Friday, September 29, 2006 The LJD cometh By J.A. Bacalso
IT’S all in the fabric. Jusi, the Chinese term for raw silk, is also among the most difficult materials to work with. The designer is limited by the rigidity of its form, but inspired by the strength it has built from apparent gossamer delicacy. Will a second generation raise this jusi flag for the new breed of forward-fashion thinkers? We wait and see.
Jackie Climaco sent out, for two Fridays in a row (tonight is the last of this troika), her army of soldiers in a back-to-basic palette of noir and blanc: perhaps to call attention to her play of cuts and drape and combination of material rather than the shock of color. The tony Tonic burst with booze (my friend Doxch Tiro and I gravitated to the sweet, overflowing Tequila Rose) as Fashion Television (FTV) launched Jackie’s collection under her formidable mother’s fashion house: Jackie Climaco for J. Bernaldez (her mother is, of course, Clothes for Life founder and our fashion columnist Joy). This is a follow-up to her series in uppity club Embassy at the Fort Bonifacio.
Like most secondary lines, it veers away from the main market solely for the purpose of testing new waters…particularly to infuse new blood to this 25-year-house. Jackie, an interior designer by education and a fellow Melbourneite (my spirit belongs to that Australian city) has an outré sense of aesthetics, and it piqued my interest how this would translate into an uber-traditional fabric, one that has for the longest time been relegated into menswear limbo.
What did she do that was new? It takes an expert eye (and not my wannabe ones) to spot them out, so I run to Sal Malto, current Clothes for Life president, for the 411 on this: “Jackie inverted the edgings on some jusi dresses. Instead of stitching them inwards, she did them outwards and, in using black thread, they came out as accents on some dresses.” Just like an overstitch, I contribute. “Yes, just like that. She is exploring what else can be done with jusi.” Apparently, apart from handpainting and dyeing the fabric, there are still more options.
The second Friday, the collection was all slinky with clingy jersey and shiny lame fabric…the same material of the dress she bowed with on jusi night the previous weekend. And on slinky black-and-white night, she was in vibrant red. Are we in for a burst of color tonight? Bring your Little Jusi (Jersey, or...heck, Jackie) Dress (LJD) to Tonic and let’s drown in some pink tequila.
