A Look Inside Lulu Tan-Gan’s “Farm to Fashion” Show

Knitwear designer Lulu Tan-Gan gives Vogue Philippines an exclusive look inside her “Farm to Fashion” show.

If you do the math, the collection Lulu Tan-Gan presented at the Red Charity Gala took 17 years in the making.

The Piña and silks she used are remnants of past work, stored in the bins that piled high in her atelier throughout her career. They finally see light in this collection, transformed into the evocations of petals and rosettes seen on the runway. Post-show, the show’s head stylist Noel Manapat greeted Vogue with a grin, “Even the beads and yarns the models wore in their hair were recycled.”

These details were the topic of the conversations that spurred backstage, almost always followed by a similar refrain: You know, Lulu, they’d start, that’s her thing.

The designer is known for this approach. She tells Vogue Philippines that intentionality has become a part of her standard process. “Because I cut every piece of Piña myself, I experiment at the spur of the moment,” she explains. “Maybe like sculpting, I add or subtract width [and] length, reshape, and most of all, [aim] to be waste-free. My pattern changes so that the fabric isn’t cut unnecessarily.”

Tan-Gan embarks on every collection this way. “My concept is always crafting fashion as I have been working on Piña since 2007. For this show, I call it ‘Farm to Fashion’,” she says. “It’s the inspiration that changes.”

For the 57-piece assemblage featuring both men’s and womenswear, she riffed on Piña in eight different sections: occasionwear featuring embroidery from Lumban; pinstriped draped tops and caftans interrupted by lace; tailored, sporty separates that bridged Kalinga and Mandaya motifs; linen coats and asymmetrical skirts that featured Mandaya prints over culottes and asymmetrical hemlines; cotton blend Benguet textiles in playful silhouettes; the petal-pumped pieces using her own retasos (repurposed fabric); airy Piña caftans “for the Titas,” checkered with silver; and lastly, a section for her bride and bridesmaid, featuring a hand block printed Sarimanok motif. All this amounts to a “symbolic bridging” of our three main islands, with Piña from Visayas, the Kalinga motif from Luzon, and the Mandaya motif from Mindanao.

Out of 57 looks, only four are archival, with two taken from her PianoPiña collection presented 11 years ago and the bridal set from her Face-Off show six years ago. Even at this point in her two-decade-long career in knitwear, Tan-Gan is still curious, still searching for “new possibilities with Piña,” especially in silhouettes that depart from that which it’s known for, such as the barong, Terno, and kimona. She believes there are always new ways to upkeep tradition while keeping it relevant: “Tradition thrives when it evolves through contemporary participation,” she expands.

Before piecing the show together, she was at a point of reflection: “After reaching 20 years in knitwear, I questioned myself, ‘What makes me a Filipino designer?’” Finding the answer to that came down to her earliest fashion memory of wearing her father’s barongs and recalling why she loved wearing Piña in the first place. Feeling the fabric on her skin in childhood has since grown into “a deep love of the Philippines and its islands,” as well as Filipinos’ dedication to their craft.

As far as the making of this all-encompassing collection goes, the timelines are difficult to trace. There were the 17 years Tan-Gan has spent collecting retasos, the 20 years worth of experimenting with ways to innovate the Filipino silhouette, an entire lifetime spent inspired.