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.