Beguiling BlackOut

Time to paint the town black! And scarlet, snowy white and gray. Bench’sBlackOut Denim and Underwear show unleashed Utopian dreams, as well as the wildest nightmares. It felt like a performance art instead of just a runway show. And the runway did not even look like a runway! It appeared to be a Frank Gehry structure stuck at a weird angle right smack at the full packed Araneta Coliseum. Thanks to director Ariel Lozada’s genius.

Now Ben Chan and director Ariel Lozada have always had a sense of derring-do and now with their latest installation, they’re taking a fabulous leap. To showcase the grandest denim and underwear line, four artists were summoned to a four-part show. Illustrator/graphic designer Abi Goy sent his models in Japanese origami to meet Gypsy bravata concoctions at the opening of the show. An exposition of the diversity of the body form was what filmmaker Raymund Red had in mind for his portion. Premier photographer Jun de Leon’s aquatic movements featured aqualung accessories set amidst a background of thermal waters. Lesley Mobo, London-based Filipino designer, stylized her portion with contraptions worthy of operatic proportions that crescendoed to a fabulous finale.