How to stalk Nicolas Ghesquiére sans flash

The text messages started coming on Friday morning from fashionista friends, asking if it was true that Balenciaga creative director Nicolas Ghesquiére was indeed in our humble Third World country, but nobody had a clue as to why he would end up here.

I forwarded the message to Jetset editor Liza Ilarde to find out if she knew of any scoop. She quickly confirmed it through Jojo Liamzon of Bench, that yes, he was indeed in town, and would be honored at a private dinner hosted by Ben Chan on Saturday at Chef Laudico’s Bistro Filipino.

His presence was also confirmed by Mega editor Carla Sibal, who was invited to dinner via text message, as well as Jappy Gonzalez of Homme et Femme who received a call saying that Nicolas wanted to visit his shop.

Homme et Femme at Shangri-La Mall is the exclusive distributor of Balenciaga in Manila.

While Nicolas did not appear that evening at the shop, he dropped by unannounced on Sunday afternoon, spending about 15 minutes looking at everything.

Jappy, who spoke briefly with the designer, said Nicolas told him he had a beautiful store.

On Friday evening, Shu Uemura’s Xeng Zulueta saw Nicolas and the Japanese contingent dining with the Bench group at People’s Palace in Greenbelt.

The next day, some of us were openly speculating: Was he here for business? It turns out he was merely here on holiday with a group of people that included Japanese soccer player Hidetoshi Nakata, an Asian entourage, and a CNN crew.

They spent the last few days at Amanpulo in Palawan, while the CNN crew tagged along, doing a story on Nakata after his retirement from soccer.

Known as the David Beckham of Asia, Nakata is considered a fashion trendsetter who "changes his hair color as frequently as most of us flip channels," according to the India Times.

Fashion Forward Daily has called him "Japan’s biggest fashion victim," having spotted him in the front row at Balenciaga’s latest collection, seated next to Janet Jackson and the Olsen twins.

At the dinner were Bench family, friends, and endorsers: Ben Chan, Miguel Pastor, Keren Pascual, Melvin Chua, Bryan Lim, Zanjoe Marudo, Diether Ocampo, Kristine Hermosa, Richard and Lucy Gomez.

From the media were Carla Sibal, Apples Aberin, Philip Cu Unjieng, Raul Manzano, Myrza Sison, Tim Yap, Liza Ilarde, Celine Lopez, Maurice Arcache, Thelma San Juan and myself.

Dennis and Tessa Valdes, Liz Uy and John Lloyd Cruz, Bea Valdes and Archie Rodriguez, Sander and Mons Tantoco, designers Inno Sotto and Patrice Diaz were also there.

Madame Imelda Marcos arrived early with her friends, Lulu Tinio and art collector Dr. Teyet Pascual.

Keren Pascual said Mrs. Marcos had known Cristobal Balenciaga since the late couturier used to make gowns for her. He said Balenciaga loved the Filipino dress because of the big sleeves.

And so the room filled with energy as the guests of honor arrived: Nakata coming in first wearing a long-sleeve plaid shirt, glittery dark vest, thin studded belt, dark pants, Converse shoes, and hair bleached a shade of orange.

Nicolas arrived with Ben Chan, wearing a simple dark suit over two layers of a white shirt and undershirt.

Ben Chan personally introduced Nicolas to all the guests as the CNN crew took footage.

He was seated next to Mrs. Marcos and beside them, two Asian women. Across the table were Inno Sotto, Nakata, Ben Chan and Melvin Chua.

I later asked Inno what the conversation was like. Inno said Mrs. Marcos did most of the talking, telling Nicolas about her Balenciagas and he seemed fascinated about that.

Nicolas didn’t eat much and Nakata ate some of the prawns. Nicolas also said he wanted to come back to the Philippines.

While this was going on, we were informed in hushed tones that photographs were strictly forbidden. It came as a shock to the digitally armed, scoop-hungry fashionistas in the room.

Liza Ilarde, who sat at the next table, said she was very sneakily trying to take pictures paparazzi-style, sans flash, and failed miserably.

While she managed to sneak a couple of shots, this woman next to Nicolas saw her and waved her off.

"In the end, it was all very frustrating for the guests because we all brought cameras, so we just ended up taking pictures of each other," Liza said.

For the love of Nic and this paper, I did manage to steal a couple of shots by hiding my camera behind a giant vase while Chef Laudico’s waiter covered me.

Nicolas and his group left the restaurant around 11:15 p.m. – where to, we don’t know.

So, while not all of us were able to converse with him, it was still a fun and funny evening because us star-struck Pinoys were just so ecstatic to be in the same room as Nicolas Ghesquiére – photo or no photo, and definitely no flash.