Arcy Gayatin: Threadbare chic

MANILA, Philippines - For Arcy Gayatin’s first menswear collection, the designer used fabrication techniques that added a highly tactile dimension to her otherwise classic silhouettes. “Just like what I do when I create my women’s collections, I focus on the fabrics to present something different, which I like to do,” the designer says. Taking apart the grains of stretch cotton knits, Gayatin reworked her materials to produce shirts and jackets with delicate gauze-like textures highlighted by the play of stripes in varying sizes and the layering of web-like patterns over solid-colors. The cocoon-like look of the pieces played with the eyes as blues, blacks and whites weave seamlessly into one another, and the overlay of materials was deceptively light: If you just look hard enough, you can almost see through the loose weaves down right to the skin. Echoing the de-grained look throughout the collection were cotton twill pants and blazers.