A Filipiniana Dress for a Filipina-American Debutante
When my sister Abish told me she wanted to wear a traditional Filipina gown for her debut, I immediately flashed back to my own horrifying first experience wearing a Maria Clara gown. My cousin and his soon-to-be wife wanted his Filipino family to dress in traditional clothes at their wedding. As we dressed for the ceremony, my aunt tugged at her daughter and my terno (María Clara tops), frustrated with how they fitted. She graciously gifted me an “unwelcome to adolescence” with a “You are too skinny and don’t have any boobs to fill it out!”
After enduring this highly unpleasant introduction to body self-consciousness, imagine my shock when I arrived at the wedding in my oversized and very unflattering Maria Clara gown only to find out that my cousin’s youngest sister, was not wearing a Maria Clara gown but wearing a gorgeous white halter top and black-skirted gown! Stories of dealing with growing up and our changing bodies can be pretty awful so for this event that symbolized my baby sister’s transition to womanhood, I wanted to make sure she had a better experience than I did. I wanted to make sure that her Maria Clara gown not only honored our heritage but honored who she was in this stage of her life. So in with the crop top ‘cause you know how this generation be like!
So I wondered, how can I create a dress that symbolizes all of who my sister is, which is both Filipino and American, and that’s traditional as well as modern? In terms of physical appearance, I knew the standard traditional dress may not accentuate the features that are most distinguishing and beautiful about Abish. I also knew that going too traditional could also make her feel totally disconnected from her sense of contemporary, modern identity. And yet, if I totally modernized the traditional dress, it may become so divorced from history as to fail to adequately symbolize how important our Filipino traditions are to us. So I kept the butterfly sleeves (which is a detail that evolved into modernity from the bell-sleeved María Clara gowns of the Spanish era) but made the terno a crop top with an inch gap from the skirt to add a subtle modern touch to the top and skirt combo of the gown. Then, to accentuate what I believe are some of Abish’s most elegant and distinctive physical features I opted for a bateau neckline to show off her collarbones and butterfly sleeves with a three-inch arch from the shoulders to compliment her long neck. Then there’s the long slit in the skirt that echos “the leg” trend of today’s Hollywood glamor. This detail is a nod to the American Colonial era when Hollywood movies, musicals and fashion magazines were introduced to the Philippines. This era of the Philippines’ history inspired the new and modernly trimmed Maria Clara gown, the traje de mestiza.
Another challenge in creating the dress was to capture symbols that convey the right meanings. The gown was originally named after the fictional character María Clara of Josê Rizal’s novel, “Touch Me Not” to symbolize the ideals Filipina women should uphold. And this makes the dress and its symbols, well, complicated. Some of the ideals--dignity, poise, and others--beautifully represent Abish. However, many of the other ideals are more imperial and do not represent her at all; its original intent was to signify that Filipina women should also be pious, submissive, and even that they should keep their skin as white as possible. So I chose a theme that embraces both tradition and transformation, hoping that growth and transformation of the dress would be something an eighteen-year-old young woman could relate to. The modern trimmings of the otherwise traditional dress, with my sister’s newly minted nose ring, a strip of red hair (which at first I wasn’t fond of, but actually made the whole look), and the Dr. Marten boots do, in fact, represent her perfectly. They symbolize that Abish can be Filipino-American in her own way; like her dress, she is unquestionably Filipino as well as unquestionably American. And that American-ness comes through in that last photo with that face she makes letting me know that she was done taking photos!
And to create this perfect harmony of tradition and transformation, I collaborated on this gown with my friend, designer Afa Ah Loo, who was a contestant on season 17 of Bravo’s Project Runway. Afa is Samoan and honors his heritage through his work. I knew I could trust him with honoring our Filipino heritage and my friend indeed delivered! I told him to make those butterfly sleeves big and he made them with perfection! (Though he did admit that those sleeves were the hardest things he’d ever made!)
Once again, a big thank you to the amazingly talented Afa Ah Loo for joining me on this collaboration and for his hard work in creating this gown! Also, thank you to Ryan McGill for being a hero and letting us use his studio space for our photoshoot!
