Work in Progress

I'm currently preparing for a capsule collection of ten pieces for Philippine Fashion Week for spring/summer 2009. The show will be on October 21 to 26, 2008 at SM Mall of Asia. I don't know yet which day I'm going to show but I'm pretty sure it's going to be on the last day again.

For spring/summer I was deeply feeling about war, deconstruction and thinking about how to usher my current fascination for colors and prints. I've always been keen to explore and expand my sensibilities and I've taken baby steps along the way; a conscious attempt not to send out an all-black collection. It started with my spring/summer 2007 collection where I used vintage barong fabrics from my lola mixed with silver lame (My lolo is a lawyer and my lola would hoard those fabric so she wouldn't have to buy everytime my lolo needs a new barong made). For spring/summer 2008 I used a gamut of texture and fabric where I would normally use just two. I just showed the black pieces for PFW but what I didn't show was an explosion of orange mixed with reworked thriftshop clothes. Exploring nostalgia and memory that time, I reworked existing clothes to new one, I copied and tweaked an existing pattern of some pieces I liked and I did again some pattern I've designed before.

For this new collection, I've come across the word 'Propaganda& Persuasion' which for me refers to the collision of the light (which I've recently explored for fall/winter 08: prints, tie dye, lace, etc) and dark (my usual mode) sensibility I've been doing. Propaganda, derived from a religious context (propago) which means 'that which is to be spread', didn't start off as what it means today ( presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented) but only got such negative connotation during the World War I. From that idea I translated it to clothes that were inspired by religious vestments mixed with military details, trench coat, scuba gear, Star Wars, kilt, biker jacket etc.

Here's a sample (not the actual fabric I'm using) of a pants fused with a kilt detail.

The whole collection will have an all-black back, signifying that there's a negative/darkness part of propaganda; there's a conscious effort to selectively show what's positive (light) as a front. The front portion will be so different than the back. It's as if two clothes were split into two and each half were joined together.

Here's another sample. The front is relatively finished and clean.

But the back is tattered. There's a trenchcoat closure I've used there.

A closer view of the tattered detail. That's where the deconstruction part comes in.

The beading is inspired by Star Wars. It's like a futuristic armor or shell. It's almost alien looking to me. It's also the first time I'm using beadworks in my collection.

My only concern is to finish all of this on time.