ASEAN fashion succumbs to West
ASEAN fashion succumbs to West
By Genevieve Soledad
MANILA (Reuter): Eastern and Western cultures meshed in Manila during the ASEAN Design Show, but the latter seemed to have won out in the fashion front lines.
Clean, sleek lines favored by the modern career woman overpowered the smattering of batiks and the flurry of tropical color -- a sign that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) commerce is not the only one embracing free trade.
Malaysia's Edmund Ser pitted his androgynous office suits and Singapore's Celia Loe her clean contemporary lines against the batiks and soft silks favored by Malaysia's Kamariah Elli and Indonesia's Itang Yunasz.
"There's no trace of Asian culture in my designs at all. I think we should be moving towards a more modern ASEAN...," Ser told Reuters.
Ser's 1996 collection, which he calls Middlesex, features masculine dressing for women. Female models wore trousers and dress shirts with pin-striped and double-breasted jackets. Ser's concept of dressing down is a shiny, vinyl skirt with neon- colored blouses.
"I think women would like to go to work in proper office clothes rather than ethnic designs," she said.
Singapore's Loe agreed.
"Singapore is a cosmopolitan city...and the consumer doesn't like to have any ethnic look but if you do it lightly, maybe they might take it. But I think for myself, I'm always doing more wearable and more timeless pieces," said Loe.
His daywear is a short trenchcoat over a midriff blouse and an A-line skirt in cool pastel. Evening wear is a long gown made out of ribbed silk in ivory or black.
Other designers opted to take the middle ground with Thailand's Venick Charoenpura fusing intricate Thai embroidery with crisply cut blazers and skirts.
Philippine designer Pepito Albert had clothes mirroring Japanese silhouettes. Earth-colored tops held together with thin strings resembled the Japanese sash, the obi, while filmy wraps were cut along the lines of a Japanese kimono.
"I actually didn't have (the) Japanese in mind. It just came out that way," Albert said.
The ASEAN fashion show features the works of 11 designers from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines.