FOR two and a half months starting October 11, at the historic Mills Building in downtown San Francisco, California in United States (US), Mindanao textiles by the tribal master weavers and designs using these materials will be on exhibit.
The Mills Building and Tower was designated a historical landmark with preservation status by the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco on April 23, 1975.
The exhibit is described to be organized by the Philippine American Writers and Artists Inc (Pawa) and focuses on the rich textile legacy of Mindanao Island. But the person on the lead is US-based fashion designer Anthony Cruz Legarda, who has been going around six areas in Mindanao in the past two years to learn about the weavers, their lives and style, and bring over natural fibers colored with natural dyes for these weavers to work on and add greater international sheen and value to their works.
The exhibit is the fruit of a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts that Legarda got along with Krystin Caragay of the Department of Clothing and Textiles of University of the Philippines Diliman School of Home Economics.
"We went to six major groups here namely, Tausug, Yakan, Maranao, Maguindanao, Bagobo, and of course Mandaya," Legarda said in an interview after a chance encounter with evacuees from Marawi, who are Maranao weavers.
This is not his first time to be working with Philippine fabrics, he said. He has been doing this for around a decade already, starting with pina cloth after having linked up with fashion doyenne Patis Tesoro in his first forays into Philippine fabric after graduating with a degree of Fashion Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, USA, in 1993.
"Patis Tesoro is my mentor. After I graduated from FIT New York, I came to the Philippines and tried to rediscover my roots, na meet ko si Patis," he said.
At that time Tesoro was the president of erstwhile Katutubong Pilipino Foundation chaired by former First Lady Ming Ramos. The foundation no longer exists now.
"With this group of Patis, me coming from the States, not knowing Philippine textile but just my memories as a child, her organization really opened my eyes on what was in the Philippines -- Cordillera, Jolo. Not all around, just key parts of the Philippines I got to see Philippine textiles," he said.
He also got to know the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
The conceptualization of the exhibit at Mills Building a year and a half before the conflict in Marawi broke out on May 23, 2017. While very unfortunate, Legarda said, the message of the exhibit becomes even more relevant today.
"Part of this exhibit are peace cloths we are making, which are so appropriate for the time," he said.
"Long before this war, it was already my concept because we can't deny it when you say Mindanao for the longest time, people will say, 'Oh, magulo dyan!'," he said.
Being an American citizen, even his going around in Mindanao always had security concerns attended to.
He is excited because this is a breakthrough exhibit with all the weavers made to work only with natural cotton and silk and dyes, made possible with their partnership with the country's biggest silk producer the Negros Mayu and Silk Corporation of Thelma Watanabe in Bago City, Negros Occidental, cotton producers from Ilocos, and natural dyes from the PTRI and Aklan Pina Mantra Association in Kalibo, Aklan.
The weavers are among the best, some belonging to the weaving groups of Gawad sa Manlilikhan ng bayan awardees.
Among them is the daughter-in-law of Gamaba 1998 awardee Salinta Monon of the Tagabawa, Bagobo tribe in Bansalan, Davao del Sur. Monon died in 2009.
The niece of 2004 Gamaba awardee Darhata Sawabi of the Tausug tribe in Parang, Sulu. Sawabi died in 2005, and the kin of Yakan 2016 Gamaba awardee Ambalang Ausalin.
"Eighty percent in this new peace collection are made from natural dyes and fibers," he said.
Then they will be exhibiting six Peace Cloths made by the six tribes they have worked with for the NCCA research grant and the exhibit.
As his website reads: "The philosophy of the Anthony Cruz Legarda Fashion House is fusion eco-artwear that combines beautiful Filipino fabrics with modern American sensibility. Fabrics for the collection are handwoven, embellished, and dyed with natural pigments by indigenous master weavers from the Philippines. This encourages development of eco-entrepreneurship and sustainable fashions by honoring traditional methodologies and fair trade with native artisans."
Long before he made the rounds and made friends with indigenous weavers, Legarda has been networking with those working with textile, thus in 2004, he started working with a textile technologist and artist along with Filipino weavers themselves where he started introducing the weavers to once again used natural fibers after finding out that the local market usually used low quality or synthetic fibers.
It was in 2006 when he worked with PTRI to develop other green dyes and fibers.
"There's something about authentic fibers and fabrics, ibang dating," he said, that's why he is pushing for the mainstream and high-end use of these to bring more value to the works of indigenous weavers who have perfected their crafts through generations.