The Valera Redux

Design genius Ramon Valera, the first National Artist for Fashion, is celebrated in a 24-piece ready to wear collection by Freeway, a local brand that offers clothing and accessories that follow current international trends at reasonable price points. Valera’s signature creative cut, grand silhouette, unusual colorization, and opulent but tasteful embellishment are reinterpreted and given renewed relevance in the company’s Valera, National Artist Collection-- the fourth installment of Freeway’s successful National Artist Collectors Series.

Style-Spotting @ Japan Fashion Week 2010 

(Part IV)

I saved the best for last---this is the ultimate installment of your jotter’s style – spottings @ Japan Fashion Week.

MIHARAYASUHIRO

Meeting this unassuming designer was worth the unmanageably hectic schedule and the flight anxiety one had to go through.

I wore my favorite gold trainers that he designed for Puma and congratulated him after the show for designing the best Fall-Winter 2010, collection on the Tokyo runway.

Every piece that came out was polished and esthetically appealing.

The soft, suede boots that the girls wore draped around the shin and ankles looked beautiful with their short sack skirts. 

The extra long cable knit for men elongated the look of lean wool pants and washed chambray shirts. 

A wool jacket with large shawl collar worn over a beaded vest, grey chiffon shirt, ikat-print shorts and deep brown combat boots makes for a youthful winter. 

The open knit-work on dresses, tunics, and pants gave garments a poetic, disheveled appeal that complimented the girls’ hair and makeup. 

Yasuhiro is indeed an artist;

 his chosen medium is fashion.

Style Spotting @ japan Fashion Week 2010 

(Part III)

Third installment of your jotter's recent style spotting @Japan Fashion Week. 

These are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010.

YUKI TORII INTERNATIONAL

Style Spotting @ japan Fashion Week 2010 
(Part II)

Here's the second installment of your jotter's style spotting @Japan Fashion Week recently. 
These are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010.


GUTS DYNAMITE CABARET

Unconventional, Non-conformist, Exhilirating...

STYLE SPOTTING @ 

Japan Fashion Week 2010

Your jotter put on his most comfortably fashionable clothes and went style spotting @Japan Fashion Week last March. In this four-part post are the best Japanese collections for Fall-Winter 2010.

DRESSCAMP

Shiny silks, nappy velvets, military fatigue, and leopard print tights--winter is a safari at Dress Camp. 

A Whiff of Freshness

Five years ago on my birthday, I received a gift from one of my muses and closest friends. From the shape of the simple white paper package, I could tell that it was either a cologne or skincare product. True enough, I received a bottle of clear scent.

JIRO’S CIRCLE

At the MOMAT last March, (Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo) I spent the whole morning going through the museum’s collection on my free day. The 4^th floor had art from the Meiji and Taisho periods from the 1900’s to 1926. The 3^rd floor highlighted the Pre-war Showa Period and art during and after World War II--rather depressing , I struggled to get through this particular section but ike light at the end of a tunnel however, I found my favorite Japanese painting on the same floor—Jiro Yoshihara’s White on Black Circle.

  Terrific Day in Tokyo

If you had a day to spend in Tokyo where would you spend it? Topping my list were three places: Ginza, Omotesando and The National Museum of Modern Art.

The Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art

Summer HUGS in Wintertime

cary santiago, merce brenner, emanuel hamoy, & jun escario

Last winter, a friend took a two-week break from his 5^th Avenue work at Blanc de Chine, New York. Escaping the freezing cold of the Big Apple, Emmanuel Hamoy warmed his tropical days in the company of friends and family in the Philippines.

if i

…were to name the three most stylish women today they would have to be Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Carine Roitfeld, and Zoe Kravitz

…

The Subanen Princess

During my visit to Zamboanga Sibugay for the holidays last year, I sought out indigenous fabrics for a possible garment presentation/auction in an art gallery abroad. In my earliest collections, I incorporated fabrics such as the T’nalak from Davao and Langdap from Marawi into garments of clean, linear silhouettes. 


These fabrics were readily available through sources provided by my aunt Henrietta Ele who is the founding director of Darangan Dance Troop of The Mindanao State University. Her company globe-trotted for fashion presentations with Ben Farrales in the 80’s and today, she owns an extensive collection of indigenous fabrics from the South. She showed me this collection a couple of years ago and it sparked off an idea.

           if i

…were to host dinner for other parents from my kids’ PTA, I wouldn’t brag about the cost of my Birkin. Especially if one of the parents know that I haven’t settled a million-peso debt with one of Cebu City’s high profile designers.  Would some really just go broke for a Birkin?

...were throwing dinners at my private abode I wouldn’t be brazen when inviting guests over to my powder room. One stylish hostess called the girls in for some white truffles leaving a chocoholic guest feeling bad. 
He was clueless that the post-dinner dessert had absolutely no chocolate content.

Chic Chihuahuas

my pet DHARMA with Kate's pink collar

If diamonds are a girl’s best friends and dogs are man’s best friends, then what are pets with crystal collars to us?

Artful Warriors @ The MET

“Art of the Samurai: Japanese Arms and Armor, 1156-1868,” is a sumptuous, revelatory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and having learned and practiced Hyoho Niten Ichi Ryu, a Japanese form of swordsmanship perfected by Miyamoto Musashi, I was drawn to the revelry like moth to a flame.

The Berrie Winter Room

An Englewood Winter Room

Autumn.

I always think of the first autumn I experienced at the elegant Englewood home of Angelica Berrie. My dear friend Greg who lives with his sister Angie invited me to stay with them in 2007 and that stay sparked off creativity.

Taking Tartines @ PQ on 5^th

Emmanuel Hamoy, a close friend who was one of Cebu’s best designers before he relocated to the States fifteen years ago is looking like a native 5^th Avenue New Yorker these days. His characteristic all-black, luxe wardrobe beautifully sets off the refined speech and gestures.

On my second visit to the Blanc de Chine Flagship Store at 673 Fifth Avenue, an ultra-chic store which he co manages, he found time to spend a quick coffee break with this jotter at a very charming Belgian bakery chain.

The Vellum Paper Dress

The very fist time I ever saw paper dresses was at our neighbor’s house when I was in grade school. Eileen and Christine Horlen dressed up their paper dolls in what seemed to be stylish paper garments that were fastened with tabs. They folded the tabs unto the flat paper dolls and changed the look of their dolls at a whim.

Ming Elegance @ Blanc de Chine 2010

Blanc de Chine, a luxury brand with a flagship store on Fifth Avenue New York, began in 1986 as a concept workshop in Hong Kong. The idea was to bring together eight principles with three classic Chinese garments. The guiding principles were simplicity, sensuality, purity, functionality, comfort, harmony, subtlety and serenity. The three garments were the women's Qipao, the man's Zhongshan suit and the Dudou undergarment for men, women and children of all ages.

Working with Wig Tysmans

Working with Wig Tysmans, one of this country’s foremost lifestyle and commercial photographers is more like play than work these days. At my recent shoot for the fashion pages of this luxury issue, the atmosphere was relaxed and infallibly focused. The seamlessness of working with the best in the industry reminded your jotter of his first fashion shoot more than a decade ago.

Style-packed DC’s

Just before my flight to New York City last fall, I met with Dino Gilladoga who represents DC Shoes, a leader in performance skateboarding shoes and renowned action sports brand.  DC Shoes, now a global brand with product lines that include lifestyle shoes, apparel, snowboard boots, outerwear and accessories for men, women and kids, has recently launched its SixPack France collection, the first of a series of apparel/footwear collaborations that characterize the LIFE division of the brand for the next few seasons.

DC X SIXPACK Double Label collection features two classic DC LIFE models– Xander and Sector 7, and a line of apparel. The collection that is also dubbed “Non Merci,” French for “no thanks,” has custom Sixpack patterns and logos.

Valentino's Philippine Screening

It’s been months, but success of the Valentino screenings in Manila, Davao, and Cebu lingers. The denizens of Manila’s fashionable set came in full force to watch the film of iconic Valentino. First to arrive at the pre-show cocktails was no less than national Artist for Fashion Design, Pitoy Moreno a Philippine fashion icon himself.

To give you a backgrounder, Pitoy’s spectacular career that has reached its golden years, has made an indelible mark in fashion industry. The beautiful embroidery, exquisite beadwork, and luxurious hand paintings of his highly praised collections have been toured around the globe: from Malaysia to Moscow, Japan to Paris and Bangkok to Barcelona.

Ramon Valera, the first Filipino fashion designer to be given the recognition of National Artist, created the butterfly sleeves of the Terno today, but it is Pitoy Moreno who made the country proud with his introduction of Filipiniana silhouettes and styles, and the words jusi, piña and lepanto to mainstream fashion through his international shows and clientele.