Behind the scenes at breakthrough designer of the year Michael Cinco
MANILA, Philippines - It’s calm backstage at Michael Cinco’s show for Fashion Week. Less than an hour before the lights dim, models are already dressed and doing interviews for television press. Kaye Tinga, one of Cinco’s biggest supporters and his sponsor for the Red Cross Ball sips some white wine while exchanging pleasantries with designer Philippine Fashion Week creator Joey Espino, designer Pepito Albert and PR executive Edd Fuentes.
Anne Curtis serenely walks past in striking red. L’Oreal is presenting the show, as a kickoff to the designer shows of Fashion Week, and as the only Filipina ambassador for the French skincare brand, Anne is one of Cinco’s finales. The other finale, Claire Unsabia, half-Filipina and one of the contenders in the 10th cycle of America’s Next Top Model saunters in a little bit later. “Claire, there you are,” one of the production assistants exclaim, before whisking the 6-foot-tall model off to the makeup room. There is no rush, no tantrums being thrown, no flurried last-minute changes. Even show director Ariel Lozada is the paragon of quietude, a composed figure dishing out cheeky quips: “I am not the director, I am a supermodel.” And, when asked where Cinco is, “Michael, is he for real? Isn’t he just a vision?”
At that moment, the “vision” that is Michael Cinco is busy putting the final styling touches on his menswear. This is what sets this Fashion Week show apart from his Red Cross presentation a week prior: a tailored suit and a couple of Grecian-inspired sets, all in dusky white and with a sporty inclination, as if Mt. Olympus was having its own tennis open.
Vixen: L’Oreal ambassador Anne Curtis as one of Cinco’s finales. Image courtesy of L’Oreal Paris The rest of the 40-piece showing are mostly repeats from the charity show, but this time worn by international models such as Danica Magpantay, Teresa Herrerra and Michelle Panemanglor. Figure-conforming, floor-sweeping gowns are breathtaking from afar and mind-blowing upclose. What Cinco has done is to make excessive beadwork desirable rather than cheesy or something that only beauty queens — or concert queens — will wear. He creates his own patterns with his embellishments: what looks like lacework or feathery fringes are actually sequins painstakingly sewn together, glimmering pailettes form into winged elements, glass beads are structured to look like armor.
Cinco may have his critics: fashion lovers who sourgrape on Facebook just for the sake of hating, jealous co-designers, or just people who refuse to understand the beauty of head-to-toe embellishment. But Cinco, if he hasn’t done so in the past, is likely to shrug it off. And he has even more right to do so: just last week, the Dubai-based designer won the Breakthrough Designer of the Year Award at the WGSN Global Fashion Awards held in New York. In a recent interview, he also disclosed that he is up for a second stint with America’s Next Top Model.
Fifteen minutes before first face and still Cinco doesn’t emerge from the dressing room. We only see him when he makes his bow after the show, his signature wraparound sunglasses in place, his pout turning up into a smile as he did his own catwalk on the stage. Earlier Claire Unsabia, wearing the most revealing of Cinco’s sheer, beaded creations and surrounded by male Brazilians wearing cupped briefs, took a drenching when, for the show finale, water poured down from the ceiling onto centerstage, causing her slinky gown to conform even more sinuously to her figure. But aside from that, nothing else — and no one — is going to rain on Michael Cinco’s parade.
