Gender-less fashion: Menswear standouts at Mindanao Fashion Summit Year 12
CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines — One of the highlights of the City of Golden Friendship’s Higalaay Festival is the Mindanao Fashion Summit (MFS). This fashion spectacle, now on its 12th year, gathers some of the southern island’s most creative talents.
On Day 1, August 23, was the Menswear Collection. The show, directed by Robbie Forticjh Pamisa, was held at the Ayala Malls Centrio.
“The city’s latest campaign, ‘CDO Rise,' is my inspiration for my menswear collection. As we start a new postpandemic chapter in CDO (Cagayan de Oro) fashion, it is my hopeful intent that together, we can we rise and uplift the troubled industry,” said Gil Macaibay III, the founder of MFS and a past president of the Oro Fashion Designers Guild.
Macaibay used combined elements of colors and asymmetric cutting details to provide a fresh and modern take of men, like his models Kirst Viray and Dan Galupo, whose fashion sense leans more on comfort and function, and flamboyance and nonchalance.
One of Arnulfo Neri’s pieces, as worn by Kurt Naik, is a lilac gabardine wool cotton suit. Alma Mae Roa’s suit worn by Dan Galupo is in printed brocade.
Juniel Doring’s collection, with one look worn by Allan Sambaan II, called “Epi-Scene,” is inspired by how androgynous fashion evolves from the streets to social events: “Our generation’s modern, trendy and gender-less fashion is what I want as a designer, and to be able to be inclusive and unbiased in this very fault-finding world.”
The colors of spring inspired stylist-turned-designer Zoe Botwin. His look worn by model Dan Galupo is made of jacquard and jusi with monstera appliques: “My man is going on a road trip on a bright and lovely spring day.”
For his It Boy Kevin Pong, OFDG president Mark Christoper Yaranon created an ensemble of stretch metallic pleated fabric in rustic bronze: "My dark and moody collection is called ‘Club Street Glam,’ inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s film, 'Dracula.'”
