Rajo Laurel may be a household name in the world of fashion but it may come as a surprise to many by revealing that the show he is mounting at this year’s BYS Fashion Week is one that is filled with firsts.

It has been six years since Laurel has done a show like this. “My last show of this scale was around 2018. When I say scale, it’s just the massive amount of numbers that you have to create in order to do the story. Normally, when we do shows in recent years, it’s just about 12 exits or 12 pieces. The storyline is quite concise and short. But here, it’s a full show, so you average around 45 to 50 numbers, ensembles you create,” he says.

“It has a breadth of work involved, so in terms of the scale, this has been quite exciting, because I haven’t done it in years. Naninibago ako, there’s this sense of like tentativeness to the whole process, which makes it quite interesting as a creative.”

Laurel also shares his gratitude and excitement towards the show. “I’m very grateful to be asked to be part of this. I feel like I’m the oldest in the lineup, so to be asked to be part of that… the designers (I’m with) are so young, and so incredible, and amazing, so I’m excited to be part and parcel of this lineup.”

But more than the “massive” number of pieces he has had to create, it’s his chosen theme that also makes this a show full of firsts. This week’s fashion show is his first full menswear show. Laurel shares that he’s always been more comfortable in designing for women and though he has created men’s pieces, “they always somehow play a secondary, supporting role,” he says.

“Now it’s practically pushed to the limelight. It’s deeply personal, it’s deeply reflection, and it’s also quite vulnerable,” he says. “I felt very vulnerable with this particular collection.”

The approach to putting the collection and the show together was also different. In designing for women, he says, the process is more external, “[molding] the fabric towards the woman, literally. With this one, it’s coming from inside. Because I’m able to feel and wear the collection, and not only touch it but really see how I am in the collection I’ve created.”

For Laurel, the collection also aims to propose a mindset towards dressing, especially for men. “The collection is almost like an essay, a way to be able to sort of dress up the men or people of today. I believe clothes don’t have a gender. I mean, what makes it masculne? What does it take to make a man? These are questions I’m proposing for this particular collection.”

The fashion show, he adds, is also really about being able to foster the creative community, which makes it more exciting. “I believe the creatives put a mirror to what’s important in society. It provides us almost like a tap into the vein of society, it gives us a way to visualize what’s happening around us, and this is just one way to really experience that.”

“Each and every creative that’s actually coming up with the shows are digesting the zeitgeist of what’s happening. So everybody has their own perspective, and I think what’s beautiful about having a fashion week is that it’s a continuous discussion on that collective thought. Of what’s actually happening, not just in Philippine fashion, but in Filipino society in general,” he says.

The collection may also well be Laurel’s autobiography expressed through clothes, as it features silhouettes and designs inspired by various memories and people in Laurel’s life.

“It’s essentially my story. I called it ‘Pieces of Me’ because it’s essentially based and built on my memories, on the men I admired, the men I loved; people specific, like my Lolo Pepe, my grandfather who was the first Filipino who went to school in the Japanese Imperial Academy. A lot of aesthetics were built on that understanding of Japanese aesthetic. He was also in the military, and I fell in love with his uniforms, so you’ll see a lot of that.”

Laurel also harks back to the days he first fell in love with fashion, and references those cultural movements in his collection. “There was this movement called the new romantic, and that was the very first time I would basically see what we call questions on gender and identity. That’s definitely part of the whole process,” he says.

But despite being deeply inspired by memories, Laurel emphasizes how both he and the collection are equally rooted in the present.

“It’s a continuing process of exploration. The DNA of my design aesthetic is going to be there. However I am proposing different silhouettes and shapes to the runway. The idea, like with any collection, is always a sense of newness, a sense of freshness, a sense of direction. I think that’s what we always want to push forward. That’s the reason why we do a show. We don’t want it to be too sentimental that it’s like oh, I’ve seen that before. It’s always a quest of moving forward. Yes, there’s going to be a lot of items that intrinsically is really part of my DNA, but there’s also going to be a lot of new ideas in terms of shapes, fabrications, proportions. All of that will be equally explored.”

This may be seen in some of Laurel’s favorite pieces in the new collection, which he call his love letters.

“I call it love letters because they are made from old barongs of my father and my grandfather. I collected old barong Tagalogs and repurposed them to create a new barong Tagalog. So that’s very sentimental. One or two pieces are derived from that particular process of looking back, literally using pieces of my forefathers, and repurposing that into something that’s new,” he says.

“So that’s definitely one of my favorites that I’m keeping. I don’t think I can sell that; it’s very, very personal. I feel like it’s their love letter to me because it was part of their wardrobe that I inherited, and then I tried to make something new out of that experience.”

READ: 15 modern barong that pay homage to the iconic Filipino shirt

Laurel comes from a known artistic family, so it’s no surprise that his approach to this upcoming show is holistically creative.

Collaborating with Robby Carmona, the show will be presented in a way that breaks away from the traditional catwalk. Instead, Laurel opts to present his collection in a space akin to an arena, with an experience almost like watching theater in the round, as the audience can see, from different sides, the models interacting with each other.

Music for the show will be done by creative consultant Melvin Mojica.

“The casting is quite special because we really took upon ourselves to make it very diverse, inclusive, cast of models. The staging is going to be quite unique because it’s not your traditional catwalk, and finally the music is definitely quite special because it goes deep within my psyche. We really worked very hard for that,” Laurel says.

“At the end of the daylol646, it’s really a proposal, a dialogue. I’m hoping that it will work out in the end.”

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