For His Second MNL Fashion Week Collection, Randolf Ponders a Meeting of Two Souls
Photographed by Jom Ablay
After experiencing two significant life events just four days apart, RJ Santos channeled the ensuing sentimental reflections in the way he knows best: through fashion.
On call with Vogue a week before his latest runway show, RJ Santos is uncharacteristically nervous. He doesn’t know why, he says repeatedly, but suspects it has something to do with the fact that this collection isn’t culled from a cumulative set of inspirations. For the first time, it was borne from a single defining moment.
“It wasn’t supposed to be this collection,” the designer tells us matter-of-factly. After his first showcase for MNL Fashion WeekFashion WeekA series of seasonal events where designers debut their latest collections, setting the tone for upcoming fashion trends and showcasing creativity, craftsmanship, and innovation across the global fashion industry.Go to Fashion Week Glossary last year, he quickly landed on a follow-up concept, intending to pursue it until the unthinkable happened.
His beloved grandfather passed away. He and his family mourned the loss deeply, but just four days into the thick of grieving came a blessing: RJ’s niece Sari was born.
That whiplash from despair to jubilation is a rare and curious one, and the family found themselves repeatedly contemplating those four significant days. Together, they occupied themselves with musings of their late Daddy Chups and little Sari, who at that point, had yet to come into the world. “Nagkita na kaya sila?” they collectively wondered aloud. “Ano kaya ginagawa nila ngayon?”
It so happened that as these contemplations became more frequent, Tristesse Contemporaine’s “I Didn’t Know” (which would later open the runway show) came up on shuffle while on a random drive. “I didn’t know what I was doing ’til I was doing it / I’m at the station but I’m never gonna find the track,” their vocalist sings. Perhaps it was the unlikely juxtaposition of disoriented lyrics and a decisive beat, or the fact that RJ could relate to the narrator’s state of disorder; either way, it’s what finally pushed him to set aside his initial collection plans and take hold of this current reckoning.
Death might be a part of the show’s underlying narrative, but RJ emphasizes that it isn’t his foremost preoccupation. He explains of The Waiting Room, “It’s a meeting between two souls; ’yung isa papunta ng heaven, ’yung isa papunta ng Earth.”
In comparing life and loss, he first landed on the idea of blooms as universal signifiers of milestones, empathy, and love. His research included scouring his camera roll for images of flowers and trying to recall the occasions behind them, then printing them onto an oversized babydoll dress, sculptural jacket, and voluminous coat (on the models, these enlarged garments give the impression of children donning their parents’ clothing). Childlike sensibilities erupt in the most minute details, like a bridal look adorned with pure silk roses at the hem, as if a toddler had decided their placements and could only reach as far as an adult’s knee.
This year, MNL Fashion Week partnered with DOST-PTRI to provide Philippine textiles to the designers. Randolf selected AbacaTek’s abaca-cotton fabrics in a plethora of hues, Isla-Tek’s piña-poly blend, La Herminia Piña Weaving’s natural dyed striped piña silk and piña shifu, and DOST-PTRI’s very own powerloom cotton-piña and cotton yarn; canvases on which Randolf gamely remixes their signature tattoo prints, embroidery, and barongs with embellishments, striped denim, scanned art paper, individually cut-and-sewn flowers, the phrase “Always Be My Baby” embroidered again and again in their custom typography, and their own version of “lace,” which is manually cut out and embroidered, on many of the garments’ hems. The 35 looks encapsulated the possibilities of this spectacular chance encounter, through a sieve of humor and cheekiness.
As is the case with all of RJ’s collections, The Waiting Room had a dedicated playlist. The designer rattles off its tracklist between chuckles:
- “Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey
- “Missing You” by Robin
- “Tabing Ilog” by Barbie’s Cradle
- “Say You’ll Be” by There Spice Girls
- “Wild Horses” by The Sundays
- “Linger” by The Cranberries
- “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve
- “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle
- “Cry” by Mandy Moore
- “You’re Still The One” by Shania Twain
These tunes soundtracked his entire process, and on the day of the show, the audience becomes privy to what is probably the most important song of all. For his niece, “I tried to see if there are any flowers named after Sari. Meron. Iris Sari.” He stated this so mindlessly during our call that I had forgotten it until the actual show, until the Goo Goo Dolls’ infamous ballad blared on the speakers.
All models returned for their final walk followed by RJ, then the entire Randolf team. They arrived to a roaring applause. Leaving the stage not long after, they shuffled past the innocent hand-drawn clouds and pink roses flanking the fire-exit style double doors, before disappearing into the bright white. Behind the last model, the doors swung repeatedly as if waving hello and good bye.