Paloma Zobel: ‘I am back to my nest’

MANILA, Philippines - I am coming home. For good. 

An amazing surge of Filipino pride calls me and people of my generation to do something for our country.

Since I was nine years old, I have been studying in the United States and Europe. And every time I was in the Philippines, my mother would bring me to provinces all over the country. I saw wonderful communities of weavers and artists creating incredibly intricate and beautiful pieces. My mother has always been a huge promoter of handicrafts, and while her mind was focused on home wares, mine quickly shifted to clothing.

We saw the inabel in Ilocos and we immediately thought: Why not create something different with this beautiful fabric which people normally use for blankets? The village weavers told me these were also used during Spanish times as sails for boats, since it is a durable fabric. So we fashioned it into long and short caftans. We also made blouses and put fringes for an edgy look. We wanted to introduce the inabel to people who were not exposed to it on a regular basis, and hope they would find it approachable and affordable.

We didn’t want to waste the leftover scraps of fabrics so we got denim jackets from the ukay-ukay and patched them with the fabrics.

My mother has led me to discover many other nice fabrics from Samar, Abra and Iloilo. One of our bestsellers is our line of cardigans from Iloilo.

We create small collections as well as individual pieces. We hope to provide more. 

The line is called Piopio. My name — Paloma — means “bird” in Spanish. And “piopio” is the Spanish onomatopoeia for the sound the bird makes.

Yes, like a homing pigeon — or dove -— I am coming home. But I will be spending more time in El Nido. That is Spanish for “nest.”