A day in the life of Yvonne and the Bang-Bangs

Young Designers’ Guild member and multi-talented artist Yvonne Quisumbing-Romulo has continually wowed Manila’s fashion mavens with her unique pieces: colorful clothes cut out of an interesting array of materials, embellished with intricate beadwork, leather butterflies, fabric flowers, and other such whimsical odds and ends. An impressive collection shown at this year’s Philippine Fashion Week showcased her skillful use of dye-cut, stamped, and patched-together leather, particularly on a number of unusually shaped bags that truly defy the laws of form, function, and even gravity. It’s no surprise, then, that most fans of Yvonne’s work prefer to refer to her products as art pieces, not just clothes. YStyle has officially branded Yvonne Quisumbing-Romulo a designer to watch, and watch her we did, for an entire day.

9:45 a.m. Enter the Romulo household, a humongous structure which houses, among other things, Yvonne’s workshop and studio. She is alerted to YStyle’s presence and stumbles down the stairs, a little bleary-eyed, but flashing what we later learn is her trademark smile. She looks like she’s been working all night on what seems to be a harness decorated with leather spikes and platinum hair extensions. "This is for our model. Parang magiging creature siya," Yvonne explains, referring to a shoot scheduled later in the morning.

"Nakita mo ba yung mga goons on your way in?" Yvonne asks, referring to the small army of drivers, bodyguards, and security personnel that hover in the general area of the entrance to her house. She shares her plan to move her workshop and studio to Ortigas to make for a more accessible location, and also for the sake of her customers. "They’re nice guys, but I’m just worried they might be scaring my clients."

Yvonne’s husband, partner in crime, and Young Star columnist Erwin Romulo shows up with the couple’s "son," an adorable Jack Russell puppy named Vinter, after Thomas Vinterberg, the first film director to apply the dogme method of filmmaking. We learn that Vinter is scheduled to breed with their friend’s female Jack Russell, Sushi, and that the adorable little bugger might be a little too smart for his own good. "He got up on the sofa, pointed his butt at Erwin, and farted." Charming. At this point, Vinter starts humping this writer’s left leg. A horrified Erwin peels him away just in time. We all get into a van and head to a photo shoot, the first stop of Yvonne’s day.

10:20 a.m. On the way to a studio somewhere on C5, Yvonne explains how everyone in her family had planned to move home to Cebu as soon as she and her siblings had graduated. "Pero bumalik din ako sa Maynila, hindi ko nakayanan." And aren’t we glad she did?

10:31 a.m. We arrive at the studio, where Yvonne introduces us to the remaining members of her one-stop fashion photography and production crew, Homo Gestalt (HG) where Yvonne and Erwin act as creative director and line producer, respectively. Juan Caguicla is the photographer, Mads Adrias the stylist, and Buboy Bahado, the latest addition to the group, is their hair artist both on and off-location (he somehow connected several models together by their hair at a recent HG shoot, and he personally handles hairdressing and grooming for the group).

10:47 a.m. The model arrives. Buboy and makeup artist Eric Maningat quickly get to work beautifying as the rest of the team go about setting up the studio, the whole time enthusing about HG. The five combine their "powers," if you will, to create strikingly beautiful images from the ground up, getting extremely involved in their work and pretty much pushing the concept of pre and post-production to the limit. Erwin discusses a shoot that had the group piercing over 200 eggs, blowing out their contents and stringing the shells as garlands. "We ate eggs for days after that."

Yvonne insists, however, that there can never be too much money, time, or effort invested in any one HG shoot. "This is really what makes me happy. Honestly, all the money I make from selling clothes totally goes into it." Juan continues, "My photography captures her clothing, so I feel that the expenses and effort are justified in that sense."

11:15 a.m. The shoot commences behind closed doors, and the team, sans Erwin, immediately concentrates on properly posing and capturing a mostly naked model’s image. Erwin regales us with various stories about HG, particularly the origin of its peculiar name. He was reading More Than Human, a science fiction novel about a number of social rejects who are weak individually, but who acquire superhuman powers when they group together. The misfits called themselves Homo Gestalt. It’s an appropriate title for the crew, if not one that wholly underestimates its individuals’ respective capabilities.

1:14 p.m. The shoot ends just in time for lunch: curried tofu steak and rice. Juan and Mads are both vegetarians, and the Gestalt kids have learned to adapt their tastes and dining habits accordingly, which really isn’t a problem, because the tofu curry turns out to be amazing. Writer considers vegetarianism.

2:08 p.m. Back at the Romulo residence, where Yvonne leads us to her workshop. Eagerly looking forward to a den full of weeping children forced to make lace and hand-stitch entire beaded dresses, we are disappointed to find a very normal-looking group of seemingly healthy, well-fed young women happily sewing away. Yvonne introduces us to her sewers, making special mention of Gina, a stern-looking number who seems to be the shop’s major domo. "There are times when I get masungit around here, but I’m normally quite nice. Gina’s the one who puts the girls in order, though. She gets mad at me sometimes because I don’t cut the clothes properly. ‘Ma’am, hindi pantay!’"

Yvonne shares how she encourages her workers to communicate, a process which has led to smoother workflow in the shop. "They suggest solutions for technical problems, like how to close a particular garment; do we use zippers, hooks, buttons? They also help me design every now and then. I make sure that my clothes are hard to construct. Dapat talaga, so I can tell my clients, ‘Ay, mahirap yan gawin!’" So there is a sadistic streak in her after all.

3:03 p.m. Relaxa-tion time at the Romulos’. Yvonne decides to do a little painting and whips out an assortment of acrylic paints, all of which seem to be in neutral, earthy, flesh colors reminiscent of her aforementioned bag collection. Any fan of the designer’s work will notice the highly organic nature of Yvonne’s pieces: pierced and meticulously cut leather thrown together to create bulbous, seemingly bizarre, but ineffably beautiful designs. This same trend is visible in almost every aspect of her art. Her paintings, fashion, props, costumes, and sculpture (yes, she does metal-work, thank you very much) all seem to be influenced by extremely biological, primal imagery. We ask Yvonne about this. "I’m inspired by Vinter’s testicles," she answers jokingly. "Uh, wait. Should we print that?"

A run-down of her skills and talents thus far: painting, which Yvonne admits is her first love; sculpture, which currently refers to a number of twisty, insect-like metal pieces she’s working on for an exhibit later this year; fashion, which she insists is simply her vision of soft sculpture; and music. Hard to believe, perhaps, but she composed a couple of songs with her brother and husband for a certain Kitchie Nadal (specifically the tracks Drained and Breathe). Yvonne is also the bassist for the band Yvonne and the Bang-Bangs (also known as Homo Gestalt with instruments), which was rendered inactive because of the designer’s stage fright. "I have problems with performance. I played Lea Salonga in a high school play and had to mime her singing parts. But when the recording was over, I was still lip-syncing. That was pretty embarrassing."

4:48 p.m. Yvonne seems satisfied with her painting and gets up to take a picture of it. The rest of HG are spread around the Romulo den-slash-crash pad, surfing the Internet, taking naps, sipping tea, or watching a violent Korean movie. Yvonne returns five minutes later, saying that she isn’t happy with the painting. She sits down to work on it some more.

5:04 p.m. It starts to rain. Quark Henares, director, hipster, and one-half of the parents of Vinter’s future bride, arrives to announce that he is having dinner with the President. Yvonne continues to paint. Erwin points out that she’s a finalist for this year’s Metrobank Art and Design Excellence National Competition. For the love of mercy, is there nothing this woman can’t do?

6:01 p.m. Finally finished with the painting, Yvonne goes off to do some number-crunching. She sits at a table with a couple of her assistants, looking over receipts, inventory checklists, checkbooks, and other such financially-related documents that typically boggle the ordinary designer’s mind. But Yvonne is no ordinary designer. She is a taxpaying designer. She gets tied up in a phone call, which sounds like she’s either attempting to purchase several yards of dyed piña or a few crates of firearms from a South American country. We like to think that she was buying the piña.

6:53 p.m. Yvonne and the Bang-Bangs prepare to leave for a previously planned dinner. Not wanting to impose, YStyle backs out of the engagement. We bid a fond farewell and watch Yvonne ride into the sunset, slightly irked by the absence of child laborers, but otherwise thoroughly satisfied with our observations and a day well spent in the life of a designer.