Black and white banig gown. 2022
There was something about the structure and treatment of his gauze and denim collection that stood out at the Young Designers Group (YDG) show at Philippine Fashion Watch in 2002. One early design obscured the body with denim. It was adorned with side pleats and painted with black lines that mimicked saddle stitches. Another dress had an asymmetric gauze top partially interrupted by a paneled, high-waisted balloon skirt with a petticoat peeking out from under the hem. The male model wore a distressed gauze dress shirt and abbreviated shorts with painted saddle stitch patterns.
The designer’s name was quickly flashed and announced, but I could only hear “Ivarnuski.” There was no printed program with the participants’ names to refer to. A week later, in the Philippine Daily Inquirer fashion page, I wrote about this young turk whose work made an impact. I merely referred to him as “Ivarnuski what’s-his-name.” The limited newspaper space allowed only one photo—his collection. The section editor chided me for my carelessness.
Months later, I met Ivarluski (“with an l”) Aseron, Ivar to friends, who thanked me for mentioning him in PDI despite my gaffe. It was the first time that the press had noticed his designs. That was the pre-digital era, when newspapers had clout.
Taupe dress with book leaf details, Fashion Watch 2011
Vanilla silk dress with boned sleeves, ‘Declaration,’ 2005
After two decades, the YDG disbanded. Those young designers, including Ivar, are now mentors and resource persons. He has since evolved from working on flat fabrics to original three-dimension materials. “My style signifier is structured form that breaks the norm,” he says.
His process is similar to the Japanese, creating the fabric and treating it as the canvas.
Avant-garde designer, he is not. “I’m too old,” claims Ivar, who looks younger than his 53 years.
Twenty-five years ago, when he didn’t have the budget for a pricey luncheon show ticket, Ivar would sit in the remote section of Manila Hotel’s Maynila restaurant to admire the collections in the Fashion Watch luncheon shows. In the years that followed, in a reversal of fortune, his collections have graced the runways of deluxe hotels and fashion venues. Ivar, once a fanboy to designers, is now being fawned over by other designers.
Twenty-five years ago, when he didn’t have the budget for a pricey luncheon show ticket, Ivar would sit in the remote section of Manila Hotel to watch
On Oct. 8, he will present his collection at the Red Charity Gala at Peninsula Manila Lobby. Titled A Memoir in Motion, the 53-piece collection will show how his previous techniques and patterns merge with recent experimentations. Four months in the making, the garments have been handmade to perfection. Keeping tab of the man-hours, he cites an all-beaded long dress that was completed after 2.5 months or 1,300 hours of manual labor by four people
Ivar reverts to a classic technique such as the “book leaves,” rows of individual fabric strips sewn on the fabric to resemble bound pages in a book. “I’ve seen other designers’ similar works in the past, but I modernized it and gave it my stamp,” he says in modesty.
Dress made of continuously knotted gauze and cotton rope, Mega YDC 2002
Coat dress with cutout details in black and sand, 2010
One bookleaf skirt was made of rows of tulle strips that were sewn in slanted and vertical directions. These rows created shadows under the light, adding visual depth to the fabric. It was teamed with an oversized t-shirt, made of softened and lightened leather.
An earlier work, a leaf dress, was made of individually-stitched crepe leaves. Each leaf was sewn together to create a lacy pattern. “The dress looked simple, but it took a long time make the leaves, flatten them with the lining, form them on the mannequin and hand stitch them together,” he explains.
In his atelier, Ivar lays out his experiments for the coming show. A seamless oversized t-shirt for a male model is a series of dusty blue and black cut beads that have been fastidiously strung together. On the rack, a silk organza dress makes an impact for its pattern—repetitive rows of rolled laser-cut strips alternately hand-sewn with beads. “These beads hold the strips together and form gaps between the rows,” he says, referring to the three-dimension effect on the dress.
Seeing his originality, one finds it hard to believe that he was a nursing graduate, who pivoted to entrepreneurship and, ultimately, fashion design.
The youngest of six children, he thought of asking how his name became Ivar only when he turned 32. His father coined his name from “Ivar” and “Kluski.” After high school graduation, he was set to take entrance exams in fine arts in two universities. However, he caught chicken pox.
“I thought of taking up nursing in the first semester then to shift to fine arts. I ended up finishing the course,” he says. Between taking up life sciences and patient care subjects, he pursued photography and painting. Ivar realized that fashion design was his true passion.
In 1992, he was poised to take the nursing board exams, when his mother, Leonor, brought him to the US for a holiday.
Back from the holiday, instead of girding for the board exam, he and a friend put up a t-shirt business and sold the shirts in the Greenhills tiangge. “I had an idea of mixing silkscreen prints with hand-printed designs on white t-shirts,” he recalls.
Dress with exposed boning and piping details, 2007
Buyers got curious about the quirky patterns. “I always wanted to offer something out of the box,” he says. After a year, they folded up their business, weary of the daily grind of production and sales. Ivar ventured into other businesses, including food. During a hiatus from work, he helped his mother in renting out units in a family-owned building in Quezon City.
One day, he noticed a vacant unit that had been spruced up. Asked if there was a new tenant, his mother Leonor replied, “It’s yours.” Ivar saw sewing machines beneath a row of suspended lamps. He declined her offer, saying that he had no experience in fashion design. The construction halted, and the space was rented out to another tenant.
Meanwhile, Ivar started exposing himself to fashion in 1997. He attended a seminar, conducted by professors at the Fashion Institute of Technology at the Philippine Trade Training Center (PTTC). In a classroom exercise, he teamed up with Cebuano designer Oj Hofer to make mood boards.
One day, he saw an ad for a fashion designer in Bobby Novenario’s boutiques. Despite his inexperience and only a brief fashion seminar, Ivar started working in Novenario’s boutiques in February 1998. His early duties were to pull out clothes from the store and style them on the models for photo shoots.
Over time, he learned design. Novenario would have a designer in the shop to sketch for clients. Ivar did the rounds of Novenario boutiques in the malls. He credits Novenario for opening doors of opportunity. Novenario, once in 1998, gave Ivar a front row ticket to the Philippine Fashion Designers Competition at Manila Hotel. The 1998 winner was Jojie Lloren, whom he admired. “I was in awe of his work, which was well thought out,” recalls Ivar, referring to Lloren’s asymmetric abaca gown with a distinctive technique of beading and drapery.
Novenario encouraged him to join the same competition in 1999. After 15 months of employment, Ivar resigned to focus on his entry. He attended a dyeing workshop at the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI) so he could color his own fabrics.
Ivar’s entry was a three-piece ensemble of a jacket with a funnel neckline, an asymmetric top and a skirt, all made of pinukpok. PTRI dyed the fabric and created wavy patterns that suggested an aerial view of the rice terraces. He ended up a finalist in the competition.
Ivar started working for BobbyNovenario in February 1998. His early duties were to pull out clothes from the store and style them on the models for photo shoots
Earlier, YDG officers had seen Ivar’s sketches at the Garment Trade Export Board and invited him to apply for membership. They took notice of his entries in the design tilt. When YDG secretary Dennis Lustico told him that he bad been accepted, Ivar felt as if he won a prize.
Yet, success didn’t come easy. “When I was new in the industry, some looked down on me—as in, inirapan ako (they stared down at me). That made me resolve to be be better at my craft with each passing year, and never become like them,” recalls Ivar.
In interviews, he cites the MTV Style Awards’ Revolutionary Designer of the Year (2004) as his turning point. The event had a wider audience that helped him shoot to fame.
Beige and black banig dress with reversed pleats and bookleaf details, Ternocon 2020
Throughout his design career, Ivar hasn’t abandoned his nursing knowledge, which has become handy in emergencies. One day, his mother stiffened but bled on the dining table. Ivar suspected she was in shock. When he opened her clenched fist, he saw a gaping wound. He suspected that her diabetes mellitus had caused the excessive bleeding. The dutiful son raised her arm and wrapped it in a tourniquet before she was rushed to the hospital.
During the pandemic, his father, Ildefonso, insisted on lifting the treadmill. He stubbornly refused help to move the machine. When he carried it, the machine fell on his foot and he became dizzy. Ivar made him sit and took his father’s blood pressure. He gave instructions to the household and looked after his father until he was stable enough to go to the hospital. “I handled those situations without panicking,” he says.
When he or his workers feel dizzy, he brings out his instrument to read their blood pressure. Clients can likewise get their BP checked—a bonus when he’s making them a beautiful outfit.
