Modern Regression
His latest collection showcases his signature aesthetic that seamlessly combines with his past designs
W hat Bang Pineda promises, Bang Pineda delivers! Weeks before his first gala fashion show last February 5, the designer-turned-stylist to the stars shared with Style Weekend that some of the country’s biggest celebrities had agreed to model for him in his bid to showcase a “regression” of his design aesthetic, which traces its roots in 90s street wear.
He did just that causing friends and supporters to erupt in cheers and applause inside SM Aura’s Samsung Hall, as the likes of Piolo Pascual, Jake Cuenca, Vice Ganda, Rayver Cruz, Matteo Guidicelli, Elmo Magalona, and Sarah Geronimo, among others, emerged from a tunnel bathed in green light.
In case you’re living under a rock, many of these famous people are the very same stars he dresses up every week at ASAP. To Pineda’s credit, he allowed them not to lose their identities and public personas despite the fact that hosting and modeling are two totally different endeavors.
In the case of Vice Ganda, for instance, he still managed to remain recognizable and command guests’ attention notwithstanding the edgy styling, which included a swept up and multicolored variation of Bob Marley’s iconic hairdo. In the case of Pascual, the local showbiz’s papa ng bayan remained as wholesome and as scrumptious as ever in the designer’s heartthrob-friendly knitted street wear.
This only goes to show that Pineda, in his attempt to wear a designer’s hat, still hasn’t neglected his duties as a consummate stylist. Based on how most of his famous models looked, with the exception of boyish-looking Magalona, who seemed weighed down by all those grommets, he knew what particular looks worked for them. Apart from the designer’s mastery over reworked and sexed up street wear,
Bang’s World, the title of Pineda’s gala show, also reaffirmed one thing: Pineda’s clout in the entertainment industry. Making someone like Pascual to agree to walk for you was no joke. But putting him in one show together with equally popular fellow celebrities was a casting coup that only the likes of Pineda could pull off.
Directed by Robby Carmona, who did away with the usual elevated ramp, the show opened with a pasabog number from singer Bamboo that seamlessly merged entertainment with fashion. Wearing presumably Pineda’s all-black ensemble except for the jacket’s colored trimming, Bamboo regaled the crowd with a song number before professional and celebrity models emerged one by one on the floor.
As expected, the show, which consisted of 65 looks, had plenty of black pieces in the form of deconstructed tops and jackets either with splashes of white paint on shoulders and hems or the designer’s first name written on the back of the clothes.
Pineda presented several suites or segments, including a nearly all-black suit with loose tops and jackets accented with humongous grommets, a knitted suit with oversized, and sometimes slashed sweaters, and overlays in earth and pastel shades, a denim suit featuring faded and reworked denim pieces, and a varsity suit that drew inspiration from athletic uniforms in the form varsity jackets and long, ankle-grazing jersey robes.
“The collection is a regression of my design aesthetic, which is actually street wear,” Pineda said during a previous interview. “Back in the day when I was just starting, street wear and avant-garde pieces weren’t as popular as they are now. I did clothes mainly for myself and a small circle of friends.”
He continued: “I wasn’t trained in the conventional sense, but my education as a designer began as early as high school. While people my age would go to the mall, I would go to my older designer-friends after school. Through them and their staff, I first learned how to sew and iron suits and gowns.”
Well, those long hours of training, delayed gratification, and experimentation have certainly paid off for Pineda. In an industry as mercurial as fashion and show biz, it’s difficult to remain consistently good. But what is perhaps more difficult is to remain constantly edgy. With proper styling and the right pieces, Pineda, through his recent collection, has showed us that you could still manage to look chic, and at the same time, edgy, and interesting.