Fashion Watch makes a comeback with elegant waists and holiday trimmings
Fashion Watch 2011 was launched at the Makati Shangri-La on April 14 to a full house of fashion fans eager for new eye candy. While remaining the brainchild of Inno Sotto, this year’s Fashion Watch is being held under the auspices of the new Council of Fashion Designers of the Philippines, composed of Lulu Tan-Gan, Arcy Gayatin, Ito Curata, Ivarluski Aseron and Jojie Lloren, who have chosen the 19 Filipino designers to be featured exclusively throughout the series, meaning they won’t be showing anywhere else this year. This format promises to make each designer’s two collections (holiday and spring/summer) more focused and, indeed, special. The revamped series is presented by media partners The Philippine STAR, Preview, StyleBible and Star World. Behind the scenes, Patrick Rosas and team are the force behind hair and makeup, Grace Molina is project coordinator and Inno Sotto is creative director.
Eric Raisina: The king of prints
The Madagascan-born, French-trained and now Cambodia-based textile designer Eric Raisina opened this year’s Fashion Watch series, and it was interesting to see how an international designer (he’s created bespoke material for YSL) who is still somewhat local (to Cambodia that is) fared next to the South East Asian neighbors who invited him to Manila. Raisina trades on texture, playing with unique weave patterns and natural materials like silk, raffia, sisal, linen and cotton, and the collection he showed here, entitled “Haute Texture,” gave us a glimpse of what he can do. The summery collection started out with neutrals and light textures like fringes and delicate webbed knits, then went dark with blacks and blues and more liberal use of his trademarked “silk fur,” then turned on the brights again with citrusy colors. As the kick-off designer, what’s inspiring for Filipinos is his thoroughly modern use of traditional silks and Khmer weaving machines.
Joel Escober: The 3D animator
Joel Escober’s collection this Fashion Watch showed a more refined sensibility than his previous ones at Philippine Fashion Week, due likely to careful editing and advice from the CFDP. I wonder, however, if his trademark ruffled-up style may be turning into a one-trick pony. While he introduced new styles, like shaggy, hairy dresses, the rest of the outfits were beribboned and be-frilled to within an inch of their lives, which, for a holiday collection, is apropos. To the designer’s credit, the said flounces are looking more and more technically skilled. These are party dresses then for the brashly feminine who aren’t afraid to make a splash in bold jewel tones and peacockery.
Jun Escario: Head of Old Hollywood glamour
Jun Escario has been steadily molding his woman into a vision of sophisticated elegance which phrases like “Old Hollywood glamour” don’t quite encompass. True, there is something distinctly old-worldly and ladylike about his dresses, and the wearers all guests at a fabulous garden wedding. He keeps his silhouettes long and his references vintage, with variations on sheer lacy or delicately cut-out tops and brocade skirts in creams, neutrals, blacks and the occasional pop of royal purple. The waist is almost always defined, with a prim belted bow or silky ribbon pulling everything together. Long-sleeved evening gowns in black are vamped up with strategically sheer streaks and panels and the one menswear-inspired suit looked particularly sharp and innovative among the properly feminine outfits, a nod to YSL perhaps. The Jun Escario woman is someone who has gone through the fleeting trends in her younger days and has now stepped confidently into a world where she makes the rules.
