Going urban

Last week, after the YStyle Christmas party, I got dragged to Uniqlo by Ryan and Garovs of Everywhere We Shoot, and Rik Rasos and Pat Mosby of Proud Race. 

I still remember the first time I went to Uniqlo, in Hong Kong, with Cecile Zamora. As always, Cecile started to hoard. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. It was just never my thing. The only time I have ever bought anything in Uniqlo was when my friend Sayoko told me that their Heattech tights were the best tights ever for winter.

So while the four of them “oooh”ed and “ahhh”ed and started grabbing everything in sight and spazzed over every T-shirt on sale (“OMG Undercover!” “OMG Andy Warhol!”) I decided to try on a David Lynch Eraserhead T-shirt, just to fit in. It looked so funny that I grabbed Rik’s snapback (a term I have just learned, thanks Carla!) and Instagrammed a photo of myself in an outfit I would never be caught dead in.

Garovs then said, “Ang ganda kaya!! Alam mo dapat ganyan ka, mag T-shirt ka lang, feeling ko ang dami dami mong boys pag nag urban ka, dapat may days na ganyan ka, low maintenance lang. Try mo kaya, mga one week!”

And that’s how it happened: The Urban Mich dare. One week of “urban” outfits, and posting my “urban” photos on my Instagram with matching “urban” poses.

I can never resist the opportunity to dress fancy, even if it’s just as someone else, so it was on. My peg was my former intern Mara Reyes, who always looked too-cool-for-school on Instagram. Except that I didn’t have any of her headgear (the closest thing I could find in my closet to put on my head were my Westwood bandanas) and that I have one pair of sneakers. One. 

I took my first picture in my mom’s jeans, a Ladytron T-shirt, my old pink Reeboks and a Westwood bandana and realized that I just wasn’t built to be “cool,” or “fierce”; I’ve always dressed myself to look cute and girly — feminine, frilly, vintage, puffy — words that would never describe Mara Reyes! I went to church and felt so self-conscious — yes, I can wear a hat the size of Afghanistan on my head and feel fine but to actually go out in trainers, in trousers, when I wasn’t going to the gym really made me feel like I was in costume. My mom took one look at me and said “Seryoso ka ba sa suot mo? Mag pa-pants ka?”

Things got a bit easier when Garovs chose the Japanese as her pegs: Yoon of Ambush and Mademoiselle Yulia. This meant that I could add color to my wardrobe, and skirts, and therefore all my KTZ clothes could now be worn.  KTZ is a lifesaver — it’s urban I can actually pull off, and like Michael Salientes said about my day two photo, “This is not urban, this is fashion!” No longer low-maintenance but as Garovs said, as long as I wore a T-shirt, it was still urban to her. Though it didn’t help that she kept texting me tips like “Dapat maangas ka, cool but feminine!” I can’t do angas and never will.

I’m on day four today, and I have my last four outfits planned out (all KTZ, some Henry Holland, Grey Ant glasses — I never knew I had such a “cool” wardrobe, lol). My first three outfits were so lame, it took me a while to get my groove going. While I am semi-proud of the ones coming up, truth be told I can’t wait for the week to end so I can get my corset and my hats back on. Though I now I think I can slip a T-shirt on every once in a while, and a Mich Dulce snapback is totally going to be included in my next collection.