Kalinga Creative Irene Bawer-Bimuyag Weaves in Color
Fashion

Paradise Found: Kalinga Creative Irene Bawer-Bimuyag Weaves in Color

Each denim jacket is embroidered by Irene. A consistent best-seller at artisanal fairs, the product sold out on the first day it was introduced. Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines

Irene Bawer-Bimuyag unravels her tapestries’ colorful tales.

In 2017, at 41 years old, Irene Bawer-Bimuyag dove into the sea for the first time. She took the plunge while on an expedition between the islands of Coron and El Nido, where the package included a snorkeling session in the Sulu Sea. Emboldened by a life vest and newly-acquainted tourmate who also didn’t know how to swim, Irene mustered up the courage and discovered a whole new world in return: coral reefs glistening under the surface, sunrays ebbing and flowing with the current.

“As a mountain girl… grabe,” she recalls, still awestruck. “It’s overwhelming. Muntik na nga akong hindi makahinga [I nearly stopped breathing], because for me it’s a paradise.”

These underwater views inspired her long-term art series Balatik, which features tapestries of traditional Kalinga textiles densely embroidered in screaming colors. Irene’s encounter with the sea opened her eyes to movement, which she captures in swirls, waves, and curled corners on fabric. The latest addition to the project, titled “The Heart of Every Mountain Is Ocean,” was curated by Emerging Islands and exhibited at MONO8 Gallery.

Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines

Notably, Balatik refers to the name of the boat that carried Irene through Palawan, but is also one of many indigenous terms for our ancestors’ guiding stars. In his journal article titled “BALATIK: Katutubong Bituin ng mga Pilipino,” the late Dr. Dante L. Ambrosio wrote, “Balatik and Moroporo are two of the more prominent star groups in the Philippine sky. [Philippine cultures] consult them as they go on with their everyday lives as in determining the propitious times for planting, fishing and hunting.” Within the Balatik constellation are three bright stars equidistant from one another. It is what we have come to know now as Orion’s Belt.

In the Mabilong Village in Lubuagan, Kalinga Irene says weaving is a way of life, and has always been informed by the natural world. Born and raised there, Irene learned how to operate a backstrap loom in third grade, assembling a belt for her first creation.

“Our colors really came from the environment. It’s patterned from our plants, from the flowers.”

By the time she and her husband Ruel wed in 2005, she was already injecting new colors and forms to her designs. Her process begins by setting the warp (vertical threads) on the loom with her relatives, before passing it on to one of around 15 families she collaborates with from their village, along with a brief on the thread count and color palette the piece requires. Each textile is completed at a weaver’s own pace; the process, Ruel emphasizes, cannot be rushed. “Everybody’s house is a weaving studio,” says the Ifugao builder, who works closely with his wife. The craft is an integrated part of daily living for Kalinga women, who practice it when their children are at school or on the weekends when not occupied with full-time jobs.

Once Irene receives the finished fabrics, she cuts them according to her patterns before sending them off for a seamstress in Baguio to put together as ready-to-sell bags or garments. For tapestries, like those for her Balatik series, and certain denim jackets and backpacks, she embroiders the surface designs herself.

“In the entire Mabilong village, the weaves are so colorful already!” Ruel exclaims, in Filipino. Without formal training in art making, Irene approaches her projects with wide-eyed curiosity and newness: according to Ruel, it’s why she was unafraid to introduce bolder colors to Kalinga textiles in the first place. “It’s her nature,” he says. “She’s very open.” Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines

Without formal training in art-making, part of what enriches Irene’s design vocabulary is travel. Making their way to her work are colors and techniques observed from textile collections at the likes of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and villages in India where she and her husband learned about the making of their saris. An explorer in more ways that one, venturing into secondary and tertiary colorways didn’t daunt Irene, and Ruel credits this fearlessness to Cirilo “Sapi” Bawer, his father-in-law, who, during his time, introduced recreations of Kalinga music and dance, growing the count from 2 to 18.

Similarly, Irene was unafraid to introduce a bolder array of colors to Kalinga textiles. In the beginning, the weavers’ eyes needed to adjust to the frenzy of exploding hues; Irene even recalls how they initially experienced headaches from how striking the threads were.

After all these years however, her favorite color to weave has remained. “Still it’s red, because it’s life, it’s blood. Blood is life. Our colors really came from the environment. [That’s the] dominant color [of ours] for the whole Cordillera. It’s patterned from our plants, from the flowers.”

Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines

And so it comes as no surprise that when the Bawer-Bimuyags welcome us to their Baguio home, it is teeming with life. Their charming three-storey abode is a rabbit hole spiraling upward, co-designed by the spouses. Their residence is up a set of stone steps, and to the right of the main entryway are floor-to-ceiling shelves, not a single compartment left bare. Here are vintage National Geographic magazines, a 35-edition encyclopaedia, the Bhagavad Gita stacked above Lois Lowry’s novels. There are paint bottles, children’s toys, and old receipts strewn about. On an adjacent wall, a display of ceramic bowls, plates, and other vessels collected from secondhand shops around the city.

It’s a fitting resting place for a family of multiplicities: Ruel, Irene, and their sons Sky, Chaya, and Hugu. Downstairs, just by the road, is their shop, where Irene pulls out wares that have yet to be displayed or sold. Ruel singles one of them out, telling us it’s “a marriage tapestry,” a tactile history of their love that started when they made bahags or loincloths for their sons by fusing Kalinga elements with Ifugao’s ikat.

A tapestry from Irene’s upcoming series “Tree of Life.” She was inspired during the pandemic, when people collectively realized the importance of planting trees, specifically farming for sustainability and food security. She also integrates the idea of a family tree, which symbolizes the strength of familial connections. “You have to think, also, like a tree,” she says. Photographed by Geric Cruz for the February 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines

These days, Irene continues to develop Balatik, as well as another project set to launch next year titled “Tree of Life.” She’s also traveling. The day after our visit, she and Ruel flew out to Singapore to learn about the textiles there. She’s started revisiting an earlier dream of joining politics. She first wanted to become a lawyer, then “a politician for our community only. My life is, I think, really for [the] community; for my village. It comes naturally for me.” Someday, she wants to be a barangay captain, and suspects that she owes these aspirations to her political science degree.

“I’m nothing without my community,” Irene says, resolute. It’s why she rejects the title “master weaver,” a term used to describe her in the past, one that she has never claimed. She insists that she is nothing without the knowledge and skills passed on by those who came before her. She calls herself a Kalinga creative: someone who weaves, chants, and dances in the way her ancestors taught her to. She is a single thread in a living tapestry, a speck in the roaring wind, a soft coral swaying with the current of a wild, wild ocean. 

By TICIA ALMAZAN. Photographs by GERIC CRUZ. Art Director: Jann Pascua. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Features Writer: Patricia Villoria.

Vogue Philippines: February 2025

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