Neric Beltran surprised the Bench Fashion Week (BFW) Holiday 2025 crowd with a debut far from his usual theatrics—dramatic, yes, but carefully measured. Known for dressing stars in high-drama costumes, he unveiled a collection that emphasized luxury and craftsmanship without tipping into excess.
Making his BFW debut, Koko Gonzales took the opposite route with a lifestyle-driven line inspired by biking and fabric-hunting in Divisoria, rendered in easy silhouettes cut from performance fabrics.
For both designers, their first time on the Bench runway marked an important career milestone: BFW has become a platform where emerging names and established talents alike gain visibility beyond their niche audiences. Beltran used it to prove he could make relatable designs, while Gonzales showed how heritage and everyday life could inform modern fashion.
Neric Beltran with Ben Chan
Together, they opened Day One last September 19 at the Space at One Ayala mall, with holiday collections that highlighted two distinct yet complementary visions of style.
‘I can actually make real clothes for real people’—Beltran
In a fashion career that spanned more than two decades, Neric Beltran had long flown under the radar of Bench—until this year. His debut at Bench Fashion Week revealed a different side of him. Pigeon-holed as a designer for celebrities or a costume designer, Beltran used the runway to shift perceptions.
“I wanted to get the message across that I can actually make real clothes for real people,” Beltran said.
Beltran didn’t have formal lessons in fashion design. His aesthetic began at home, influenced by his mother, who worked as merchandiser for Cinderella. She often brought her work home, exposing him to technical details of the trade. She then introduced him to the owner of the now-defunct Blued, where he received training. From there, he took on all kinds of jobs—doing Christmas décor, window displays, wedding styling—until a friend pushed him to get serious about his career and join ABS-CBN as a stylist for film and television.
He stayed there for 15 years. While styling, he designed clothes whenever he couldn’t find the right pieces for certain period scenes. That led him to work closely with a tailor and gradually build a design practice.
A turning point came when he was assigned to work on Sarah Geronimo’s teleserye Pangarap na Bituin. Later, he created the graphic bodysuits that became a signature in Geronimo’s Tala concert series.
From then on, people began to notice. Orders started coming in, including pieces for Vice Ganda’s late-night comedy talk show.
During the pandemic, Beltran studied haute couture embroidery at Atelier Pino Grasso in Milan, a house known for its work with Armani, Etro, Bottega Veneta, and Dolce & Gabbana. Early this year, he was recommended to Bench to style SB19 for Bench Body of Work, the brand’s signature undergarment show. He reworked Bench denim by distressing jackets, adding luxe rockstar fringes, and infusing his signature beadwork.
In BFW, Beltran channeled the spirit of Milanese haute couture embroidery, where embellishment took on a sculptural, expressive role, with details rising from the fabric to create depth and drama. His collection featured delicate hand embroidery, shimmering crystals, fringes of drop pearls, and floral appliqués on satiny textures and tailored suits.
His innovation lay in recycling fabric scraps into couture embellishments, turning waste into richly worked textures and striking visual effects. With custom-fit tailoring and richly detailed surfaces, the garments emerged as expressions of modern Italian glamor, their sculptural appliqués giving them both presence and polish.
Many of the floral motifs were inspired by flowers he painted from imagination. “This collection was an extension of my art,” he said.
The silhouettes reflected that Italian glamour: pencil skirts, sweeping wide skirts, soft drapery, beaded shorts and pants, and pleated skirts that revealed hidden Swarovski crystals in motion. There were dolman-sleeved shirt jackets and other classic shapes designed with sophisticated women in mind. Beltran explained that he wanted them to feel comfortable in timeless silhouettes cut from luxurious fabrics.
He also considered what women often worry about. Puffy sleeves, peplum, and relaxed blouses were his way of covering flabby arms and bulges. Having learned lace-making in Italy, Beltran admitted it would be too costly to produce handmade lace in Manila. As a compromise, he offered a stretch lace skirt and blouse finished with pearl fringes at the hemline.
The menswear played with plush, gender-bending streetwear. An oversized lace shirt and androgynous pleated culottes recalled the loose T-shirts and board shorts of street fashion but were softened with lace appliqué on the top and dotted crystals on the bottoms.
“I wanted to mix high and low, to make something relatable. Street culture mixed with couture,” Beltran said.
Another sporty look combined green-and-crimson satin jogging pants with a lacey, lime button-down shirt and a scalloped collar.
“Lace in menswear—that’s a new option instead of the conventional styles,” he added. “More men are getting in touch with their feminine side.”
A believer in sustainability, Beltran also advised his clients to bring back clothes from past seasons so he could rework the designs, lessening their carbon footprint while keeping each piece current.
KOKO GONZALES
Koko Gonzales once worked as a visual merchandiser for an outdoor sportswear company and later as designer for a manufacturer of corporate giveaways and apparel. Along the way, he took short courses at FAB Creatives and the Fashion Institute of the Philippines. He also launched his label, LSW (Light Shine White), mainly consisting of bridal wear and formals.
Koko Gonzales with Ben Chan
In 2025, he became a Ternocon finalist and was recommended by the Department of Trade and Industry to represent the Philippines in Indonesia Fashion Week.
Gonzales’s aesthetic is ever-evolving. He refused to be pinned down to a single look, preferring instead to rise to the challenge of each design directive.
His Bench Fashion Week collection was inspired by his lifestyle—biking from his home to his workshop or to Divisoria or Taytay to source fabrics, and playing badminton in his downtime. That translated into cycle shorts matched with moisture-wicking shirts and tech wear vests.
Although he didn’t call the collection sporty or utilitarian, Gonzales made heavy use of deadstock performance fabrics. The focal points were cycle shorts and utilitarian cargo pants paired with white tank tops finished with elasticized necklines.
In a playful twist, male models walked in double bloomers—shorts layered over shorts—styled with loose jackets and shirts. One audience favorite was a sheer, white tiered dress worn with dark boxer shorts and topped with biking helmet—modeled by a male.
Another highlight was the mix of casual black, multi-zipped utilitarian pants and shirt with the delicacy of a white, spaghetti-strapped piña dress.
The utilitarian pants had such details as thigh and back pockets and a jacket-style zipper just below the knee. The zipper subtly altered the silhouette, creating the illusion of a bell-bottom flare. Oversized proportions gave the pieces a relaxed wearable quality.
Another ensemble paired a boxy top with matching shorts in a dark anthracite-like shade. Large flap pockets emphasized the utilitarian tone, while a yellow yoke accent at the shoulders added a jolt of contrast.
Throughout the collection, Gonzales emphasized clothes designed for the rhythm of everyday life. Still, he layered in cultural references with restraint. Early in the design process, a mentor had reminded him: “Don’t just repeat Filipiniana. Everyone is doing that—you’ll lose freshness.”
For Gonzales, the challenge became how to reflect national identity without leaning on literal or overused motifs.
His experience in Indonesia gave him perspective. In Jakarta Fashion Week, he had been struck by the saturation of batik—print on print, everywhere. Back home, he asked himself the same question about Philippine fashion: how do we keep reinterpreting our fabrics and heritage so they don’t feel tired, but still remain unmistakably ours?
He recalled meeting a Jakarta-based Filipino designer who created the Barong Batik brand, where artisans drew batik patterns directly onto jusi or silk organza. Inspired, Gonzales designed a loose button-down shirt out of jusi, printed with sketches of coconut trees.
