IF ONE questions why Beatriz “Patis” Pamintuan-Tesoro chose to focus on Filipiniana, her answer focuses on creativity. “I do it because I want to do it. I love creating things. For me, it’s a gift from God, and it’s something that I’ve done all my life, and I continue to learn new things.”

Last week, the 67-year-old doyenne of Filipino fashion presented a lecture on how traditional Filipiniana may be worn as a modern and everyday piece using 14 of her previous and latest designs to illustrate her point. Guests and the designer’s close friends filled the ground floor of the Tesoros building in Makati City on Jan. 18 to listen and interact with Ms. Tesoro at the Disenyo at Talento talk titled “How to Wear Modern Filipiniana.”

“Filipinos still wear Filipiniana but it’s morphed. It’s not what [you] see. So, when [you] go to gift shops or handicraft stores [which not many anymore], and [you] see the same old stuff, they won’t buy it because it hasn’t left its place,” Ms. Tesoro told BusinessWorld pertaining to the traditional layered and bulky designs.

Instead Ms. Tesoro showcased modern embroidered outfits including a black and white blouse adorned with the baybayin alphabet and calado embroidery paired slacks (by Tesoros) which may be worn for work. A simple white shirt (by Tesoros) paired with pants and a colorful bayong (a bag woven from dried leaves) handcrafted by autistic artists would look great for a casual day out.

Included in the showcase was a brown sarong from Thailand which Ms. Tesoro has owned for years. It was just recently that she came up with the idea to cut the cloth and create a patchwork piece with three kinds of fabric. The piece — kept in place with a knotted belt — functions as a skirt or tube top.

For formal events, sophistication is achieved with a black backless gown paired with a fully woven manton de Manila (a folded triangle-shaped shawl) or a long gown topped with an old panuelo (embellished scarf) transformed into a kaftan-style blouse.

PRESERVING TRADITIONAL ARTISTRY
The modern designs contrast with Ms. Tesoro’s belief in the hand-made production of embroidery. “What you are paying for is labor. So, how do [we] make it cheap? That is the problem because today, everything is expensive and human labor is even more expensive. The craft is dying out and even your crafts people are less.”

The designer believes and suggests that it is important to find people who have the talent to make a design’s price more reasonable. “We have to find them, and they have to find themselves.”

In advocating the continuation of traditional embroidery methods, Ms. Tesoro collaborates with Palo, Leyte Mayor Remedios Petilla in mentoring a group of women from a local livelihood center who periodically come to Manila and train in embroidery. The designer is also planning on opening a school for designers.

“Why can’t you do embroidery using the computer? Because the computer will think for you. The computer is a machine. [But] the human spirit guides your hands and makes something more beautiful than a machine. I believe in both. But in my field, [I believe] in the human spirit doing the work. Hopefully, this will be something that many people would want to pursue,” Ms. Tesoro told BusinessWorld, adding that creativity and hard work come first before business.

“It’s not only something for business. It’s for the spirit. Today, you can’t make money if you think of business, because business will come if you are creative. And I’m not talking only about craft. I’m talking about anything… If you say, ‘I can’t do it.’ Then, you can’t do it,” she said.

Disenyo and Talento talks were pioneered by Tesoros in 2015 “to preserve and inform upon our national heritage” focusing on creators and experts in “identifiably Filipino” crafts. — Michelle Anne P. Soliman

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