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As Ben Chan pays tribute to parents’ legacy, Ternocon shows artisanship at its peak

Most challenging edition proves how the annual project has walked the talk for the past eight years

Ben Chan (3rd from right), CCP president Kaye Tinga (2nd from left) with guest of honor, the First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Ternocon winners, from left, Bryan Peralta, Peach Garde, Ram Silva, Windell Madis

In a very rare public mention of self, Ben Chan ended his opening remarks in last Sunday’s Ternocon by giving honor to his late parents, Chan Lib and See Ying, “whose legacy,” he said,  “is etched in the drawing of the Filipina wearing a terno in the packaging of Liwayway Gawgaw, that was used to preserve the terno….”

Ternos by Peach Garde, Gawad Pacita Longos Award (Gold), done in the minimalist, tailored style

Liwayway Gawgaw, as the post-war generations of Filipinos knew, was the pioneering and, later iconic, starch product used by Filipino households. The elder couple, by dint of sheer hard work, turned it into a household name, and it became the seed of a thriving and diversified family business.

Ternocon chief mentor Inno Sotto is honored with crown of sampaguita.

As Chan briefly recalled in his speech, Liwayway Gawgaw was established in 1946, emerging from the ruins of war: “Liwayway, the dawn, to symbolize the start of a new day and new hope for the country.”

Chan then urged the well-dressed gathering,  “May it ignite in us the same spirit of hope, of love of country, pride in our culture.”

The guests, who filled the PICC hall January 26 Sunday evening for Ternocon, strictly followed the dress code: long terno, preferably with pañuelo. Many, such as Marivic Vazquez and Monique Villonco, wore vintage ternos featuring the pañuelo of old (stiff fabric draped to frame the shoulders, baring the neckline in a most dainty way). Vazquez wore a Patis Tesoro from her own wardrobe, and Monique from her mother, Armida Siguion-Reyna’s famous Filipiniana trove.

Marivic Madrigal Vazquez in vintage Patis Tesoro with traditional ‘pañuelo’

Ching Cruz in Lulu Tan Gan

Monique Siguion Reyna Villonco in her mother Armida Siguion Reyna’s vintage terno with pañuelo

The women attending this year’s Ternocon, presented by Bench with the Cultural Center of the Philippines, apparently paid meticulous attention to the “specs” handed down by the Ternocon artistic team led by its founding artistic director Gino Gonzales, the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining 2024 awardee, who himself sent friends an image of the terno with the pañuelo.

Indeed last Sunday’s Ternocon emphasized to a most stringent degree the faces of evolution of the Filipino dress, which the finalist designers had to create: the balintawak with alampay and tapis, the terno with pañuelo, the kimono with an alampay and patadyong.

Chan described it as the “most challenging edition” in the event’s eight-year history. This was the fourth edition. Ternocon was established by Bench headed by Chan, the retail visionary, to lift the knowledge about the terno, to promote its design and craftsmanship, and to make it relatable to the young generation.

This annual event, for which Manila’s society and fashion crowd don its Filipiniana best every year, is the culmination of a year-long tedious process. It begins with the calling in of participants from across the country and across demographics. After the selection, the short list undergoes a mentorship by the country’s leading fashion designers. The Ternocon’s mentoring team goes to select provinces to orient budding designers in the design and construction of the terno.

The culminating Ternocon event presents the collections of the selected designers, among whom awardees are chosen by a panel of judges. The awards are the Gawad Pacita Longos (gold or the topmost), the Gawad Pura Escurdia (silver), Gawad Ramon Valera (bronze), and the Gawad Joe Salazar (the Chief Mentor’s award). These awards are named after the couturiers/dressmakers/designers (how they were called in various times), whose creations, in various decades, marked the evolution of the terno, indeed the Filipino dress.

The latest Ternocon drew participants from as far away as Ilocos and South Cotabato.

A businessman and retailer like Ben Chan could have devoted his resources solely to business, but he didn’t

In short, Ternocon has walked the talk for the past eight years.  A businessman and retailer like Ben Chan could have devoted his resources solely to business, but he didn’t—Chan went beyond the bottomline and chose to pay it forward, so to speak. He committed himself and his company to a vision of preserving, promoting and redefining the fashion dimension of Filipino culture and heritage.

By tapping Filipino traditional performing artists such as the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group, the show itself presents the Filipino dress against the backdrop of Filipino dance and music. Performing Sunday night were the soprano duo Nightingales and the violinist Juleous Gacang.

CCP president Kaye Tinga lauds Ternocon in her welcome remarks.

Shortly after its establishment, Ternocon gained the support of Philippine culture institutions, led by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This year, CCP president Kaye Tinga herself lent a helping hand to Ternocon.

Bryan Peralta with his ternos inspired by National Artist Jose Joya, with Ben Chan and CCP president Kaye Tinga

Ram Silva and his ternos, with Ben Chan and CCP president Kaye Tinga

Windell Madis and his ternos, with Ben Chan and CCP president Kaye Tinga

This year’s awardees are: Gawad Pacita Longos (gold), Peach Garde of Capiz, who was in tears as he received the award; Gawad Pura Escurdia (silver), Bryan Peralta of Makati City; Gawad Ramon Valera (bronze), Ram Silva of Iloilo City; Gawad Joe Salazar (Chief Mentor’s Award), Windell Madis of Batac City, Ilocos Norte.

This year’s participants referenced, in their designs, the works of the National Artists and other foremost Filipino visual artists.

It is interesting to note that Garde’s designs were minimalist compared to the rest of the collections, defined by panels and color blocks to mask the structured silhouettes.

Garde is from Capiz in Western Visayas, but it is in Iloilo where he is active.

Garde, who’s been sending entries to Ternocon since 2019, chose the architecture of National Artist Leandro Locsin as inspiration. He told TheDiarist.ph after the event: “I am confident that I can translate Locsin’s Brutalist works into fashion and in my skills in tailoring. I wanted to show something you can wear from casual to formal setting. If we dissect each look, the pieces can be mixed and matched to create another look.”

Garde succeeded in designing a “tailored terno”—there is such a thing now. Not over the top, the biggest indulgence of his design was in layering—i.e. the terno top worn over what seemed like a collar shirt—and in overlapping of panels. His silhouette was away from the body, falling straight as a column dress, at a time when the terno is stereotyped into an hour-glass silhouette to conform with the “beauty queen” look.

Even Garde’s color palette was relatively austere—from dark olive or army green to toned-down yellow.

Definitely, Garde, on this his first time to be chosen as Ternocon finalist, stuck to his point of view: the minimalist tailored terno, made youthful and contemporary by fabric treatment. His selection was devoid of glitter. He used polyester for the tailored shirt and piña silk for the kimona.

He explained to TheDiarist.ph why he, who never tired of trying it out for the Ternocon, was in tears to receive his award: “That moment, I knew I made my mother in heaven proud, my mentors and the hometown I represented. This competition wasn’t just for my growth as a young designer, but for the people behind me also. I felt even more grateful and blessed. My mentors from the Iloilo New Breed Fashion Challenge are so supportive and keep pushing me. To someone from the province, Ternocon is one of the many big opportunities I have been dreaming of.”

Terno sleeve by Bryan Peralta

Intricate terno sleeve construction by Peralta

Another non-extravagant collection was that of Silver awardee Bryan Peralta of Makati. We loved the way he channeled National Artist Jose Joya’s abstract masterpieces in his terno made of muslin panels. Joya’s abstract art became  geometric images on the skirt and the sleeves, replicating Joya’s masterful strokes of color. His techniques were simple: panel strips, huge sleeves, draping, pleating.

It is interesting how Peralta used 3D printing for the terno sleeves. He told TheDiarist.ph days after the show how he focused instead on Joya’s drawings instead of his paintings. After I told him how Joya was a good friend of mine, Peralta said he tried to find out anything he could about the National Artist, from books to YouTube. Inspired by Joya’s drawings, Peralta said, “I had to think of various ways to interpret lines visually on garments.”

He elaborated on the process: “Embroidery was an obvious choice so I bought a high-speed embroidery machine and taught myself how to use it. Eventually I thought there must be another way to elevated this so I thought I’d work on the texture by adding thick linen cords on the embroideries. Then I thought of using 3D pens with plastic filaments as treatment. It worked well on tulle as a base so for while I was working on it. But then I decided to push it all the way and do full 3D printed sleeves.”

Peralta represents today’s breed of designers, who explores all kinds of media beyond the traditional embroideries or conventional appliques. He added: “I used CAD to model them, then we transferred to an app called Blender. Then I hired a team of young 3D printers to do the actual printing of the frames and the surface appliques.”

Peralta is a strong proof of how the latest edition of Ternocon became significant—it turned into a mirror of where today’s Philippine fashion design is in re-interpreting, redefining, and reinventing the Filipino dress, to make it relatable or make it cross over to the GenZs and millennials.

The level of craftsmanship and artisanship in the design and the making of the Filipino dress is at its peak, or has never been higher than it is now. And Ternocon is proof of that.  The upcoming breed of fashion designers—as seen in Ternocon—experiments with their hands or the little basic technology available to manipulate fabric or experiment with it, for instance. Unlike the previous generations of designers, the young ones are not hindered by lack of fabric supply perhaps because they tend to look beyond piña or organza—into the unconventional, even upcycled, materials.

They put all of the above, it seems, before the mastery of silhouette and of the sense of proportion

There’s no limit to their experimentation. They’re into techniques and visual devices the range of which is getting more and more expansive. Their only limit is their imagination—or mood.

Today’s breed of designers loves ornamentation.

They put all of the above, it seems, before the mastery of silhouette and of the sense of proportion. Limitless craftsmanship and artisanship are there to break the rules. There are no rules, in fact. Perhaps that explains the busy unbridled look of this design generation.

The GenZ and millennial designers enjoy untrammeled freedom to their creativity.

And Ternocon is today’s biggest platform for that freedom.

The other finalists were Geom Hernandez of Sto.Tomas City, Batangas, Irene Subang of Silay City, Negros Occidental, Jared Servano of South Cotabato, Jema Gamer of La Union, Lexter Badana of Roxas City, Capiz, Koko Gonzales of Mandaluyong City,  Nina Gatan of Quezon City, Patrick Lazol of Capas, Tarlac, Last year’s Pacita Longos medalist, Yssa Inumerable, also presented a mini collection.

Ezra Santos

Ternocon founder Ben Chan and Miguel Pastor

Mons Romulo

NCCA chairman Ino Manalo (left) and Inno Sotto

The high point, always the much-awaited, part of Ternocon has been the mini collections of the Ternocon mentors, the seasoned designers who walk the finalists through the basics of terno making, and who mentor them. This Ternocon presented the collections of  Rhett Eala, Lulu Tan Gan and Ezra Santos.

The audience loved Rhett Eala’s drop-dead drama, Ezra Santos’ showstoppers. Lulu Tan Gan is now at her peak

Eala, the game-changer of Philippine RTW of recent years, showed uncharacteristic opulence in beadwork glitter, a far cry from his trademark, pared-down Filipiniana coordinates.  And the audience loved it—drop-dead-drama ternos were something they hadn’t seen from Eala for quite some time.

By showing nothing but showstoppers, Ezra Santos proved why he has built a highly solid following in Dubai. His ternos were a collective masterpiece of construction and visual extravagance, from head to toe.

Lulu Tan Gan proved in Ternocon that she is now at her peak. This woman, who was dubbed the Knit Queen of Philippine fashion, has reinvented herself so impressively for the 2020s. Just when you thought she had pulled all the tricks in knitwear, Tan Gan unveils one collection after another, from the Red Ball to Ternocon, that does wonders with piña, organza, silk and other flimsy, dainty fabrics. She applied a bewildering range of treatments on these—dyeing, painting, pleating, and so on. And she now stamps graphic images on the terno. The audience swooned over her pieces that turned from monochrome blue to pastel melon and pinks to brighter orange. She’s made the terno so stylish and classy.

 

No doubt, Ben Chan and his Ternocon team have succeeded in putting the terno back in the mainstream of Philippine fashion, even lifestyle.

 

About author

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After devoting more than 30 years to daily newspaper editing (as Lifestyle editor) and a decade to magazine publishing (as editorial director and general manager), she now wants to focus on writing—she hopes.

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