Pinoy designers set their sights for Tokyo
Eight Filipino designers are hoping to impress the fashionistas of Tokyo, in the culmination of a project referred to as PhX.
These designers are: Feanne Mauricio, Jill Lao, Joseph Bagasao, Neil Philipp San Pedro, Kelvin Morales, Joyce Makitalo, HA.MÜ’s Abraham Guardian and Mamuro Oki, and Jerone Lorico.
The project started as a series of talks in 2019, expanding into a series of portfolio reviews, and mentorship programs, with the help of Center for International Expositions and Missions (CITEM), and Tokyo’s H30 Fashion Bureau and LIT Fashion Consultancy. The collections resulting from this program are currently in Tokyo (as per the PhX Instagram account) for the 2022 fashion buying season.
The designers’ mentors for the project were market specialists Jason Lee Coates and Hirohito Suzuki of H3O Fashion Bureau and Tetta Ortiz-Mattera of LIT Fashion Consultancy. Over eight months they discussed a variety of essential skills needed to crack the Japanese market, including marketing, branding, and the rudiments of Japanese retailing.
“Alongside aesthetic, of course, there was always the commercial component that they had to consider. Under the watchful and expert eye of Jason, Hiro, and Tetta, our PHx Tokyo designers were also able to tailor their sartorial voices for the discerning Japanese market,” CITEM Executive Director Pauline Suaco-Juan was quoted as saying in a statement from CITEM.
“Japanese buyers are always fascinated to look at new brands. So hopefully we can have that knowledge with respect to quality, with respect to cut and fit, with respect to fabrications and pricing,” Mr. Coates was quoted as saying in the same statement.
“They know their design aesthetic, their market. But we need to pivot and make them understand that what they know in the Philippines does not necessarily apply to the Japanese market. So the mentoring program addresses that,” said Ms. Ortiz-Matera of the mentoring sessions. “The designers we are working with are very receptive. They acknowledge that what they already know is not the end-all and be-all of fashion. And there’s also the mutual respect between us and designers.”
BusinessWorld caught up with Messrs. Bagasao and San Pedro during the PHx Fashion Previews, a series of talks held earlier this month, where the two designers discussed their collections.
“When I design a collection, it’s always a response to how I feel,” said Mr. Bagasao. A moderator during the event, Junior Fashion Editor at L’Officiel Philippines Yanna Lopez, described the collection as tasteful and with singular detail. Mr. Bagasao’s collection reflects something airy and light, a response to the isolation brought on by the global pandemic. “There’s a lot of people stuck in homes. It is a way for me to kind of help to get you out of your minds and make a destination within your own mind,” said the designer. He also imagines those clothes in a world populated by figures from the pictures taken by society photographer Slim Aarons in the 1960s.
From his mentorship program, Mr. Bagasao learned that certain details wouldn’t work in Japan: these include showing too much skin and too-tight necklines. “They’ve spoken about the details that the Japanese would or wouldn’t like,” he said of his mentors.
Still, it’s no hindrance to his creative direction: “I always had to come back to what is true for me, as a designer and as a creative,” he said. “As long as you stay true, and you trust in your own timing, you wouldn’t need to push yourself out of who you are just to please everyone. The right people will see your clothes.”
Mr. San Pedro, on his end, showed off a collection of bags, blooming from his previous experience in molding minaudières. Yes, everyone has a version of one these days, but how many of those bags have made it to the set of Crazy Rich Asians? His mermaid-clasped minaudière was seen on the hands of the character Astrid Young in the movie. His Tokyo-bound collection, however, is a lot softer, moving from his usual hard materials to abaca. He manipulated the material with metallic thread to get an illusion of the sun’s light hitting then reflecting off the sea. “I wanted to introduce to Japan a material that is very known here in the Philippines, and giving it a modern twist [with] our craftsmanship,” he said.
“One of our missions really is to work with local communities, innovate [with] their craftsmanship, and update it in a way that it can follow global standards,” he said.
All PHx Tokyo brands can be seen on FAME+, CITEM’s digital platform for the country’s home, fashion, and lifestyle sectors. — JLG
