TO BE YOUNG in any field is to be given the task to explore the new. In youth we find eyes unclouded by whatever it is that makes us jaded, and see through eyes that are wide open.

The graduation show of the School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA) Design Institute for 2019, held earlier this month in the Bench Tower in BGC, showed not just clothes but an earnest effort by the students to push boundaries of beauty and really try to redefine what fashion is, and what it does for us.

Take for example, one of this reporter’s favorites: a collection called “Homo Automata” by student Aaron Paatan. It is mildly grotesque and shoves an uncomfortable mirror in our faces: it featured human heads as handbags, tails, spines; half-human nightmares made of both fabric and electronics; multiple arms and extremities, and finally, a woman on the runway with IV drips attached to her thin body; with all the models made bald and homogenous through prosthetics. “Condemned to be free; we are human and we are machine,” said the student’s notes.

Those who came after “Homo Automata”’s slot were unfortunate, for most every outfit that came after became forgettable in the face of what came before.

Still, we found other favorites: there’s a collection called “Sanctuarium,” for example, by Al Rey Rosano, inspired by churches. The tones adopted in the collection seemed to be light filtered through stained-glass church windows, and the clothes were richly feminine and had a baroque approach to sculptural draping and construction.

A collection called “Sinta” by Aurea Vinluan seemed to be bridal in that it was executed in white; but the bride in question seems to be far too clever for what she’s about to do. Silhouettes in this collection vary from tight romantic bodices to trapezoid shapes that conceal the woman’s body, but, taken all together, it probably shows love in all its shapes. “I now know that at the right time, the right place, and with the right person, I will also win love in the end,” said her notes.

A little girl carrying a parasol of petals also caught our eye, in a line made up of beiges and deep rose-reds, creating a line that is almost visceral and yet romantic by student Belle Villanueva. The collection is aptly named “My Truth is Only as Real as My Belief.”

We also liked a cage dress by student Cheyenne Sarol, one of the earlier pieces, and then a collection by Eloiza Changat called “Epitome of an Igorota Warrior”: it was avant-garde, and yet found a space for indigenous fabrics.

A collection called “Perspective: Breaking Through to Breakthrough” proved to be a meditation on what “broken” means: literally taking pieces of a clear, hard material (plastic standing in for glass), which designer Denesse Ramirez incorporated into a sheer, fluid line, showing trains and sleeves made of the material. What was once broken can be beautiful, and can be seen — and heard (judging from the racket it made as it flitted down the runway).

Most of the clothes that went down the runway told some sort of story, taken from the depths of the designer’s mind. This is no coincidence, according to Amina Aranaz Alunan, designer and President of the SoFA Design Institute. “It’s really our methodology. We have a super-intense commitment to creativity. We believe that to be a creative leader, a design leader, you really need to foster that courage to be creative,” she said. “It really requires you to not look at what’s out there. Try to just look inwards. It’s really only by looking inwards that you can really find what your unique story is.”

Meanwhile, judging from the clothes we saw, SoFA — or fashion itself — apparently isn’t just about making clothes. “Fashion for me is really about communication. It’s also about culture building,” said Ms. Alunan.

“What they put on the runway is a reflection of their past their present, and where they see their future,” she said.

In teaching the students about telling stories through the construction of clothing, it seems that Ms. Alunan has come upon what fashion and clothing do for the world. “We always say that clothes; fashion, is just the medium. But what we really are pushing is for them to push their own values, to push their own ideas. It’s really going beyond what you see. That’s what design is all about. Design is pushing what you stand for, and, hopefully, attracting an audience that can resonate with the values that you stand for. They can eventually promote is and also create judgments on their own.”

SoFA Style: two outfits from Aaron Paatan’s “Homo Automata” collection); a dress using indigenous weave from Eloiza Changat’s collection “Epitome of an Igorota Warrior”; a trapezoidal dress by Al Rey Rosano; a cage dress by Cheyenne Sarol; petal-filled parasol from Belle Villanueva’s collection “My Truth is Only as Real as My Belief”; and jangling plastic in Denesse Ramirez’s collection “Perspective: Breaking Through to Breakthrough”

An outfit from Aurea Vinluan’s collection called “Sinta”

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