Photographed by Kim Santos
Martin Bautista
Untitled“Despite a lot of the challenges our creatives go through, we still find a way to forge something beautiful and I think it’s what makes our output so unique and special. There is always a hunger and longing for something beautiful.”
“Despite a lot of the challenges our creatives go through, we still find a way to forge something beautiful and I think it’s what makes our output so unique and special. There is always a hunger and longing for something beautiful.”
Designer Martin Bautista has always taken a future-oriented approach to his pieces, but his entry to Vogue Threads was a real meditation on how he imagines a way forward for Filipino fashion.
For the first time in a long time, Martin Bautista allowed himself room to play. When he was tapped for an entry to the Threads exhibit, he approached his maquette as if it were a canvas; with no set plan in mind, he set his focus on balancing shape and proportion. He describes the process as “spontaneous and abstract.” He elaborates, “I honed in on my design DNA, but this time, allowed myself to creatively experience liberation from function.”
Within his practice, the designer finds visual harmony in asymmetry: high necklines flow down the body to a midriff cutout, and swashes of fabric are draped and pinned up to favor one side or the other. It takes a technical eye to find an artful balance in a garment while maintaining its wearability, but garment manipulation is something he’s grown adept at in his nearly two decades of experience.
For his interpretation of a representation of the Philippine archipelago, his idea was to present a collage of texture through his use of materials both contemporary and native to the land. “Through my design,” he continues, “I wanted to evoke the cultural diversity and multiplicity of the Philippine archipelago and the richness of the Filipino experience.”
Trailing crystal beads, pearls, and fringe get a subtle interruption by way of pleated piña-seda and molten cotton faille. “By assembling different textiles, shape and form harken to the past but also orientate towards the future.”
Looking to the future is as much a motif in his work as his draping and awareness of the female form. But working on this piece, Bautista was thinking deeply about how he imagines a way forward for Filipino fashion. “Despite a lot of the challenges our creatives go through, we still find a way to forge something beautiful, and I think it’s what makes our output so unique and special,” he says. “There is always a hunger and longing for something beautiful.”
