New fashion designers emerging from the Davao horizon


TWO young designers are etching their names in the Davao fashion scene. With their latest achievement—winning the top honors in the first Stellar: Rising Fashion Star, a Mindanao-wide designer’s competition, which was also a design ideation and business incubation education to the participants to help them with their plans in putting up their own business under the design industry—Wilson Limon and Neil Jimlani are on their way to becoming the most-sought after designers in the city, and perhaps, the country.

 

WIlson Limon is a FIDA alumnus

FIDA alumnus Wilson Limon bagged the top prize of the first Stellar design compeition

 

The two designers also have another thing in common, they are both graduates of the Fashion Institute of Design and Arts (Fida), a design school with three campuses across the Philippines—Davao, Cebu, and Manila. From Fida, Limon and Jimlani took to a university for a design course to hone their craft.

 

Neil Jimlani is a FIDA alumnus

While fellow FIDA alumnus Neil Jimlani won second

 

Fida offers one-year and two-year design courses wherein students can learn the basics of design, fabric and illustration, as well as the technical skills in sewing draping and patternmaking.

Recently, the school graduated seven new hopefuls. Louise Gumban Luntao, Laica Heruela Mraat, Kasimir Tan, Kathreen Cascabel, Anne de Arce, Melo and Julian Hellmuth have taken their first step in turning their dreams of making their marks in the fashion arena a reality.

 

Fashion plus fine arts for FIDA Davao 2016 graduation

FIDA Davao’s “Aesthetics: Fashion + Fine Arts” presented the graduates’ collections taking cue from famous artists and art movements

 

Fida’s graduation rites called for its students to present their design skills applying what they have learned in the institution.

The show entitled “Aesthetics: Fashion + Fine Arts” presented the graduates’ collections taking cue from famous artists and art movements. Each of the seven selected their own inspiration.

From the one-year program, Luntao presented Quasimodo inspired by the abstract art movement; Maraat’s Asperity took off from Impressionist Van Gogh; Tan’s Fusce Dictum from abstract expressionist Pollock; and Cascabel’s Opulence from the Rococo art movement.

 

Afylos is Melo's design collection

Melo Navales-Bacongo’s Afylos collection sipired by the Suprematism art movement

 

Laica Huruela Maraat's collection was inpsired by Van Gogh

Van Gogh was Laica Huruela Maraat’s inspiration for his Asperity collection

 

Abstract expressionism is kasrimir tan's design inspiration

Kasrimir Tan & his Fusce Dictum picked up from Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionism

 

The two-year fashion design and merchandising program de Arce’s Time Piece went Victorian plus Steampunk; Melo’s Afylos, meaning asexual, was inspired by the art movement Suprematism; and Hellmuth’s Ambivalence presented the Art Nouveau in her pieces.

 

The Victorian look of Anne de Arce's design

Victorian. Anne de Arce’s most stunning piece from her Time-Piece collection

 

Perhaps, like the other Fida alumni, these designers will follow their career footsteps and win the public’s hearts with their fashion creativity.

Congratulations to all the graduates!

Email me at jinggoysalvador@yahoo.com. For more lifestyle & travel stories, visit ofapplesandlemons.com and jeepneyjinggoy.com

Also published in the SunStar Davao newspaper.