New talents take on the tough route to becoming a designer

These days, studying to become a fashion designer has become easier. The emergence of fashion schools in Manila in the last few years has extended the ticket to young people who don’t have the means to cough up a few hundred thousand pesos or more (depending on the duration of course) for diploma affiliation at Central St. Martins or the FIT. That’s the good news. The not-so-good-news: studying to become a designer doesn’t automatically translate to becoming one.

For every 10 students who take up fashion design, only one or two probably make it, i.e. set up an atelier, attract clients, earn commercial acclaim and actually make money. In a country where a limited couture-oriented market is trumped by big aspirations and an overwhelming amount of talent, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that a young designer wannabe often gives up before trying. The Internet may help but there can be only so much Facebook pages and Multiply accounts to flood inboxes and news feeds — and, sometimes, the onslaught of all these Net-marketed labels begs the debate: local or China-made?

They say fashion is 90 percent marketing and 10 percent talent. Though I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the percentage distribution (maybe 60-40, with a higher priority given to marketing), I do believe that fashion design is as much about spotlight gain as it is execution and creativity. Hence, the importance of social interaction and media backing.

Propelling a fashion design career through exhibits, celebrity connections, and TV and magazine competitions such as the Preview Emerging Fashion Talent Awards (PEFTA) is slowly becoming de rigueur. Because the accreditation these shows and competitions proffer might just land you a cover or even a spot in Fashion Watch. Just like what happened, respectively, to PEFTA finalists Xernan Orticio and Erika Adona.

Orticio, a design newbie who put up his business in Cebu (are you even surprised?) a few years ago, and Adona, a fashion design graduate at Slim’s now furthering studies as a dressmaking student, are part of Preview’s Ten Young Designers to Watch For, a list that has been part of the magazine’s September issue the last few years. But for the 2011 selection, Preview asked the country’s top fashion schools to nominate exceptional students from their graduating classes to the first Preview Emerging Fashion Talent Awards.

“One of the best ways to support the fashion industry is to support fashion education,” says editor Pauline Juan. Eventually, the editorial team whittled down the student nominees to five finalists. “We were adamant that the clothes  were judged not just on its design but also execution,” Juan adds. “The fitting model for all the students was Ria Bolivar and she was asked to sit, stand, raise her arms, walk, run in the garment. After, the clothes were inspected up close — we looked at the construction and the finishing. In many ways, the judging was more like a thesis defense than most contests.”

Adona made the final cut for PEFTA, along with Renz Reyes and Seph Bagasao from the Fashion Institute of the Philippines, Dan Duran from the School of Fashion and the Arts, and Riza Bulawan, who also came from Slim’s Fashion and Arts School.

But, as Juan explains, “Emerging designers can’t all come from our local fashion schools, neither can they all come from the fashion show circuit.” To round up their list of designers to watch for, the Preview team deliberated on a shortlist of designers who will round up the list of 10, based on the shows they’ve done and/or the work they’ve done for the magazine. Kristel Yulo, Ken Samudio, Anthony Ramirez, Jot Losa completed the list, along with Orticio.

The finalists and emerging designers all presented a six-piece collection to a board of judges, which included Preview editor-in-chief Pauline Juan, Preview fashion editor Daryl Chang, designers Inno Sotto and Cesar Gaupo, and fashion director Robby Carmona and to an audience made up of veteran designers and fashion cognoscenti (except for Ramirez, who at the last minute, wasn’t able to participate in the show due to scheduling concerns).

Mixed reactions are often expected in young designer presentations, where you can be besieged by good intentions and an overload of creativity, but (considering half of them are students who still have to hone their craft) also amateur execution and tailoring. The latter can be overlooked, however, especially when presented with a succession of collections that enthusiastically interprets the “new” theme mandated by Preview.

Ken Samudio translated “new” by, literally, upgrading local millinery to a higher level. His headwear, as white and as lofty as Marie Antoinette’s powdered wigs, incorporated little fairy sprites, birds, fruits and flowers, ingeniously and painstakingly crafted out of paper, straw and styrofoam.

Jot Losa’s new order came in the form of abaca dyed red combined with leather (also red) and contemporary bodycon silhouettes. Kristel Yulo, inspired by ballerina raiments, had stiff igloo-shaped skirts rising up to bustiers embellished with lace and feathers. Dan Duran, making clever use of styling, sent out linen and soft fabric colored with organic dyes fashioned into draped creations pulled together with black ribbons. 

Orticio, who will be collaborating with Preview for its Jan-Feb 2012 cover, interprets the theme by putting together geometric patterns to create pieces that look deceptively simple, but in truth require extensive skill. In one dress, he even puts together as many as 56 cut patterns. It is his clean execution and near faultless tailoring, however, that earn him the judges’ and the editorial team’s nod.

But when it came to a creative translation of “new,” Adona’s fiber glass-centered collection earned top-of-mind honors. This is the first time the 21-year-old produced any collection, and she did so with the tenacity of any rookie looking to make an impression. Fiberglass is not easy to work with. It has to be molded, sandpapered, buffed, painted, lacquered and then dried, before being fit on a model, and all within a certain temperature — if it’s too hot or too cold, bubbles can form on the mold, prompting a repeat of the whole process, which can take an entire month. Molding fiberglass into bustier tops, and inserting them as jacket details, Adona’s Barbarella-inspired collection was unlike any presented that night. “Her sense of fabrication and material was unlike any that I’ve seen from young designers now,” says Inno Sotto, who extended the invitation to Adona to join both Fashion Watch rounds next year as a guest designer.

Adona, who started tearing up when informed of her special prize, will be in the same series as some of the most accomplished designers in the business. A slot in Fashion Watch is not randomly given out and are elusive to even some of the most popular, most marketable designers in the country. But for student designer Erika Adona, however, the stage is set.