Bench’s founder and head Ben Chan congratulates Chito Vijandre at curtain call. (Photo by Thelma Sioson)
Listen, GenZ and millennials, the word is “psychedelic.” You can add that to your lingo, thanks to “tito” Chito Vijandre whose show brought that word back to life now in 2024! Talk about back to the future.
Chito Vijandre pulled it off. The enfant terrible of the ‘80s Philippine fashion and now the style disruptor of post-millennium Manila—and to think he maintains neither an RTW line nor a made-to-order clothes business—put on a show out of a 15-piece collection that rocked the scene on the last day of Bench Fashion Week (BFW) Sunday (Sept. 1, 2024) in the packed Playground of Bench Tower, BGC.
The audience loved it—unmistakably loved it, there was no ambivalence there.
What else could a Chito Vijandre do, solo? He has done Ternocon and Red Charity Gala. People wondered what design direction he’d put forth—what new stuff. How would Chito do cartwheels this time, I wondered.
Turned out, he didn’t need to. Instead he let his retro-vibe models do the “cartwheeling,” so to speak.
What he did was go back to his era—the ‘70s, ‘80s—no doubt his formative years as a designer and as a person. Or actually, he let the era come to 2024, and let today’s audience immerse itself in the rockin’ decadence of the ‘70s and ‘80s. That way, he gave the BFW audience not only a visual feast but also an experience of Chito’s psychedelic, disco era. It was fun, even euphoric, for the audience. It was nostalgic for us who lived the no-rules ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s—tender nostalgia not even the rousing music could disrupt.
Chito Vijandre adapts Pierre Cardin/Paco Rabanne to 2024. (Photo by Thelma Sioson)
With the video backdrop of psychedelic colors, the collection’s opening signaled that we’d be transported to Chito’s timeline and visual universe. Palazzo pants in dazzling gold, tops with accordion-pleat or bell sleeves. His gold-plate dress and tops channeled the then-futuristic look of a Pierre Cardin or a Paco Rabanne of the ‘60s.
Then to the iconic The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius (there’s nothing like the Fifth Dimension), strutted onstage were turbaned models in palazzos, minis, midribs, scarf tops in the richest fabrics to grace the Manila runway in recent years: brocade, laces, silks, lame, sari, velvet. Only a Chito Vijandre who soaked in that era would know how to mix and match this into a visual opulence without looking tacky or tasteless.
The ’70s disco followed in dresses, billowing skirts, blousons—full-on glitter or diaphanous. Of course, it must be to Souvenirs by Voyage—the swing music of Chito’s generation. To the era’s anthem of Annie Batungbakal of the Hotdog, the collection parade came to a rousing end.
The ‘60s, the ‘70s were incomparable. They gave birth to the youthquake the world would not see again: a world of iconoclast trends, generation gap (“Never trust anyone above 30”), rebellion, drugs (LSD) that yielded hallucinatory and wild images and colors (psychedelia, thus psychedelic), night life—and unprecedented creativity in art, fashion (Op art, mini, micro mini), style and design, and especially music (the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Motown).
I can never forget one quotable quote from Chito, describing a tacky sight: ‘That woman has taste—all of it bad!’
What this Sunday experience proved was that Chito Vijandre couldn’t be pigeonholed into fashion design. This multi-hyphenate individual—long before people had hyphens preceding their names—started out as a youngster who wasn’t bogged down by discipline, yet through the decades thrived in various disciplines of design. Shelving his fashion design career for a time, he and partner Ricky Toledo pioneered in lifestyle retail, bringing to the local market their unique, even quirky finds from abroad, and also introducing the works of Filipino designers and artists, such as foremost jewelry designer Wynwyn Ong. In whatever he does, Chito brings his defining strength—his eye for design and his taste, expressed with considerable wit. I can never forget one quotable quote from Chito, describing a tacky sight: “That woman has taste—all of it bad!”
His Makati home is the best calling card he has to show his talent in decorating space. He makes eclecticism less fearsome.
In his entire design career, Chito has made maximalism less foreboding, even accessible and elegant.
Chito lives and breathes style on his own terms. That has always been the case since his childhood.
I first met him as a precocious kid—I was in grade seven or a freshman at St. Theresa’s and our homeroom teacher, Sr. Emma Vijandre, ICM, who would be like a second mother to me in my adulthood, invited her youngest brother to join our field trip. Popping in was this grader from La Salle Greenhills who was so bubbly, uninhibited, and even at that age, we recalled, he had cutting wit. He brought a sketchpad; he was drawing. His sister would tell us that even the style diva Chona Kasten was growing fond of her youngest brother. This boy became the center of attention of our class that day, in awe we were of his drawing and opinions quite old for that age. An opinionated kid.
Fast forward, he grew up to be the Chito Vijandre.
Chito Vijandre has now leap-frogged to the generation that might even have a hard time spelling “psychedelia” (to be fair, even we had to Google the correct spelling).
2024 BFW brought back Bench Body that drew the crowds, Urban Revivo, Human x Jenni Contreras, Kashieca by Rhett Eala, R’Bonney Nola Gabriel, Anthony Ramirez, Cotton On, Antonina, Bon Hansen.
