KALEIDOSCOPE Fashion

The not-so-calm before the (fashion) storm

PHOTOSHOOT at Mark Tenchavez's SHANDAR pad

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Young designer Harvey Cenit fixing the wares for Ana in Iora

NIGHTINGALE. Top model Gwen hummed & sang in between takes to MJ's 80s tunes

MAQUILLAGE MAVEN. Jessie Glova finishing Chai's hair for the upcoming takes

URBAN LILY. Chai in Bleach Catastrophe

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KALEIDOSCOPE FASHION
Published, Cebu Daily News, August 2009)

Styles continually change, but vision doesn’t.

Joseph Ong doesn’t hit it menacingly. Ever since his photography debut with his initial DSLR a couple years back, he saw fashion photography through a behaved and contained eye. The stylists and models he has worked with (includes me, for many) has given him a measure of his skills and potential. This paper’s pages were even witnesses to Ong’s first dibs, and development, to fashion features. The trends come & go, but Ong’s mark of sharp, low-key & concept-and-subject balance remains.

In KALEIDOSCOPE, his first-ever SOLO exhibit, Ong showed to us where he can go with that vision. Together with the city’s fresh & renowned crop of stylemakers and with maquillage magic provided by no less than Jessie Glova, he enraptured us into new facets of prêt-a-porter; a bevy of looks and mini-themes channeled through layering, color blocking and emotion.

It’s only but a momentous spectacle for style mavens to join hands with this ace lensman. At the recently concluded art & fashion merger exhibit, each of the stylists instilled their own flair for fashion, as models from AD Homme et Femme moseyed in each brand’s key looks.

Dexter Alazas strung uptown dandies for Diego with street-friendly stripes, slim jeans & color blocking via layered uppers. Michael “Pops” Bacatan offered a simple yet straightforward kind of disco-sexy to What A Girl Wants – highlighted with a neon kissmark-print jersey top that rang Stephen Sprouse, while Dojie Lamosao dressed the Regatta girl and Bench lad in victor classics with new on-trend prints & patterns.

Yours truly gave the uniquely artful brand Bleach Catastrophe a sporty kick with urbanely nomadic Tiger Lilies; clashing prints, off-beat mixing and layering parallel proportions & delivered young-at-heart, hemline-conscious 1950s hausfraus for Kashieca. Blenn Suan called out for the “citizens of the world” with Space’s latest colored less-structured and more casual separates; neutrals clash tastefully with citrus hues, a slimmed hoodie over an extended tank top. Lorymer Villareal made layering look the easiest with plain jersey blousons, assymetrical tops, leggings, bright tank tops and added turbans for a Taj-inspired kick to glamour.

Harvey Cenit played it “short” with Iora’s sun hues, city shorts, hobo bags and tailored pieces fit for the woman in charge. Edward Castro not just colorized “rag dolls” thru Maldita, but also made them look like they’ve been out of their attics, grabbed oversized bags, slipped on those investment slip-ons and braved the city life.

The Kaleidoscope exhibit was powered by Canon, PhotoShop, Ayala Center-Cebu and Colours Digital Foto, and stylized by The Stylefirm and AD Models Homme et Femme.

Chai in my URBAN TIGER LILY-inspired look for Bleach Catastrophe

Dodjie Lamosao dressed, or UNdressed rather, Aref in BENCH's signature Ojs