Wedding belles

A bride is the center of attention on her wedding day. She has an unmistakable glow that captivates guests and most especially her groom. This arises in good part from feeling loved, cared for and being made to look more beautiful on her special day.

So what more does a bride need to look more ravishing than she already is? The perfect wedding gown. For the modern bride, it is essential to choose a style that suits her personality and in some cases, the theme of her wedding.

Veteran fashion journalist, Metro Weddings I Do and Metro magazine editor-in-chief Thelma San Juan says that it would be rather simplistic to pigeonhole, the styles of the top Filipino designers; because they’ve been around for decades, these designers can create just about any style.

One should also keep in mind that these designers emerged during the golden years of Filipino fashion–in the ’70s–when their design/craftsmanship mettle was honed by cut-throat competition, great and incessant inspiration from the great designers of Europe and the US, and a strong market for haute couture.

So while their clientele may tend to associate these designers with a certain style, still, these top designers can create just about any style you want–the limits being only the demands of a client.

Learn more about these veteran designers (in random order):

• Inno Sotto. An all-around artist, Inno is known for wedding gowns with fluid cuts, soft silhouettes and body-hewn structures that flatter the figure. As an artist, he can also treat a gown like a canvas with grabbing visuals (as in innovative ornamentation).

• Auggie Cordero. People say he is the Valentino or Yves Saint Laurent of Philippine couture. His wedding gowns are ultra-romantic, a display of craftsmanship, construction and beadwork. They are intricate and marked by painstaking attention to detail. A lover of bows, he introduced the use of colors in wedding gowns. He goes out of his way to accentuate gowns with such feminine touches as petticoats or inner layers that peep out of the hem line.

• Joe Salazar. Another master craftsman, his gowns are marked by intricate beadwork and embroidery. Salazar gowns are richly hand-crafted, his fabrics are just as rich and he loves proving how he can make even the most challenging fabrics hew to cutting-edge silhouettes. There are also instances when Salazar puts a "shock value" to his design by pushing it to the design limits.

• Pitoy Moreno. Decades of experience have given him an expert hand with Filipiniana material, especially piña. He produces the Maria Clara or terno silhouette with embroidery that’s so Filipino. A Moreno bride is the classic Filipina bride.

• Ben Farrales. Like Pitoy, he belongs to that by-now precious breed of Filipino designers who can create the classic Filipiniana gown–from fabrics to embroidery. By now mostly everyone knows that Farrales can create a bridal gown inspired by ethnic elements from the south (i.e. Muslim). Yet not many young brides know that Farrales is superb in drapery. If you want a gown that’s exquisitely and intricately draped, go to Farrales.

• Nolie Hans. Beadwork, embroidery and intricate construction are his forte. His gowns show painstaking labor–something some brides want so that their gowns are memorable. A Hans silhouette can also be sometimes awesome, again something some brides want.

• Pepito Albert. His trademark: superb architecture, almost bare ornamentation. A bride who wants just the gown to fall or flow on her body is the Pepito Albert bride. Albert is minimalism at its most elegant level.

• Rajo Laurel. It’s not for nothing that Rajo Laurel became the designer of today’s young brides. Rajo knows the mien today’s young women want to project–nonchalant, with nothing cumbersome, yet always sexy. Rajo is one designer who didn’t hesitate to bare some flesh of his brides–be it with super-thin straps, plunging back or décolletage. He’s a product of his era when young women are confident about their figures and have no inhibitions.

• Patis Tesoro. Always the resource for the Filipiniana bride, Patis is so committed to the terno, the baro’t saya and has spent decades harnessing materials for them and researching variations of their silhouettes. A bride who wants to do Filipiniana can tap her vast expertise.

Whether it’s classic, urban, Filipiniana or avant-garde, wedding gowns are still best when made-to-order by your designer of choice. Get a load, too, of the young but seasoned designers who I believe will bring your wedding gown ideas to life–Patrice Ramos-Diaz who is great with beadwork and feminine designs; Tippi Ocampo for her edgy designs and clever use of fabrics; Michi Calica-Sotto for craftsmanship and intricate details; and one of Manila’s favorite wedding gown designer Rhett Eala for his flattering silhouettes and exquisite use of fabrics with minimal ornamentation.