THIS IS HOW BENCH NURTURES FILIPINO DESIGNERS
Always in pursuit of new ways to craft, promote and to love local, retail giant Bench staged its fourth Bench Fashion Week recently, dahlings, at its very own HQ — the Bench Tower — in Bonifacio Global City. Giving their audience and social media a preview of the latest collections of its local in-house brands, global partner brands, as well as that of today’s top designers, Bench Fashion Week Holiday 2018 was definitely a celebration of fashion.
In its third and final day — concluded with the second year of the Bench Design Awards — 10 young, up-and-coming fashion designers presented their own collections for a chance to join Bench at the “Asian Fashion Meets Tokyo” show,
dahlings, of Japan’s most popular fashion festival “Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo” in October.
Day 1 started strong with a fivecollection lineup starting with Australian casualwear brand Cotton On’s playful show of denim and color, followed by local brand Kashieca’s ultra-feminine, Parisian chic runway looks. Always young and edgy, Human brought out the big guns with back-to-back segments. The first was a peek at its too-cool-for-school Holiday 2018 collection. Next: the reveal of Human’s highly anticipated streetwear collaboration with local design duo and Bench second-timers Rik Rasos and Pat
Mosby of Proudrace. Closing the show was designer Ivarluski Aseron, whose collection ‘‘Off-Center” was a striking sea of structured black, white and gray pieces. Fabulous, palanggas.
Second day of BFW was brilliant couture designer Dennis Lustico whose Grand Budapest Hotel-inspired collection, ‘‘The Imagined Life of Madame D,’’ was a powerful assemblage of colorful looks fit for royalty. A stark contrast to Lustico’s sartorial spectacle, American Eagle Outfitters kept its set street and strong with a high-energy dance performance by local dance crew Legit Status. Speaking of high energy, Bench’s new athletic wear line, Bench Active, gave Day 2 the finale it deserved.
And finally the Bench Active segment put the “fun” in “functional.” Donning the brand’s pieces were Bench endorsers Lovi Poe, Enrique Gil, Maxine Medina,
Winwyn Marquez and Megan Young. The second year of the Bench Design Awards, an initiative that puts the spotlight on undiscovered local talent, was also one of the highlights of Bench’s action-packed fashion week. This was an open call for designers nationwide — 10 of whom were selected, after a rigorous screening process — to present eight looks on the BFW runway for a chance to represent the Philippines at Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo (AFWT). And the winners were Antonina Abad Amoncio, Abraham Guardian & Mamuro Oki (Ha.Mu.), Christian Edward Dalogaog (Ched Studio), Harvic Dominguez, Jann Christian Bungcaras, Marvien Dason, Renz Edward Reyes, Reysan Ornopia, Sherwin “Otto” Sacramento (Ottomondi), and Isabel Sicat & Aiala Valdovino (TOQA). Hosted by Miss World 2017 Laura Lehmann, the Bench Design Awards proved to be a fitting end to the exciting Bench Fashion Week as the finalists brought out their own strong, skillfully crafted collections — “each one telling a story of its own.”
Helping Bench chairman Ben Chan with the crucial selection of the top three designers were former model, columnist and Asian Fashion Meets Tokyo Philippines project consultant Teresa Ortiz-Matera, Tokyo-based runway and fashion show producer Shigetaka Kaneko.
Akido Shinoda, director of International Affairs for the Japan Fashion Week Organization, was also in town.