couture inspired cuisine

100 guests at the Pacific grand ballroom

Imagine excellent food inspired by the great masters of French fashion. Imagine dining in a place where the two absolute disciplines of Haute Cuisine and Haute Couture take center stage, merging into an art experience all its own.

Such was what your style jotter and 100 other guests experienced at the 15^th Anniversary Gala Diner Amical of the Confrerie de la Chaine des Rotisseurs at the Pacific Ballroom of The Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino which was transformed into an ethereal place of food and fashion.

Marco Protacio, the hotel’s food/fashion savvy general manager, invited six Cebu designers to work with the Waterfront’s team of culinary experts to interpret the iconic styles of the legendary and most prestigious members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

invitation to indulge

Gastronomy started with “Comtesse Bismarck,” which was black caviar on amber ice and foie gras parfait. This was my food design inspired by Balenciaga thus it adhered his simple but monumental aesthetics.

Inspired by one of Yves Saint Laurent’s favorite dove motif, Jun Escario’s all-white soup of scallop and lobster called “La Colombe” was served next. 

Next came Arcy Gayatin’s “Mademoiselle Coco,” a puff pastry stuffed with duck confit and chantrelle mushroom which was beautifully presented as Chanel’s 2.55 quilted bag. Surrounded by cream pearls and white chocolate camellia this was inarguably the creation that epitomized the cuisine+couture concept.

Chanel bag by Arcy Gaytin

“La Vie en Rose” by Philip Rodriguez followed. A red chocolate cabbage rose opened to reveal champagne and rose sorbet inspired by Valentino. Then came the Christian Dior inspired “La Dame Mèdaillon” of Parma ham wrapped Angus beef medallion and baked lobster by Albert Arriba. Then finally served was Cary Santiago’s  inspired dessert called “Les Coleurs d’Arles.” This was a vibrantly colored and sinfully tasting that captured the tonal and textural genius of Lacroix.

Cary Santiago's Christian Lacroix inspired dessert

It took no less than three meticulous food tasting and styling sessions, of perfecting details of the cuisine, before the designers and chefs were satisfied. And all that hard work paid off.

pale, pale summer

There’s a new way to wear white and pale colors, designer Edwin Ao showed how it’s done with his recent collection of men's casual clothes.

Unstructured sports jacket with grey bands layered over a button down dress shirt and black T’s

“I always like separates that can be worn different ways. The possibilities of mixing them are endless. The clothes were cut loose to give white and pale clothes new proportion and freshness.”

 Short dinner jacket with detachable black cuffs worn with a long shirt and twill pants.

Ao’s mix of unstructured shoulders and generous cuts lend sophisticated nonchalance to his menswear that’s far from dated. His sartorial mix is at once non pretentious and, as he expressed earlier,  “fresh”. Here are my favorite pieces from his recent group show. 

 blazer with checkered blocks worn over cotton polo shirt with black piping and buttons worn with blocked twill pants

llueve a cantaro

it's been raining cats and dogs lately and i came across this video that i captured of two dogs (iro and aw-aw) and a cat (miming) at play.

not stereotypical, are they?

Filippo's Iberian Beauties

fiona king

At the show for the World Tourism Organization held at the Atrium of the Northwing SM City Cebu, The Fashion Council of Cebu presented collections inspired by cultures that have become part of Filipino heritage. Cary Santiago and this jotter opened the show with Indo-Malay influenced collections, Arcy Gayatin and Albert Arriba showed American influenced clothes, Jun Escario and Jojo Romoff showed Chinese influenced designs while Felix Yu ended the show with a collection of present day Filipiniana dresses.

tasseled rhumba dress 

Everyone showed what's elegant and beautifully Filipino, most cohesive and memorable however, were the Spanish influenced clothes presented by Philip Rodriguez. There was a white toreador jacket in moiré embellished with black guipure lace appliqué that was so chic; a black gown with tasseled sleeves and red rose embroidery that reeked of romance and a silk organdy shirt with puffed and book-leaf sleeves worn with unmatched style by the elegant Fiona King.

toreador look

“I was thinking of Chinese/Spanish Mestizas of the past and how they would dress up today. The look is Hispanic, elaborated with fine details, which is a rich mixture east and west.  And as you can see, they’re totally wearable for big parties and in tune with the global trends today,” Rodriguez reveals.

 rose embroidered dress

some digital sketches

my friend paul brought my intuous 3 which was purchased online and i’ve been learning how to use the pen since late december. here are some of the exercises that I’ve done thus far.

 

i like this cat sketch best, it’s the closest to my actual sketch.

 

 

this watercolor scene is also interesting but handling the pen is totally different from holding a sable.

 

this is the digital artwork that I least like. it looks totally synthetic and is the farthest  from my actual works.

Karl Roque's Optimism

red dragon (diptych)

Before your art jotter met professor Karl Roque one presumed that other than Cuevas,great abstract expressionist artists in Cebu were non existent . A chance viewing of Karl's most recent works at the SM Art Center and a short interview of the artist however, proved to be both inspiring and enlightening.

Roque: Great Cebuano Abstract Expressionist

The process that Karl described in creating and perfecting his pictures is complex but the resulting images and color fields are deceivingly simple and clean. Though the surface of his work is planar the movement and textures created by juxtaposing colors and forms draw you into the artwork itself and invokes within your core a wholesome spark of joy. His works are initially retina pleasing then instantly thought-provoking and finally happiness-invoking. To this chocoholic admirer, they are like eighty percent dark chocolate. The phoenylethylamine enzyme present in chocolate that reproduces the feeling of being in love has the same pleasantly addictive effect.

deep forest

What is there to love in Roque’s work? The subtle transitions and jolting contrasts of colors, both the accidental and intended movement of forms and ultimately the state of mind that it puts you in. In the diptych Deep Forest for example the green gradates into the deep blues and brown while specks of light blue lift up the tones of the canvasses. One had commented, “Viewing this particular painting is like viewing a Chinese watercolor landscape painting of mountains and distant trees. It has that sophisticated sense of multi perspective and open space. It’s very refreshing.”

spring flowers

Roque’s poetic reply was, “ I have attempted to evoke a sense of freshness and a new beginning, like the breaking of dawn, the sprouting of a new leaf, or a morning dew on a flower’s petal. This, perhaps, is an aspiration to offer a different and a more optimistic vision of things to come.”