Photographed by Andrea Genota. Fashion by Martin Bautista. Casting by Lorenz Namalata of Fat Brain Collective. Creative direction by Andrea Ang. Photography assisted by Kate Ang, Kevin Gonzales, JM Avenido. Styling by Steven Coralde of Qurator Studio. Production by Andrea Ang, Samantha Lee, Carmela Ramirez. Production assisted by Roy Macasaet
Photographed by Makie Cruz
To close BYS Fashion Week 2024, Martin Bautista staged his first solo show with his collection “Day Off,” inspired by the women in his life.
Martin Bautista wanted to keep things casual. The collection he presented on Sunday to close BYS Fashion Week marked his first solo show in his 17 years as a designer, but he didn’t want to approach it by piling on the extravagance just for the sake of it. As with any show, he would rather keep to his principles.
“The theatricality, it’s not really my thing,” Martin reflects, talking to Vogue over the phone the day after. His voice is giddy with excitement; he finds he’s processing his thoughts now that’s he’s taken the time to clear his head. One thing that has made itself more apparent was his precise intention: From the beginning, he wanted to present pieces that could live in the real world.
“I mean, sometimes I try to make it a bit about a fantasy,” he says. “But this was really like a step back.”

At The Space at One Ayala, his all-white runway was drenched in blue as guests filled in rows of lucite seating. There was chatter abuzz in the room: What will Martin Bautista show us this time?
When the lights finally lifted, crwn’s arrangement of steady beats and soft percussion carried you into a dream. Martin’s sequence unspooled in a melange of texture, color, and visual interest, often plush or pointed or light-as-air, with trails of chiffon waving in the wind. There were pieces that had fabric gathered at the waist, pinned up with organically shaped metal pieces custom-made by jewelry label Pranca or Philippine mother-of-pearl buckles by Neil Felipp.
His palette flitted between neutrals, two-toned tie-dye, soft pastels, and fluorescent hues. If the slew of looks felt random, it was intentional. “I really wanted a ‘sabog’ (scattered) collection,” Martin laughs. He used deadstock fabric that he’s been collecting through the years, sourced from corners of the world he’s touched, from New York to Copenhagen to Tokyo. “I was getting whatever I thought was beautiful.”
The range didn’t stop at color, either, as Martin looked to texture as a new medium of expression. Crumpled crepe and technical taffeta felt “rugged and edgy.” “[I thought], ‘How can that feel, you know, feminine and relatable for women today?’” he poses. “It was about mixing those two worlds and challenging, ‘What could this be?’”

That through-line resulted in elements that felt didn’t belong together but somehow worked together. There was the play on color and texture, and then there was the wide vocabulary of shape and proportion: airy caftans were followed by boxy minis or straight-cut separates, with long black ribbon affixed at the shoulder or skeins of fringe falling from asymmetrical hemlines. “I think for the first time, also, I’m able to read the fabric differently from how I was doing it before. There’s a lot of maturity in this collection,” he says decisively. “There’s a lot of maturity, even in the way I’m able to imagine.”
It was a real mix of ideas, banked up since he came off of his last collection in 2022. Martin would only begin editing down these concepts last March, a process that carried on up until the last minute. “On the morning of the show, like at three in the morning, I was thinking of killing one look and composing new ones, which actually, I feel like was necessary,” he recounts. “[They] became the key pieces, those two looks.”
He’s describing the MB-emblazoned t-shirt and hoodie. Affixed with pailettes at the sleeves, they still held his tone, but he was still a bit hesitant about adding them to the final lineup. “I didn’t want to [put] a hoodie and a t-shirt in a show na puro [that was all] dresses, tops, and skirts,” Martin admits. “You know, parang I’m not known for it.” But they would serve as a sort of breaker to ultra-feminine forms, communicating his messaging in their simplicity.

For Martin, it came down to thinking deeply about the type of woman he designs for. They aren’t mythical nor divine, and they aren’t even It girls; they were real women in his life, whom he’s met and worked with. “She’s the kind of girl na if you know, you know,” he expands. “This girl exists. That’s why I’m able to have these feelings, because it’s coming from a very personal experience.”
On the other end of our call, Martin breathes out a sigh of relief. “Oh my gosh, I’m so happy that we’re doing this,” he chuckles. “When I make a collection, talaga, it’s hard to talk about it during the process, because it is evolving.” The ease can only settle in the following day, as congratulations from his family, friends, and followers flood in. It’s not that he needs the validation; it’s in seeing ideas fully realized, and in pieces that resonate.
“Everybody’s telling me, ‘Oh my god, Martin, it felt like a vacation,’” he relays, his tone amused. “They felt like there was a breeze, or like a smell of something mabango (sweet).” One day of reflection is enough for him to begin cycling through ideas again, he jokes. For the next show, he might even consider having a diffuser running.