot! Insects have always been a recurring theme in my work and I just wanted to revisit it. It was a reaction to all the delicateness that I was doing from last season. I wanted something darker and more sinister. I guess it was just natural for me to swing back and forth from something delicate and pretty to something more subversive.

“I find insects creepy but at the same time really beautiful. That is the balance that I am trying to achieve for this collection.”

Think almost graphic skeletal images, simply and boldly printed on black and white and you can see how Rajo has interpreted these creatures’ complex structures into bold and sexy pieces. And isn’t it true that we are always intrigued by the very things that scare us? A bit of that tingle in the spine makes the initial fear cross over to excitement and a sense of daring. “I believe that the woman who will be attracted to this collection has a strong personality and a real dramatic sense of style. This woman is someone who appreciates dressmaking because this Insects collection is a bit more complicated than my previous one. We developed a lot of cuts in one dress to accentuate the body. I also have my signature cobweb dress in this collection which was wildly appreciated. The shapes are cut closer to the body, with an emphasis on the shoulders and the waist,” Rajo shares. The colors for this collection are very rich with deep blues, teals, a fiery vermillion and a multitude of grays and platinum. Another special feature of this collection is the intense research into fabric technology: “I am excited about the fabrication of this collection as we did a lot of fabric research. One is the cobweb fabric that is made from rayon and acetate. We also have this beautiful laminated chiffon.

“We are also doing a block print using an enlarged image of a dragonfly’s wing,” Rajo adds. During the first day of launching the Insects collection, pieces were sold out before lunchtime.

Known for his knack for glamorizing and celebrating female beauty and form, his interpretation of the dangerously sexy woman is a common fantasy of both men and women — men want to be with them and women want to be that woman, even just once in a while. Who, after all, doesn’t want to feel dangerously sexy and glamorous? 

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The collection is available at House of Laurel at 6013 Villena cor. Manalac St., Poblacion, Makati City (tel. 895-5688 / 899-9946).