‘Something borrowed, something blue’ for GMA’s address

These are troubled times, but a confident President Arroyo won’t be marching into the session hall of Congress for her fifth State of the Nation Address (SONA) tomorrow wearing Army fatigues.

Instead, the woman President is going to be wearing "something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue" — unintentionally hewing to the dress code traditionally given to brides on their wedding day.

Tomorrow won’t be less of a milestone for the President, whom many sectors thought would not last to deliver the SONA.

For her address before the joint session of Congress, the embattled President is turning to the comforts of the familiar — she will be wearing a modern Filipiniana gown put together from pieces plucked out of the baul (hope chest) of her late mother, First Lady Evangeline Macaraeg-Macapagal.

According to her stylist Joanne Zapanta Andrada, Mrs. Arroyo will be wearing a blue taffeta gown and a panuelo (stiff shawl) from the baul of her mother. The original gown, which bore no label, and the panuelo were refashioned by former San Francisco-based Filipino designer Ito Curata into a modern Filipiniana ensemble for Mrs. Arroyo.

"President Arroyo stressed that she wanted to wear something recycled. She does not want to spend on a new gown. So we thought that putting together pieces of Doña Eva’s old gowns would be a good way of having her presence there," says Zapanta-Andrada, who writes a Sunday column for this newspaper.

It is said that the President inherited her late mother’s steely will and strong character.

The choice of blue as a motif is not whimsical either, adds Zapanta-Andrada.

The President has been known to prefer hues of red, but the pacifist and Marian color of blue is her current favorite in this season of tumult.

"The President has been wearing a lot of blue lately in her public functions because it is a Marian color, she’s very devoted to the Virgin Mary and she’s been praying a lot for guidance from her," Zapanta-Andrada says.

Curata says he streamlined one of the late Mrs. Macapagal’s navy blue gowns to the shape of a "column," but added a mini train to it. The gown has no collar and no sleeves. The severity of the column cut is offset by a beaded lace panuelo that Curata also dyed blue.

To complete her Filipiniana look, Mrs. Arroyo will be wearing old, semi-precious tambourine jewelry from Curata’s collection.

Perhaps the only thing that isn’t old and isn’t borrowed in the ensemble is the President’s footwear — a pair of locally made Janilyn shoes.