SHE HELD PIECES OF HOME IN A SUN HAT
During the weekend of the 34th Negros Trade Fair, a package arrived at our house for my daughter. It was a gift from my paternal grandmother Nena Tantoco, (a Negrense from Bacolod herself), and the sheafs of wrapping paper revealed two beautiful, handcrafted dresses: one blue and one pink.
It brought to mind my grandmother’s stories of when she’d return home to their family farmhouse for Christmas, and how she would open her wardrobe doors to find a year’s worth of party dresses specially sewn and designed for her by her mother.
I recently realized that this practice wasn’t something unique to my grandmother’s family. Another friend of mine from Dumaguete has a mother who used to make handmade frocks for her as a child. I was recently gifted with one of these keepsakes from her label Carmen’s Closet.
These practices are “timeless traditions,” as this year’s Negro’s Fair was themed, and are like a shared, secret language that one carries with memories of one’s childhood town and upbringing, even as one migrates to and leads another life in Manila.
A daughter’s clothes hold the keys to where home is.
For today’s column, I’ve chosen to highlight the life of Gilda Severino De
Los Reyes or Ging, the late foundress of The Flower Farm, to get the story behind her stylish, Negrense flair.
Like many of the society ladies from her town, Ging hailed from a sugarcane family. She grew up in Silay, Bacolod, and was the middle child among seven children.
As a young girl, Ging’s passion was ballet. Through her dancing classes, she learned to perfect her posture, form, and movement so that any garment she wore fell musically over her. Her steps became soft and elegant but though she danced in pointe shoes, she preferred to wear comfortable walking shoes over heels when she was offstage.
For what good is being stylish if you don’t feel comfortable? For Ging, style was not just about appearances but about how one carried oneself when one was most comfortable.
Her graceful beauty and talent as a dancer naturally drew the attention of admirers in her hometown. She was crowned the Queen of the Cadiz Fair one season, and also did a bit of modeling for catalogues and local publications as a young girl. Ging was the type of woman who grew more into herself as she aged and only became more beautiful as each year passed.
One might say that she wasn’t the stereotypical “society lady” in the sense that she preferred getting her hands dirty while gardening over socializing and parties. She didn’t share the usual haunts as her contemporaries of discos and hotel ballrooms.
If you wanted to find her, you would have to go up to her home in Tagaytay. There she would be, in her straw hat, crisp, white button down, and clean trousers, tending the earth with hoe in hand. She was not afraid to get soil on her perfectly-manicured fingers.
Though as a young lady, she had moved to the city, Ging never lost her sense of “farm.” Home wasn’t just a house but a place where one grew things. It was her dream to set down roots somewhere and plant the ground with a sense of home. She was drawn to flowers because of their vibrant colors when in bloom. While the everyday basics in her closet were mostly white, she was able to embrace color when the occasion called for it.
Flowers were her hobby before her son, Timmy, turned it into a business. Initially, she wanted to use the property that they had acquired in Tagaytay to plant flowers for her own enjoyment. Timmy, on the other hand, decided to take some flowers and try to sell them in Manila. One day, he came home and showed her the money he had made. It was the seed that eventually grew into The Flower Farm Corporation.
From leaving her provincial farm for a city home to owning a flower farm, the green-thumbed girl from Bacolod had come full circle. The young, farm girl had transformed into an elegant, flower lady.
She became a founding member of the Makati Garden Club, and her social circles came to revolve around her botanical interests. The enterprise of the farm brought her on travels to Europe, where she would frequent Holland flower shows. Always a meticulous packer, everything in her suitcase was neatly folded and categorized, with each outfit organized together.
She still had different versions of the same crisp, white shirt, and wore minimal makeup, except for lipstick. Over time, she acquired a jewelry collection, usually going for beautiful stones with simple settings that didn’t overpower their wearer. For her everyday set, she stuck to diamonds, and a combination of gold and white gold rings.
The sun hat and huge sunglasses remained her favorite accessories, because skincare and sun protection were always key, but her trademark was a floral umbrella: a testament to a life mostly spent outdoors.
Her love of understated quality and her down-to-earth attitude toward life were always reflected in her fashion choices. She didn’t buy based on designer brand but chose pieces that spoke to her. She dressed to impress herself and no one else.
People regarded her as stylish because her personal style was so clearly “Ging.” She was always so well put together because she had a knack for choosing garments that expressed exactly the woman that she was.
Ging passed away in 2016, but her memory continues to grow in each bloom from her farm. The flowers that remain are the perfect metaphor for the effortless style she exuded. Just like the chrysanthemums, she was never the type to call attention to herself, but she radiated all the same.
It wasn’t only in her gardens that her artistry thrived. She also found the beauty she so adored in her flowers in everything: in the artworks she painted, the classical tunes she loved to hum along to, and in a well-made sun hat that she admired the craft of.
In The Colour of Love, the famous artist Henri Matisse wrote, “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
Ging created a life where she was always able to see beauty.
In her wardrobe are souvenirs she left behind, of her well-lived life. Hanging on the door’s hook is her straw hat that saw many a season of flowers. On the dresser are a large pair of sunglasses that allowed her to soak up the sun. In a drawer is a pearl duck hanging from a favorite, charm bracelet, signs of the grown woman who always cherished the child at heart.
These timeless pieces hold the memories and traditions that a Negrense daughter carried with her to a home atop the mountain where one hopes her flowers will always bloom.
Just like the chrysanthemums, she was never the type to call attention to herself, but she radiated all the same.