Making the case for designer pambahay
The one thing that bothers me when some members of the fashion community rally support for the local industry on social media is the throwback photo it comes with. I support its captioned intention to keep buying and wearing Filipino fashion as we weather this crisis, but the throwbacks, as well-meaning as they are, suggest something unsaid — it’s as if there’s no place for Filipino fashion now or in the future, no matter how dismal and uncertain it may be.
And that’s in no way true. In fact, it’s the opposite. Two young Filipino designers, Stacy Rodriguez and Carl Jan Cruz, are making the most covetable, comfortable loungewear you’d ever want to wear even outside — or on Instagram.
During the first few weeks of the pandemic, Stacy was busy making Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from her home in Makati with her stay-in sewers, helping address the shortage for medical frontliners and reusable face masks to ease the demand for the medical-grade ones. “We continue to do corporate orders for PPE suits and EC (my other unisex line) continues to produce masks for the market,” she says.
Protective jumpsuits and reusable face masks have since become a new category for many local designers, and a new fashion statement for the few who are safely venturing out of their homes.
In an interview for our Instagram series Work In Progress in July, young designer Vania Romoff, who has shut down more than half of her productions of mostly bridal wear and occasion wear, called her Essentials subcategory of elevated outerwear and silk and jacquard face masks a “Band-Aid project” that allows her production to keep their jobs. As of today, she is reopening her Rockwell studio, where you can buy her silk sets à la Gwyneth Paltrow’s all-green ensemble in Great Expectations, which you can wear from lounging to Zoom meetings.
Winding down from the PPE rush, Stacy began working on the idea of loungewear after months of sitting on it. Her womenswear brand Eustacia is known for made-to-order formalwear and occasion wear separates that have a luxe tropicale look and feel, worn by local celebrities Sarah Geronimo, Erich Gonzales and Julia Barretto, and personalities like entrepreneur Joanna Preysler to events.
“I was wanting to explore new things for the RTW aspect of Studio Eustacia to the idea of ‘seasonless’ clothing — to make clothes that people can wear anytime, anywhere. After the entire world shifted in behavior, I thought loungewear fit with the idea of a seasonless wardrobe anyway. I would definitely like to explore this idea — finding a good mix of ‘cute pambahay’ but mixing it with things that you could be excited to wear once things are different. Something to keep us hopeful,” she says.
Loungewear is what we all wear now, socially distanced, quarantining, working from home. Here in the hot and humid tropics, it’s the intimate pambahay. I wear “dasters,” or loose house dresses. My nuclear family, who I have been sheltering with, prefer oversize tees and bottoms with elasticated waistbands. Pambahay is typically in sweat-wicking cotton, all in fits that fall away from the body with armholes and leg holes that open up wide to provide the limbs some ventilation.
It’s what sweats are to the US. The Aug. 6 cover of the New York Times goes “Sweatpants Forever,” in a story about the American fashion industry’s rise and collapse as it happens around and to Scott Sternberg, whom you might know from his previous brand, early 2000s androgynous fave Band of Outsiders. Teletubby-hued two-year-old basics line Entireworld is his, and in April, sales of his sweats and Giant shirts were up 662 percent over March the previous year, even as clothing sales fell a record 79 percent in the United States.
CJ has also read the story. When asked about his latest collection, aptly named Pambahay, he answers, “Loungewear never really came into my mind, until reading EntireWorlds’ feature, then it did ring a similar idea to the sweatpants culture being discussed there. We've always done pambahay in our design developments. Having a directive of sheltering in place made us just focus on that concept/aspect more for us.”
His namesake brand applies the method of somaesthetics, exploring the connection between bodily perception and presentation, resulting in a visual autobiography of what it means growing up in the Philippines: exploring contemporary aesthetic codes found in our everyday lives, celebrating the nostalgic, the humble and commonplace, and bringing it to the realm of occasion wear (which he has a Pang Okasyon category for). Art Fair Philippines’ Trickie Lopa, Bellas Artes Projects’ Jam Acuzar, and English singer/songwriter FKA Twigs are fans. His Basahan, for example, bears the construction principle of the quintessential object, made with his signature fabrics, explored as a floor-length piece worn by and named after Jeremy Sancebuche also known as Mimiyuuuh of Dalagang Pilipina YouTube fame into smaller items for 2020 like coasters found in his Pambahay collection.
Pambahay features a fine jersey pique textile that his brand developed seven years ago “out of wishful thinking to be able to wear golfing shirts without the constant sweat marks in weather that averages 30 degrees Celsius annually,” reads his post about his Pambahay Classic tee. “I was in search for a tee that had forgiving armholes and a fit that was neither too slim (nor) baggy, just boxy to contrast the fineness of the fabric. Light and airy as it can be but also extremely easy to throw in the wash and (that) can be either ironed or not. Maintained the half-and-half inside-out finish (that) complements the fabric’s reversibility. Improved with a pin tuck detail along the spine to balance the movement in the least-distracted (by clothing) part of the upper body: the back.”
The fabric appears as pambahay essentials in Filipinized English: Shyorts, Yaggers, and Dastee, respectively shorts, joggers, and a T-shirt daster; and his take on the comfy and worn-out bra Salungso, worn for exercise by creative director Anna Canlas.
“It has always been there and it was as easy as finding materials that were available that as a team we have ended up wearing at home, fortunately,” CJ says. “It also came out of discerning practicality: that we can only support (some) of our mills but chose to develop/continuously order with our mill to keep it also going with them and revisited silhouettes we trusted and wanted to refine.”
The idea of loungewear came to Stacy “after a bit of an identity crisis. I wanted to make things that felt more me,” she admits. The result is Posts from Nowhere, a love letter for physical contact and togetherness with friends and lovers, accompanied with text by writer and YStyle alum Regina Belmonte.
“The lockdown gave me a lot of time to dwell on this and brought me straight back to what I was doing when I first started: tropical fabrics (lightweight, breathable), splashes of color, and easy silhouettes,” she shares, and loungewear felt like the perfect application for this.
Her bestsellers are the Anastasia, an Aqua two-piece set made of a lightweight gauze cotton featuring a high-neck top cut that’s a client favorite in her formalwear; and the Pamela, a midi slip dress made in a pinstripe shirting cotton. Sunnies’ Jess Wilson was recently spotted in the Off to Nowhere shorts set in lavender pinstripe seersucker cotton. Tie ends in this collection are finished with laser-cut organza flowers. Stacy styled the same Off to Nowhere top in a different colorway with distressed jeans. The pieces have a laidback yet fun-loving feel, at once nostalgic and looking forward to the next outdoor music festival, the next night out — when this is all over.
The lockdown slowdown brought with it a lot of introspection about changing the way things have been — maybe for the better. For Eustacia, new systems are introduced in Posts from Nowhere. “It was first designed with free sizing/oversizing in mind but we ended up building two sizes to better fit a variety of body types,” she says of the new size chart. “To reduce waste and manage the workload of our team responsibly, I’ve created a different format for the release of the collection. I introduced the collection as a whole and opened up a decent sized inventory for orders on the first round. I took note of which did well and if some clients had requests. Consequently, we are doing a few more releases — restocking best sellers and introducing new colorways. That way, we only supply whatever it is the market demands and production works under very manageable loads while not being burdened by inventory.”
CJ is taking things as they come. “Fortunately we've been okay for now, as we don't know what the next month will bring and, with our volume being kept within an artisanal range per style, it is really of equal distribution and interesting that broader audience feedback have led this into a dialogue of how we share common liking for, say, a tee or pair of shorts,” he shares. “Like our Pambahay, we are just cutting back and facing it on a daily basis. It is also a mirror expression of embracing the situation of uncertainty.”
* * *
Shop Eustacia’s Posts from Nowhere at eustaciasrodriguez@gmail.com. Shop Carl Jan Cruz’s Pambahay at carljancrewz.com.
