Aesthetic, for the thinking Deviant
"My aesthetic is for the thinking deviant,” says Mike Lavarez during the shoot of his video campaign, where Manila Bulletin got invited to hang out as a special audience. It was a few weeks before fashion week and with all the preparations and ironing of details, Lavarez looked calm and collected. It must be because, though this is the first time he is showing at Philippine Fashion Week, Lavarez is not exactly a fashion newbie.
Lavarez got tangled into the world of fashion at the age of 17. Just a few weeks shy of college, Lavarez met his long-time collaborator and good friend, Geof Gonzales, who has also introduced him to I Love You. Both designers have worked at the independent store—from its days at the second level of Saguijo, then Makati Avenue, and its final move to Cubao X—and have admitted that they have learned a lot from the I Love You girls who owned it. The 24-year old Lavarez was the chief designer of local retail brand Mental after I Love You, but has also recently left to focus on his own line.
Indeed, retail and made-to-order are two different worlds, but Lavarez has learned from it as much as it has fed his personal aesthetics. “This collection (for the Philippine Fashion Week) is a remembrance of all the craziness and conformity I experienced from the first dress I made at I Love You and the last one after leaving Mental,” shares Lavarez. And looking at the pieces from the shoot, each look is a construction of separates, layers created to be worn alone or with a few more ones. Using a lot of cotton jersey for the whole collection, Lavarez also guarantees each piece to be breathable and comfortable to the wearer. He also adds that inspired by the Boro look (Boro is tattered / ragged in Japanese), his pieces are comfortable wears that make you stand out in a sea of norms.
Lavarez describes joining fashion week like a new student entering right in the middle of High School or College. “We had a screening and I waited nervously for days for the result. I was ecstatic when I learned I got accepted and even had a good review of the collection from Mr. Joey Espino himself,” he says, adding, “It was only a brief meeting, but it was a humbling experience for me.” And, out of the many applicants, Lavarez was the only one accepted in the RTW Collection.
“As a first-timer, it was more of the process, the people I worked with, the endless busy nights—everything and everyone that made it happen—that actually made an impression on me more than the show itself,” he says. He relates the show as surreal and personal as it was his first time to see a huge amount of people as audience.
For Lavarez, his Philippine Fashion Week experience is different from the rest of the shows he has done because, he says, you get to work with the best people in the industry. He says of the production: “The Philippine Fashion Week has always and always will be the niche for emerging talents in the industry. It doesn’t only give good exposure to a newbie or an experienced designer but it gives more credibility to the local fashion industry as a whole.”
So, after his many years in fashion, why, you ask, has Lavarez only joined the Philippine Fashion Week now? “I have been endlessly asked the same question. It really seems to be surprising to a lot of people because I started pretty young—17 to be exact. The truth is that I wanted to challenge myself, to make a little thesis from of all the things I learned as an Avant Garde designer to a retail one. I took time to understand the whole concept of wearable art and wearable fashion.”
Looking at Lavarez's Philippine Fashion Week debut, it looks like he has not only understood the concept of wearable art, but gave it a whole new meaning. Says Lavarez, “when I went out to the audience, the piercing lights at the end of the runway struck me and everything just felt rewarding.” - Article courtesy of Manila Bulletin.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
