The just concluded BENCH Fashion Week (BFW) 2025 Holiday collection proved how, now more than ever, BFW is not only the Philippines’ leading platform for both established and emerging designers, but also the leading incubator for fashion design in the country. Now on its eighth year, it’s easily become the platform for spotting trends created by Filipino designers.
This year’s collections showed the out-of-the-box thinking of today’s upstart designers who are out to flaunt conventions—as they tell their own design stories. BFW 2025 held September 19-20 in the vast Space at One Ayala signaled which way the fashion wind is blowing as far as our designers are concerned.
Fashion is becoming “gender-less” or non-binary
For one, fashion is becoming “gender-less” or non-binary, blurring or even crossing the line between the traditional masculine and feminine. For another, finally, Filipiniana is young, meaning our indigenous craft (i.e. embroidery, weaving) has become the look made hip and relatable to the next generation.
BFW 2025 unfolded the collections of today’s individualistic designers— all fashion disruptors—Koko Gonzales, Neric Beltran, HA.MU for HUMAN, Bree Esplanada, Daryl Maat, and the ultimate fashion disruptor himself, Jaggy Glarino. As their fashion directions unfolded right before your eyes, the audience became the witness to the incubation that was under way—like:
How gender identity is becoming insignificant in a fashion that’s reflecting the POV of the next generation;
How a culture’s heritage and craftsmanship are being absorbed by the global modern look;
How a designer is no longer shy about his/her own back story;
How the separate pieces of an ensemble could be taken as a whole, or broken down into parts which can stand alone independently (i.e. biker shorts, mid-rib shirts, pants). They can be layered or worn individually. In short, fashion is a choice the wearer makes.
Indeed, BENCH has allowed today’s designers the freedom to express their story and aesthetic—and provided the platform and the audience for it.
BENCH has enabled these designers to lead the conversation
BENCH has enabled these designers to lead the conversation, so to speak.
Koko Gonzales is leading the direction towards non-binary aesthetic or gender-less fashion, and making this wearable, even stylish. A biker himself, he made bicycle shorts prominent in his collection, matched them with other staples. He paraded also the cargo pants, shirts and even billowing tiered dress (a man could dare wear). He shirred armhole—a rather feminine technique, and made it look mannish.
Gonzales was daring enough to assert his fashion POV.
Neric Beltran blended today’s imperatives of recycling (fabric discards) and heritage craft (i.e. intricate embroidery) with high glamour and high drama, and it worked. His drop-dead collection carried classic silhouettes with a twist. His has been a design experimentation that celebrities like Vice Ganda have consistently bought into.
HA.MU—the pair of Abraham “Ham” Guardian and Filipino-Japanese Mamuro “Mamu” Oki—has always been unique. This pair of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde alumni has always stood for nonchalant individuality in every aspect of fashion design and making clothes. While others merely challenge conventions, HA.MU follows no rules. That independent.
Their BFW collection was fun, quirky but friendly. It was so amusing how they carried their fascination with fried egg into a near-iconic image, how they have been able to integrate it in their iconoclastic designs.
HA.MU x HUMAN gives the existing HUMAN wearer an attitude
What has been interesting is that in BFW, HA.MU was able to translate their POV into wearable pieces in HA.MU x HUMAN. BENCH’s HUMAN brand will never look the same. HA.MU x HUMAN gives the existing HUMAN wearer an attitude.
Bree Esplanada was inspired by nightmares, believe it or not. And he turned his horror stories into an aesthetic that tapped into Filipiniana and timeless techniques. This creator obsessed with Tim Burton has taken the boredom out of black and white and turned this non-color playful. He loves skeletons and has elevated the skull into high-fashion image. His experimentation with digital images proves just how BENCH has become a fashion laboratory.
From dark fashion, BFW swung to the cheery whimsy of Daryl Maat, whose collection was inspired by, believe it or not, his childhood birthday parties. Ingeniously, he used inabel, silk cocoon for dresses and separates, and embroidered them with scenes from his childhood, such as hotdog sticks, “pabitin” scenes. His jumpsuits were so playful.
Jaggy Glarino proved just how and why he is the ultimate fashion disruptor
2017 BENCH Fashion Awards winner Jaggy Glarino proved just how and why he is the ultimate fashion disruptor. He shatters the traditional glamor and elegance—indeed the classic elements of fashion—and supplants them with dire reminders of everyday reality.
He junks the illusion that is fashion for the realities of urban life, this time the messy Pinoy street scene, but uses it as material to create uniquely beautiful clothes. As a learned fashion watcher said, “Jaggy has the intellectual spine to pull it off.”
Trash bags, tin sheets, the kulambo (mosquito net), the kariton (pushcart)—name it, Glarino is able to incorporate these adjuncts of Pinoy lifestyle into fashion pieces that use techniques such as weaving, crochet, fabric manipulation.
BENCH this time has indeed given platform to such design “madness.”
“It is our way of trying to make a difference in Philippine fashion and retail, to turn the Filipino design talent, both emerging and established, into a constant presence,” said Ben Chan, the retail visionary behind BENCH and chairman of Suyen Corporation.
“BENCH Fashion Week is both a laboratory for the Filipino’s creative, out-of-the-box thinking, as well as a platform on which this early design genius can be seen by the world,” Chan said. “And it is gratifying to see lines of people out to watch the shows, and how its market has grown.”
BFW 2025 also proved the popularity of brands Kashieca, 8Seconds, Urban Revivo, Cotton On, MLB and BENCH Workwear.
The two-day event showed a mastery of styling in presenting these RTW brands. Kashieca was ultra-feminine yet young and relatable. 8Seconds was all Seoul vibe with its hip leather and denim; it had just the perfect edginess. Urban Revivo was boho-chic seduction. Cotton On gave layering such an up-there attitude. MLB was high-energy activewear. BENCH Workwear had a most accessible look yet inviting an individual creativity with its mix-match pieces.
BFW 2025 saw queues to the metro’s newest event venue, Space at One Ayala on Ayala Avenue, Makati. This just proves the growing following of BENCH the incubator and fashion laboratory. If you build it, they will come.
