Lulu Tan Gan proves why she is today’s compleat designer

In her first gala collection in years, Lulu Tan Gan showed why she is the compleat Filipino fashion designer today. Her consummate skills—from fabric making to design—we hope, were not lost on an occasionally distracted audience of the annual Red Charity Ball. They were the solidly honed skills, taste and discerning eye for design of a veteran designer. As the chief patron of Philippine fashion design, Ben Chan, said incredulously after curtain call, “Ang galing… so seasoned.”

Tan Gan neither overplayed nor underplayed it. She showed the restrained hand of a creator who has been making fashion collections successfully for almost four decades—both as pioneer and innovator. She pioneered and championed knit­wear in Philippine fashion, particularly in RTW, working from scratch, with yarns, churning out knitwear that pushed the envelope for design of women’s wear, season after season, year after year, in retail store’s RTW racks, and later her own store. (She started working for SM right after college. In 1983, through the game-changing CITEM, she joined the Paris Fashion Week trade shows, which started her production for export. In 1985, SM scion Tessie Sy-Coson gave her retail space at the trailblazing SM Boutique Square, believing that Tan Gan was ready to launch her own brand.)

This intrepid creator never ran away from challenges, obviously. The lack or absence of fabric didn’t deter her. No knitted fabric? No problem. She produced it.

She is a stalwart of Philippine fashion, both as design innovator and industry leader who never tired of organizing her peers, speaking up about their guild concerns, and even introducing fashion design in the academe through courses at the De la Salle-College of Saint Benilde.

Yet—the local fashion circle was still caught by surprise when Tan Gan made yet another bold move: full pivot to piña.

Knit to piña is quite a leap. Two contrasting disciplines in fabrication. It requires learning an altogether different technology and technique, different approach and vision. A different romance with the medium of fashion.

But Tan Gan is a fearless woman.

And that showed in her gala piña collection. Tan Gan didn’t just pay lip service to the promotion of Filipiniana; she backed up her commitment with technical know-how and sophistication in design.

The Ball, diligently organized every year by the indefatigable pair of Tessa Prieto and Kaye Tinga, raises funds for the Red Cross and other beneficiaries. The October 22 event at Shangri-La at The Fort presented the full collection of Tan Gan showcasing piña, the national fabric which is not easy to handle, and which has yet to grow beyond the de rigueur Filipiniana wear.

In a recent interview with TheDiarist.ph’s Marge Enriquez, Tan Gan recalled how she began experimenting with piña yarn blended with cotton and acrylic knit yarns, only to discover that using piña in its raw and delicate state was the way to go.

She then learned how to innovate its applications, including dyeing.

She told TheDiarist.ph: “Through my designs and fabric treatments, the perception of piña has been transformed from a traditionally stiff material to one with fluidity….To create that ethereal effect, these pieces are designed to be layered, sometimes with more body-hugging inner wear such as T-shirts or chemises.”

She added, “I engage with piña throughout the cutting process…. I love the crisp sound as I cut, and my design evolves as I lay out the pattern. I may lengthen, widen, or reshape it. I’m also mindful that no inch of the weave is wasted in the process.”

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Tan Gan succeeded in making the piña not only wearable but also current—enough to appeal to the millennials and GenZ. It’s turned into baggy pants or cargoes, or sheer tops layered over shirts. Tan Gan made full creative use of the transparency of the fabric by turning it into coats, tunics—how ever the wearer wants it layered.

The piña was repurposed, redefined, transformed in a variety of looks and silhouettes—dainty, elegant, feminine, or edgy, hip, tradition-breaking. Minis, micro shorts, tunics, blousons, boyfriend shirts, baggy pants, wrap-arounds—it was a survey of casual wear and dressy wear you love to experiment with, mix and match.

She accented the fabrics with the graphic imagery of our indigenous culture, from the highland South to the lowland North.

She dyed it in unexpected hues, and turned the traditional ecru into blue, deep red or even black.

In Tan Gan’s hand, the pristine piña symbolic of the demure Maria Clara of the Spanish colonial era now borrows the iconoclastic spontaneity and vibe of pop, even “hip hop”.

However, in all this, the collection wasn’t overstyled. It was a tasteful measure of accessorizing and ornamentation.  

Robbie Carmona’s direction respected the designer’s concept and created a stage that paid visual homage to Filipiniana, constructed like a square frame around the ballroom. We just wished that the entire ballroom had been dimmed during the show, and the spotlight trained only on the collection. But on the whole it was evident why Carmona has gained the top niche in his field—he’s one fashion show director who knows that the show is about the fashion designer, not about him.

Thanks to the erstwhile Queen of Knit, piña is not only the language of nostalgia; it also became the unpredictable outburst of the future.