Designing from the gut with no training

MANILA, Philippines - Tweetie de Leon-Gonzalez makes everything look damn easy. The multi-hyphenate, whose public career has spanned acting, modeling, hosting and designing, is the maddening kind of woman for whom things just seem to fall in place. At the launch of her latest project, though, the supermodel shared a secret: “I just jumped into this without even knowing the first thing about it.”

“It” refers to fashion design; “this” refers to her first full line of apparel and accessories that will be exclusively available this May at the country’s online retail store for well-loved but hard-to-find designer brands, AVA.

Designing, of course, is nothing new to Tweetie, whose TdLG line of accessories has even reached the US. It is designing clothes in particular that she was admittedly clueless about. “In grade school, I got top grades for sewing class, but that was sewing by hand,” she shared during the preview of the collection at Stella in Bonifacio High Street. “I have no idea how to sew with a machine.”

But when vice-president for AVA’s marketing and brand relations Katrina Holigores broached to Tweetie the idea of collaborating with the website on a fashion collection, she saw no other answer to give except “yes.” “Kat’s words were all it took to convince me to do this,” Tweetie admitted.

She says that the main challenge was to come up with a full line that not only reflects her own taste, but is also distinctly unique enough for the wide array of AVA buyers and subscribers. “In coming up with the designs, I tried to cater to all kinds of women. I thought of every shape, every size, and every style possible in order to come up with a no-brainer collection of clothes — clothes that a woman with a busy lifestyle can put on without much thought and still look put-together.”

Design and production came as (fun) crash courses to Tweetie, and she’s grateful that she has a supportive collaborator in the whole process. “While I make and approve the designs, AVA handles the marketing and distribution,” she said. “AVA also provided me with a great product development manager, Egg Mendoza.” Egg was particularly god-sent when it came to the retail particulars of designing clothes. Tweetie recalled, “She’d call me up to ask how short will the hemline be for this skirt, what sizes should we have made for this piece.”

The end result is a versatile collection of draped pieces, relaxed silhouettes, and easy, breezy glamour in refreshing colors of navy, teal, orchid, orange and light olive. Mix-and-matchable, they work from day to night, are easy to incorporate into every woman’s existing wardrobe, quite kind to the female figure (the items are available in small, medium and large), and reflective of their designer’s effortless charm and appeal. Tweetie said, “This collection is for a woman who’s pretty well-balanced, who has a career, a home life, and a happy social life. A woman who has a life outside of fashion.” And for those who unfortunately don’t get to enjoy all three? “At the very least, these clothes would help a woman feel more confident about how she looks and feels while she’s wearing them.” 

Her collaboration with AVA is Tweetie’s first full-blown online project. “It’s difficult to ignore the lure and the power of online shopping, what with its ease and the kind of service it provides to shoppers with busy lifestyles,” she said. “I do believe that online retail will be the future of fashion.”

With Filipinos buying fashion and apparel online more and more — we have collectively spent more than P3 billion buying online since 2010 according to AVA CEO Oliver Segovia — the future certainly looks bright and mighty for online retail. “We’re still at day one, as seven out of 10 design brands are yet to have their own online stores,” Oliver admitted. “We’re not saying that traditional shopping will be completely replaced, but online retail will definitely and fundamentally change the landscape. In fact, 40 percent of purchases made by AVA subscribers were done outside mall hours.” Online retail is also an effective tool for local designers to enter the global market without the exorbitant costs of putting up a physical store. For the buyers, it strips away the unnecessary markups that are inevitable in traditional retail, a win-win situation for both sides.

Tweetie de Leon for AVA is the first of a series in the budding fashion designer and the online store’s year-long collaboration, and is also the Philippine’s first celebrity collaboration to be sold online.

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Tweetie de Leon for AVA will be available for pre-order starting May 6 on www.ava.ph/tweetie. Customers who pre-order before May 20 will avail of a 10 percent discount on the pieces.