The runway is as wide as your imagination. And the creative muse, as elusive as one’s own shadow. For the creative mind, the urge to transcend its own barriers paves the road to almost-magical outcomes that please on many levels, including the creator, the receiver, and the mere beholder.
The fashion designer is an artist, in myriad perspectives. The desire to express on paper or screen, canvas, resin, metal, clay, and cloth the very visual in one’s mind is a birthing process experienced in varied measures by all artists. While creativity may be an inborn talent, what roads lead one to be a fashion designer? What truly goes on in the theatre of this artist’s mind? The backroads of one’s life history most often serves as the beginning of that journey.
Jerome Salaya Ang is of Chinese ancestry and like many families born into business, he has lived his youth in a shophouse akin to the scenes in buzzing commercial-residential trading districts around Asia. Here, personal spaces and individual tastes give way to family and community.
Jerome, who’s also an interior designer, architect, and entrepreneur along with being a fashion designer, has since created his personal home as a sanctuary of peace and creativity, surrounding himself with artifacts of beauty and inspiration that fire his many hats. Transcending boundaries is in Jerome’s blood. His laser-sharp focus on achieving success in each endeavor is what gives him freedom to move seamlessly between his creative worlds.
Jerome’s fashion designs are as unapologetic as his limitless creativity. He sees fashion as an instrument to wear one’s truth. Therefore, why be shy? He confesses to be a maximalist, with theatrical and architectural forms informing his design silhouettes. The subtlety is in the quality, the forms speak of boldness of spirit. Clothes are an armor, Jerome muses, each piece is a protective shield or a projection of one’s larger self to the world. Since his first show at Philippine Fashion Week, he has never backed down on his creativity. Jerome returns to the PhFW runway with an even more seasoned and sharper view of fashion.
The Philippines is synonymous with pageantry. From small towns to big cities, aspiring beauty queens don gowns befitting of a pasarela – the grandest demonstration of feminine grace, confidence, and power, in motion.
Cherry Veric is no stranger to this moment, as he dressed beauty queens and celebrities on many stages and runways. Having grTown-up in Aklan, the spirit of festivities, colorful island living, and the silent allure of nature find Cherry navigating between boldness when designing for his clients and quietude in his personal life.
He has been fascinated by pageants since he was seven years old. He fully understands the optics of the stage, what colors and forms standout in each lighting. Inspired by Valentino’s classic and opulent style sensibility, Alexander McQueen’s structuralism and conspicuousness, Saudi Arabia’s style flamboyance, and his immediate natural surroundings’ subtlety – all form a unique palette from which the fashion designer draws inspiration.
Cherry has a Fine Arts degree and was a painter in his younger years, therefore his artistry has merely found a new canvas. One that’s brightly lit and commands attention at every turn.
Ulysses King has moved confidently in the business and finance world for almost two decades. His colleagues in the media company wherein he holds a key position know that a fashion designer walks among them – either that or some are still pleasantly surprised. While working abroad, one trip back to the Philippines for a Halloween party opened unexpected doors to a business partnership with the designer who created his outfit. The business of fashion was something that immediately attracted him, one where he could use his finance management skills.
As a business investor, he enjoyed the challenges tremendously, and soon found himself designing a few menswear pieces for the shop, all of which sold immediately. Encouraged by this turnout, he says the fashion designing path seemed to have chosen him, as destiny finds the ones who are ready for the call of the runway.
A child of the Philippine Fashion Week, in 2010, Ulysses was featured in the New Generation Designers category. He says his 10-piece collection was inspired by the Pontifical Swiss Guards, the armed force that protects the Pope and the Apostolic Palace. To this day, the notion of order and symmetry are evident in Uly’s’ creations, borrowing from the worlds where structure and systems are paramount, such as business and finance. In contrast, he considers fashion his sport, his life’s vitamins. His atelier is a happy place where boundaries melt and creativity reigns.
The creative journey is littered with surprising beginnings as well as crossings. An artist needs to cross the dark thresholds to fully realize their destination. Watch out for Part 2 of Coaxing The Creative Muse: One Sketch At A Time, where Nina Ricci Eleazar’s, Jobert Cristobal’s, and Jaggy Glarino’s creative journeys come to light.
