Photographed by Studio AM. Courtesy of Life Design
For its debut collection, Life Design returned to the classroom to make a case for why Filipino culture deserves a place in the global streetwear landscape.
Founded in Toronto in 2022 by Xylk Lorena and Fisayo Olowolafe, Life Design has been thrust into public consciousness recently with their anti-corruption stance.
The creative duo, also known as Pigo the Pinoy Nigo and Flearell respectively, are “Life Designer 1 and 2,” likening themselves to Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2. Xylk was born in Manila. He formerly dabbled in music and band merchandise, while Fleasayo, raised in Toronto with Nigerian roots, studied business before pivoting full-time into visual and fashion design. The two have been creating together for over a decade. “Me and Flea, we’ve been designing for like 10 plus years together,” Xylk says. He compares their partnership to drafting a superstar: “If you see Kobe, no one sees Kobe as a free agent. You’ve got to get him.”
Fisayo remembers the moment the brand was established: “He came to me around 2019… and he said, ‘Yo, I want us to have a fashion house.’” At the time, he felt burnt out. “I was tired… I was like damn, what could we possibly do? There are so many brands out… clothes every single day.” But the vision was clear, “I just want to make the Philippines cool,” Fisayo says. “I just want the Philippines to be on the map for fashion.”
Life Design has elevated the everyday vernacular of the ‘tarp’ into a global calling card of cultural identity. Transforming them into love letters to international fashion designers, athletes, A-list celebrities, and public figures. They’ve congratulated milestones such as Jonathan Anderson’s 11-year tenure at Loewe, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott’s engagement, and Zohran Mamdani becoming the new mayor of New York.
The brand’s “iNNERGY,” which blends the randomness of Banksy’s placements, the conceptual wit of Jenny Holzer, and the graphic language of Barbara Kruger, has appeared on the streets of Paris Fashion Week, ComplexCon in Los Angeles, and SoleDXB in Dubai. Earlier this year, they were commissioned by Univers for a full in-store installation at the Greenbelt 3 boutique. For the duo, the tarpaulin is more than an aesthetic. It embodies the optimism at the heart of diskarte. As Fisayo explains, “A LiFE DESiGNER is a person that creatively solves problems… being resourceful and showing ingenuity with nothing.”
Although most local brands have already presented their collections for the year, the streetwear label chose a different route. Just one day before the second Trillion Peso March at the EDSA People Power Monument, they gathered family and friends, far from the cosmopolitan gloss of Manila, at the suburban grounds of Valeriano Fugoso Memorial School, a public school in Marikina. Each invitee received a laminated school ID with a lanyard, featuring a childhood class photo of Xylk on the front and show notes on the back:
“My family and I immigrated to Toronto when I was 10 years old. Out of nowhere, in the middle of a school year, we up and left. No warnings, no goodbyes. My only memory of the Philippines was school. The building. My friends. The uniforms. This is me picking up where I left off. Dedicated to the world’s greatest teachers, Mama Dorie. The dressmaker.”
Mama Dorie was Xylk’s grandmother and the main source of inspiration behind the collection. “It’s a reference to my grandmother Adora… she passed away two years ago, and she was a teacher,” he says. “She used to make my mom’s clothes… as a lot of our Lola’s do. It just inspired me, to honour her.” The name also comes from the sign that once hung outside their family gate: “DRESSMAKER.”
Before the runway show, large screens played the first 20-minute episode of the label’s new web series ‘LiFE DESiGN TELA ViSiON,’ chronicling the lives of the brand’s muses and makers across the country. We meet Ardii Poblete, a tattoo artist who uses a makeshift tattoo gun powered by an old DVD player motor. He was a former student of Laya Digital Curators, a social enterprise that provides art training programs in jails for incarcerated individuals. Its founders, Rosa Javier and Paul Mondok, also appear in the episode.
After the screening, the models spilled out of the classroom and made their way to the outdoor auditorium. The first look, worn by supermodel and Vogue Man cover star Paolo Roldan, was a white knife-pleated shirt and trousers, paired with blue-and-yellow Tabi Tabi Po thongs, embroidered with “GOD BLESS UUUU.” He carried the Antipolo bag: a trapezoidal flap style described on their website as “not referencing any other iconic messenger bags made by a big fashion house in Europe.” As Fisayo jokes, “those bags… we love polo, it’s just that the bags are made in Antipolo.”
What followed was a full high-school ecosystem: overachievers, slackers, skaters, rebels, and the teachers and coaches who shaped them. It reinterpreted Filipino school uniforms through the lens of American adolescent culture, nodding to the two countries’ intertwined cultural and political history. Marine-collared short-sleeve shirts, crisp white dress shirts, kilts and tailored trousers, PE tops, ringer t-shirts, track pants, basketball jerseys, windbreakers, and letterman jackets all appeared, each reworked through the brand’s graphic vernacular.
Across the lineup, Katharine Hamnett-style slogan tees delivered the collection’s boldest declarations. Budots pioneer DJ Love, who also scored the show, walked the runway in shirts printed with “somebody in Manila loves you,” “reading is fundamental,” and “it’s more funds in the Philippines,” a direct reference to the Department of Tourism’s 2012 slogan.
Laura Jhane closed the show in an oversized tarpaulin, or a giant ‘good morning’ towel, worn as a skirt with a bandeau top, a monogrammed varsity jacket, with red patent leather gloves, and school pencils tucked like a crown in her hair. To the founders, the philosophy behind it all is straightforward. “We’re not a menswear company. We’re not a womenswear company. We do FUNWEAR,” Fisayo says. If they play their cards right, they could emerge as the Philippines’ equivalent of Telfar, joining the ranks of Palace Skateboards, Stüssy, and ERL at Dover Street Market.
Before his passing in 2021, Virgil Abloh left behind “Free Game,” a step-by-step guide to building a brand from nothing. In it, he emphasizes that naming is the core of a label’s identity, writing, “For me, the brand or entity name has been the most important part of my logic. Your brand name should be an endless reference point to why your brand exists.” By that measure, Xylk and Fisayo have already done the heavy lifting. Life Design has a distinct message and a universally legible sense of identity, one that does not require pledging allegiance to any sport or sound; the only prescription required is Filipino joy.
Inspired by the national flag, their logo reimagines the sun in a way that exudes power. It feels tropical, scrapyard-industrial, with a touch of Pimp My Ride. As Xylk explains, “I was messing around on Photoshop… I wanted something that wasn’t your typical flat 2D logo… I wanted to reference the symbol of the new sun for the Philippines… It’s also a volcano… because how do you make 7,000 islands? Through eruption, right?” That confidence goes beyond just the visual. “Is this drop one?” Fisayo asked with a grin. “We’re a fashion house. We’re here. We’re not going anywhere.”
