British fashion experts Colin McDowell & Nikki Rowntree: ‘More people should wear Philippine textiles’

When British fashion experts Colin McDowell and Nikki Rowntree told friends they were going to Manila, the prevailing response was, “Why?”

Harsh but true. To the Brits, Manila has no fashion identity — nothing that has set us apart, much less set the fashion world on fire. Yet.

“For a country that has so many smart shops, the people on the streets are not looking particularly smart,” McDowell observed. “They’re not fashion-conscious.”

Yet. But in bringing the design-savvy duo to Manila, CITEM is hoping to alter that, and facilitate a cultural exchange that will be beneficial to both countries.

After all, Britain has produced nearly all the great fashion editors and journalists — Anna Wintour, Suzy Menkes and McDowell himself number among them — and designers like Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Vivienne Westwood and Hussein Chalayan.

In town for Manila FAME, McDowell, chief fashion writer for The Sunday Times and The Business of Fashion, and Rowntree, a fashion PR who’s had 25 years of experience in the industry, including as fashion editor for Vogue and Cosmopolitan UK, were on the lookout for standout designs and fashion, and seemed to have found it in our Philippine fabrics.

“We saw hand-woven textiles and they were very exciting,” Rowntree said. “I’d love to see more people wearing Philippine textiles.”

“It’s clever to make them look modern and international,” adds McDowell. “Last night we saw someone wearing a wraparound skirt of knitted wool. It was western but with indigenous quality. A buyer would have ordered it; the press covered it.”

At SoFA (School of Fashion & the Arts), McDowell told a room full of budding fashion designers that now is the time for the east to conquer the fashion world.

“We’ll see a sea change in 10 to 15 years, because the west is running down,” he said. The only Fashion Week worth going to is Paris, which is the pinnacle. New York and Milan are too commercial, and London is a numbers game. Designers do a show once, twice, and then disappear. You have to nurture talent.”

Which McDowell does back home with Fashion Fringe, a design competition that has attracted judges like Tom Ford and Donatella Versace. One of the winners was Erdem, the first designer in the history of fashion who’s designed for Michelle Obama, the wife of two prime ministers and future queen consort Kate Middleton.

McDowell asked SoFA’s fashion students, “Do you do things that will sell or get into all the papers? An original idea has to be backed up by business acumen to get people talking.”

He advises aspiring designers to network — “you have to party and ‘dance’ every night” — and go for fame, like Tom Ford did when he invited all the fashion editors to his first show.

He also urges the Philippines to set up its own costume museum: “All fashion capitals have it: Bunker in Japan, the Met in New York, the Louvre and others in Paris. A museum says, ‘We are taking fashion seriously.’ You put in the most extraordinary clothes from the west, and then your clothes in a cultural mélange that speaks to people.”

He also believes that men’s fashion is a big growth area. “How can you have Fashion Weeks without menswear?”

At a talk she gave at the CCP, Rowntree gave young designers a list of crucial questions they should ask themselves:

• What is it I’m really selling? “Find your individual voice. Do something about where you come from. Communicate what it is you stand for.”

• What does it take to become a challenger? Noting that every market has a brand leader and a brand challenger, she said a challenger needs to stand out more by delivering a clearer message that cuts through the dominance of the leader and distractions.

Humans are all distracted, according to a Yahoo survey that found that, on average, we cram 43 hours of activity into every 24-hour day. “For a communicator you need to give a very clear message, because consumers aren’t paying attention.”

• Do you support David or Goliath? She said that people buy products based on their values, citing Tom Ford and Ralph Lauren as examples. “What does Tom Ford stand for versus Ralph Lauren? Which cares about family values, and which for sex? People buy into that based on their philosophy of life.”

• What would I do if I were the new CEO? How would I change the company? Wanting to make an impact on the New York club scene, an upstart brand of New Zealand vodka, 42Below, noticed that in wintertime, people would queue outside on the snow-covered sidewalks to get into the clubs. They formed the 42Below Snow Patrol, which went around in two vans and cleaned up all the snow. Consequently, once they got inside the clubs all the patrons could talk about were the people who’d cleared the snow. They started buying the vodka, thanks to that extra degree of service.

• What are you challenging? In a field dominated by a brand leader (Hertz), a challenger (Avis) went the path of honesty to command attention, change customer’s perceptions and win support by launching ads with the tagline “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder.”

Rowntree, who loves the exclusivity of craftsmanship, says that being exclusive is another route Filipino designers can take rather than going mainstream. She cites the case of a little handbag store located in a valley tucked away in the Italian mountains, whose wares were more exclusive than Hermes so that women went crazy over it.

But she and McDowell agree that Filipino fashion designers should look at what they’re capable of producing, look at the people they admire, and then start fresh. Don’t copy or do retreads of what’s been done before.

Rowntree said, “Think of your customer and come up with something she doesn’t know that she wants, then, having thought about her and what she wants, forget about that and speak your truth.”