MISSING A PAIR OF SOCKS ] Is that, like, crazy?

Is this where it all began? JLC was photographed--sans socks--by Steve Tirona for a 2007 cover story in Metro hiM.

John Lloyd Cruz would inevitably find himself in this blog, but for now just about the pressing issue of his exposed ankles. The guy, certainly one of the few stylish chaps in the entertainment business, has been going around town for awhile sockless, whether for a formal occasion or in a less dressy one. At the last Star Magic ball, at the Swatch event that launched him as the watch brand's endorser (see photo below by Cecile Zamora). He came to the YES! 10th anniversary party (dress code: smart casual) and his movie premiere in a grey suit with abbreviated pants and patent slip-ons. And yes, sockless.

Personally, I find it cute and refreshing, as most of his decisions tend to be (I’m a JLC fan, if I have not made it clear to you yet.). Personally, too, I have yet to be adept at wearing socks. Mostly I don’t. I usually just wear a pair to the gym or when running. Everywhere else, nothing comes between me and my choice of footwear. Except when I am quite aware that the shoes will be a bit of a discomfort given a few hours of wearing them—in this case, I have several pieces the eminent stylist Michael Salientes calls ‘socklets,’ which I have come to define as cutting the sock in two and wearing only the part that the shoe itself covers.

Maybe I just have to get accustomed to how socks look on me. Or maybe I just need to buy some. Two of my friends, however, have formed, shall we say, more evolved opinions on this matter of traipsing about sockless.

J. Lee Cu-unjieng, the other JLC in this story, and certainly one of the most stylish guys in town, says, “First, I think it depends on the shoe. Driving shoes, boat shoes, espadrilles and of course, any kind of slide or sandal, should be worn without socks. Penny loafers also may be worn sockless.

“And then it depends on the look. If you've embraced the ankle- grazing pant leg look (or shorter, like Thom Browne’s), that automatically signals going without socks, no matter the shoe. And any sort of walking short should be worn without socks. And I find it acceptable to be sockless in your khakis, too.”

Carlo Tadiar, another stylish bloke, has a more exacting, if more perplexing, take.

“In my view it is rarely acceptable for a man to wear leather shoes without socks unless he is a fashion model appearing in a fashion editorial,” says Carlo, editor of the dearly departed Metro hiM. “Nothing could be more embarrassing (and I suppose I exaggerate for emphasis) than being handsome, tall and thin and taking off your sockless shoes to reveal a woman's nylon socks on your feet. This happens more frequently than you might imagine in shoe stores in New York, and I would think in other fashion capitals. We all know that men's shoes are uncomfortable without socks, and the only way to achieve the fashion is by cheating. Nothing could be more un-stylish than straining for effect. If you were something out of Carlos Bulosan, in an ill-fitting suit and fedora and brogues without socks, that might be chic. If you're from Greenhills with a Gucci tote and John Bartlett oxfords without socks, that is not.”

Maybe going for no-socks, as the two JLCs would have it, is easier. Now about those orange shoes, that’s another story.

THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS ] As we officially close the holidays, a belated note on gift-giving

As Christmas as it got. There's red (the taka), there's green (the Kate Spade book), and a white satin ribbon 'wreath,' a gift from designer/painter Doltz Pilar.

There is a part in Michael Cunningham’s book The Hours where one of the three main characters, Clarissa (played by Meryl Streep in the film), is contemplating the perfect gift for a sick colleague. “You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for the changes.” And I thought, wouldn’t that be the kind of gift that would blow any recipient away, sick or not. A gift that defines a person, or simply say that you know someone well, or have glimpsed a shred of someone’s often-masked truth.

But there it was, the first gift of the holidays: made in plastic and whose provenance is a store you never, even in your wildest of nightmares, thought of entering. Because you’ve always seen stores like these, a P99 store perhaps, a Japanese grocery of trinkets, as a dumpsite of similarly cheap, plastic objects—temporary, bereft of taste or history. And you look at it and think this was how the bearer defines you. You, a writer, a 36-year old gay man who cares about clothes. Even your oversimplified definition of yourself refuses to make a connection to this transparent plastic thing.

And you have been given similar assembly line stuff through the years: a baseball cap that bears the insignia of the clubhouse of the village where your boss lives (from your boss, of course), a calling card holder, body wash bottles of different scents, an early warning device. All from people who, if they had actually paid attention to you enough to think of buying you a gift, would know that you don’t wear caps much less play baseball, never care for calling cards be it yours or others, never wear scents except for the rare unpleasant odor from a shirt that was never taken out to dry in the sun. And you don’t own a car.

Surely these are not examples of adhering to a gift-giving tip that remains with me from so many years ago: Give something that will make the recipient see another side of himself, that side that you, the giver, sees. Did my boss see me as someone who could be running and kicking in the fields, pushing and shoving other men to get hold of a ball (not the kind that usually come in twos)? Did she see me playing with my friend, another gay writer, who she gave the same gift to?

Because it doesn’t take much EQ to guess what was going on in a thoughtless gift-giver’s mind: a) Puwede na ‘yan kay ano. b) I’ll buy twenty of those and decide on who to give them to later. It’s like grocery shopping for relief goods, and you, the recipient, are one of the faceless flood victims, a statistic. The only difference is that donors to tragedy actually give something the recipients need.

It’s like grocery shopping for relief goods, and you, the recipient, are one of the faceless flood victims, a statistic. The only difference is that donors to tragedy actually give something the recipients need.

What I just want to say, really, is if next year you want to participate in a gift-giving frenzy, it would be nice to find a little reason why you’re doing it. Are you buying him the paperweight because you want him to know you remember him? Or you want him to remember YOU? Sometimes this whole gift-giving exercise can actually be, ironically, a little self-serving. Are you just giving gifts because everyone else is doing it? If you buy all those little trinkets to give away—which most often end up in the piles of accumulated junk on someone's working table—aren’t you just contributing to the trash of the world, encouraging manufacturers of plastic whatnots to keep manufacturing plastic whatnots that will most likely end up in some island-size Smokey Mountain and take a million years to decompose? I guess I am looking for a little more authenticity in a season when we want to show appreciation. A sensitive method to all the Christmas madness. If this new approach doesn’t win you points from the guys in the office, at least you’ll save a lot of money.

Still, there are those rare moments that a gift, no matter how carelessly given surprises you eventually. A mug that a friend gave me one New Year’s Eve, a recycled gift, has remained the one and only mug I drink coffee from at home. Another gift, one of my favorites from this season, from my sister and her husband, puts another spin to 'reycle:' they gave me their old iPod whose early discovery--she was already using a new iPod before gift-unwrapping time--made me laugh. Some gifts, no matter that the giver has shared the same to other people, connect with you. Before Christmas, our copy editor, Pete Lacaba, gave all of us a copy of the newly reissued books by Quijano de Manila (Nick Joaquin’s pen name), “Reportage on Crime” and “Reportage on Lovers,” a collection of his journalistic pieces from the ‘60s. I got the former and just read the first story called “The House on Zapote Road,” from which one of my favorite films Kisapmata was based. The prose is beautiful, and it is a lesson in imaginative, literary reportage. It turned out to be, as Cunningham would prefer it, a gift that will parent me in this field called writing, arm me for the changes, and while I’m not sure that it “locates” me, it allowed me to get lost in a world outside of my own. Naks naman!

While I may have made this whole gift-giving thing sound complicated, the key really is quite simple: listen. The other night, a friend gave me a book by the late great comic George Carlin. The dedication quotes a line from page 79. “Joan Rivers turned out to be one of those people she used to make fun of.” He knew I love Joan Rivers, and love humor books since Woody Allen. It’s one of those gifts that didn’t need wrapping, and there it was, an uncontrived smile on my face.

So I don’t really buy that crap when people say it’s hard to give me a gift because it’s hard to predict my taste: we live together (if you’re family), work together, I blog, I facebook, I tweet, my life is out there, spelled out in, I would like to assume, entirely engaging prose. When I’m awed by something I see, I text it, talk about it, my hand in my heart, like someone’s just proposed marriage to me.

I always believed gifts are born from inspiration—a shirt that reminded you of someone, a beautiful bag that so impressed you that you wanted to share it, a crafty artwork you made yourself. Inspiration, not obligation. But if you do feel obligated, it wouldn’t hurt to remember this: the thought only counts when there was actually thought put into it.

REMEMBERING COCO BANANA ] As we say goodbye to Malate as we know it

Madame Coco.A page from Metro Society shows Ernest Santiago standing guard by the entrance of his legendary club.

In light of the news that the two remaining bastions of Malate's bohemian nightlife, Penguin and Oarhouse, has announced its last calls--forever--we look back at the club that defined Manila nightlife in the '70s, Coco Banana, whose createur Ernest Santiago died two years ago this month.

To hear its devotees describe it, the look of the place fails to evoke the fabled long nights and decadent parties that made it a legend. The vignettes its habitués remember comprise an old house rustic in appearance, Machuka tile flooring retained from the original structure, bleachers made of wooden planks surrounding the dance floor, the bar at the right, and the metal and glass door entrance.

How these become by nighttime Coco Banana, the most fabulous club in the history of Manila nightlife, is a transformation born out of the virtuoso hand of Manila’s Steve Rubell, Ernest Santiago, and the cast of characters he assembles every night. “You can’t be too straight or square if you want to be at Coco. Even society people—they have to be a little mad to dare enter,” remembers a former Malate club owner. But the people alone didn’t account for each evening’s high spirits: there were the music, the drinks and the drugs.

The club was born in the era of disco and Donna Summer and, cliché as it may sound, the days of sex, drugs and rock and roll. “It was the first openly gay club in Asia,” says Louie Cruz who can’t remember if he was already wearing his off-the-shoulder blouses then. “But it was not just a gay ghetto,” offers Ricky Toledo, who started frequenting Coco as a student in Ateneo. It was the club to see and be seen, and during the Martial Law years, everyone’s fun, glamorous jailhouse of choice if you want to avoid the PC.

The place never announced its exact address. “The world knows where we are,” its tagline said. And it seemed, in its twelve-year run (it opened June 12, 1976), Manila’s nocturnal creatures knew exactly where to go when they wanted to party like it’s 1979: that old house-turned-hedonist mecca along Remedios Street, three houses from the corner where the atelier of designer Mike dela Rosa now stands. One would think the owner could have printed its location on the souvenir matchstick pads scattered at the bar. Those pads, it turned out, proved handy and popular for jotting down the name and number of one’s catch for the night.

The club was created by Santiago, a designer by day who, bored by the dreary Manila nightlife and with P25,000 to spare, decided to open Coco “para may mapuntahan naman ang mga bakla.” He was a lean butch-looking fella with jet-black shoulder-length hair who could be wearing something fabulous of his own creation (a white denim trench coat perhaps, sprinkled with rhinestones) or something that enhances his gym bunny reputation (military pants with a metal-studded belt, a cut-off shirt and a pair of leather boots).

'You can’t be too straight or square if you want to be at Coco. Even society people—they have to be a little mad to dare enter'

Then in his 30s, Santiago was the club’s proprietor, creative director, Mother Superior, and door bitch. By 9pm at the entrance, he would look members of the queue head to toe and decide if one would be let in or be told to go home and dress up (most of those declined actually go home and dress up; those who don’t follow a party’s costume theme is ‘quarantined’ for an hour and a half at the holding area before they could join the party). Those whose "vibes" he simply didn’t like were told the place was full. He wasn’t called ‘tarurit’ (or mataray) for nothing. “He was a force to reckon with,” says Chito Vijandre, who once won a trip to Paris for showing up as the lion in The Wiz. “He had the most piercing eyes,” he says of Santiago.

Weeding out the undesirables at the entrance allows Ernest to create the potent cocktail of a party crowd the club was famous for: a mix of artists, drag queens, diplomats, journalists, show biz celebrities and members of Manila’s 400. For Santiago, it is always about the mix—and the liberating feeling of being in a huge crowd packed in a small place, with the collision of everyone’s breath, sweat, perfume and smoke just adding to the dizzying effect of one’s tall drink or downer of preference.

The dance hall itself was a dimly lit place, with only a few pin lights landing on guests’s faces, “so that everyone gravitates to the dance floor like an enigma,” Santiago says with theatrical hands. A spotlight quickly locates a new guest’s arrival each time the door opens “so that everyone feels like a star.” On special evenings, a significant portion of Remedios will be closed and a red carpet rolled out for Coco’s guests—velvet ropes, spotlights and all.

Whenever a foreign celebrity arrived in town, there was a big chance he or she will be at Coco. At any given night, one can meet a royalty from Europe, a baron, a vicomte (if one is lucky, even get to go back with said royalty to his hotel). It was a melting pot of nationalities. For young men like Toledo, Coco was “a lesson in international relations. What they don’t teach you in school, you learn at Coco.”

During the Marcos years, Santiago’s flair for entertaining was so renown Malacanang would often call on his services to take care of its VIP guests. Champagne, needless to say, flowed like water in the club on those occasions. Once, he got a call from Francis Ford Coppola asking if he could accommodate cast members of the Apocalypse which was then filming in the Philippines. Celebrities from Sean Connery to the Village People have partied at Coco. Felipe Rose, that American-Indian-attired Villager, loved Coco so much he stayed on in Manila after the rest of his group had left. He even found himself a boyfriend. When Linda Carter, Wonder Woman, landed on the cover of Time Magazine, she wore a Coco Banana shirt bought from the club’s souvenir shop.

You want a tablet of Q, Louie Cruz will gladly put one on your tongue--but he wants to see you swallow it. 'Because he might want to take it in his own time, but you’re there to get high sabay.'

The popularity of Coco was such that it was immortalized in a popular Hotdogs song which became a Nora Aunor movie (Annie Batungbakal). The same song made a household name of hairstylist Budji Layug, more famous then as Budjiwara or Budji for short (“Buhok mo’y Budji, talampaka’y Gucci”), one of a batch of fabulous young men—which included Louie Cruz, Ron Gomez and Ruben Nazareth—who made Coco their second home, fresh from their training under Vidal Sassoon in London.

There was a lot to love about Coco. For the entrance fee that began at five pesos (which reached P150 before it closed), one is assured of an elaborate visual treat beginning with Santiago’s lighting effects and a show featuring gay performers. James Cooper as Diana Ross was a star and so was a group called Coquettes who performed musical reviews. The club’s excellent production of West Side Story ran for eight weeks, prompting the CCP to write a review in its gazette. Then there was the dance music—the latest from underground cult clubs in New York. The swing was at its peak. Gloria Gaynor. Alicia Bridges. Yvonne Elliman. “People really get up and dance like it was a show,” recalls Vijandre.

And everyone brought their baon because Santiago prohibited any drug-dealing in the club. The drugs of choices were Quaaludes (called “Q”) or Mandrax (then “ekis), and the occasional cocaine. You want a tablet of Q, Louie Cruz will gladly put one on your tongue--but he wants to see you swallow it. “Because he might want to take it in his own time, but you’re there to get high sabay.”

Drugs were so commonplace that an accidental dropping of a tablet will cause a mild commotion—everyone will start searching the floor to snatch it. Otherwise, Cruz jests, it was a welcome idea to vacuum-lick the floor.

The ekis action would reach its peak at The Rocky Horror Picture Show productions. Santiago played Mr. Frank-N-Furter, the mad scientist slash transvestite at the center of the ‘70s musical on sexual confusion and ambiguous morality. “Everyone was already drugged when the show starts,” says Vijandre. “And that’s the only way one would understand that show!”

Most nights, guests would pass out wasted on the cushioned bleachers, from which they will be carted off by their drivers who would knock on Coco’s doors come four in the morning ready to retrieve their senyoras.

“Walang away-away no’n,” Santiago recalls, “Everyone was kalmado, parang nakatingin lang sa langit lahat.”

Although there were mild catfights here and there, the one memorable eksena took place one Saturday night between a pair of very prominent, very rich lesbian lovers—and a Bvlgari necklace. As soon as lesbian#1 found out lesbian#2 was at Coco with a date, #1 approached #2, and dragged her out of the club by her Bvlgari. And because #1 refused to contain her rage, she slammed one of Coco’s lights with the necklace. The scene lasted a whole ten minutes--afterwhich everyone went about dancing again as if nothing happened--but Manila society talked about the Bvlgari incident for weeks.

And then there will be another Santiago gimmick to talk about: an Orientalia party, a L’Uomo Vogue-inspired night of all white and mirrors all over. “Parang Midsummer Night’s Dream araw-araw,” describes a regular. From nowhere, muscled men were carrying a Cleopatra-wannabe to the dance hall. One time, Santiago rented the little people from neighbor Hobbit House so that he entered the party escorted by a throng of elves. Once there were mannequins everywhere painted with street graffiti, or an ukay-ukay theme, with vintage clothes that hung from a number of suspended copper wires. A favorite of the gay men were the horses at the Carousel-themed parties. “They will sit on the horses holding their drinks. It was a great place for vogue-ing. And cruising,” says Toledo, who once appeared at Coco wearing a Roman toga and sandals, holding a party mask with its replica painted on his face.

“Everything was done in good taste,” says Santiago, “wild but in good taste.” Not surprising since it was the favorite hangout of the style and fashion set, from designers like Inno Sotto, Rusty Lopez and Romulo Estrada, to top models like Anna Bayle, and fashion patrons like Chito Madrigal. One could watch Chona Kasten or Mary Prieto all night just being themselves, keeping their poise no matter the number of drinks. Once, socialite Cristina Valdez showed up in Eliza Doolitle’s Ascot garb complete with parasol. Designer Larry Leviste walked in as a bum-revealing net-stockinged showgirl. Joe Salazar won a prize for his stylized Ibong Adarna costume: a bodysuit with feathers, sequins and mirror chips. Helena Guerrero of Azabache fame stole one evening when she came in full geisha regalia.

Much as there was always someone to look at, there was always something to turn one’s gaze above eye level—-a huge jar with an outrageous, larger-than-life flower arrangement perhaps. Santiago has a reason for this: when the eyes are looking up, they are strained to become bigger. And big spotlight eyes were all the rage in those days.

At one point in the evening, just when everyone is in the highest spirits, say when Diana Ross is on the last notes of “I’m Coming Out,” a wave of Santiago’s hand would bring the music to a halt and a collective “Awwwww” and whistles will be heard from the crowd. Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer’s “No More Tears” would come in past 4am, a signal from Santiago that says, ‘no more partying, enough is enough.” Most nights, guests would pass out wasted on the cushioned bleachers, from which they will be carted off by their drivers who would knock on Coco’s doors come four in the morning ready to retrieve their senyoras.

But nobody it seemed wanted to leave Coco Banana. At six in the morning, one could still hear glasses tinkling inside.

Even in the last days of disco, the club’s loyalists continued to want more.

In 1988, however, Santiago thought the club has had its time. Vijandre recalls the tears during that last big party. And everyone made sure they partied and got wasted as if doomsday was but a few hours away. Nobody remembers what exactly happened the night of the last big Coco shebang--and with the club's reputation, that's totally understandable. In fact, Santiago recalls no such party. In his mind, he gave no announcement of Coco’s closing. If his memory serves, he got up one morning and locked the place forever.

--Jerome Gomez

This story appeared in the May 2007 issue of Metro Society.

THE INVITE ] Erik Matti's most personal film has arrived

Saw this on my table the other day and thought it an invite to some big time lifestyle-oriented kasosyalan. But the matte black envelope sealed with a candlewax stamp bearing the initials EM turned out to be from the director Erik Matti, and inside was a four-page letter inviting me to the screening of his first full-length feature in three years (his last was the Bong Revilla-starrer Exodus). It was not lifestyle material but it is shushal: by invitation only for a one-time public screening. And big time: it will be at the CCP.

The film is called The Arrival, and it is the director-writer-cook’s most personal film. So personal that the four-page letter was written in longhand. Or so I thought. I texted a friend to ask if Erik indeed painstakingly wrote each invitation. “Please say yes,” I added. Wouldn’t that have been so chic? And I remember Erik saying while on the road to drop me off at home na sumasakit na kamay niya sa kakasulat ng imbitasyon! Of course I learned last night that 500 people have been invited to the event. It would indeed be chic if he had written each one of the invites longhand personally, but it would also be kind of crazy (although producing your own film in this day and age and not charging your audience for it is already kind of crazy).

“Finally I have made a film that waited for me without the hounding of a playdate," Erik wrote. "A film understanding enough to let me be and not rush me in my erratic and laidback ways. A film that not for once questioned or judged me at anything that I make it tell. A film that has trusted me all the way over and beyond it ever could.

“Finally, I have produced a film that respected its creator despite its weaknesses and flaws, its arrogance and conceit."

In the past three years, he has tried his hand at writing a book (still unpublished), opened and run a successful bar (Mogwai at Cubao X) and created its menu, directed TVCs, and shamelessly performed a lap dance wearing only a pair of skimpy animal-print trunks in a promo short for this year's Cinemalaya. "All these just to satisfy my need to create."

The Arrival looks like a small film with a small-time main character. "A fictional sort of documentary-type narrative feature that tells the coming-of-age story of a 46-year-old loner named Leo."

“Is it possible to follow a person’s uneventful, almost insignificant life and still make it exciting enough to be a movie that an audience would want to experience from start to finish?”

We’ll see. Although we already heard from those who’ve seen it in advance that it’s quite a triumph. Anyway, from the invite alone, we’re already impressed.

THE PHARELLISM ] The Pacman from Gensan wears Armani

Manny makes it to Time Magazine Asia.

WHEN Eric Pineda first sat down with Manny Pacquiao in 2004, just when the boxer was near the tipping point of making it big, the veteran manager did not find it easy to spot the diamond in the GenSan boy’s rough coating. “He was just wearing jogging pants, a jacket and a beanie cap,” recalls Pineda, a veteran publicist, political and marketing consultant, who is white haired and speaks with a husky, imposing voice of a longtime sports commentator. He is now the business manager of Pacquiao after the boxer and Rod Nazario, the man who hired Pineda to sell Manny as product endorser, had a falling out a few years back. The publicist told Manny in those early days, “You win your fight with Morales and your whole world will change 360 degrees.” And that was what happened. And so the sparkle of celebrity began to surface in Pacquiao.

After the boxer won his second bout with Morales with a TKO in Las Vegas in 2006, there was no stopping the fast and furious pace of the Pacquiao phenomena. He was fighting in the biggest boxing venues in the world, knocking out Oscar dela Hoya in 2008, declared the number one “pound-for-pound” boxer in the world by boxing bible Ring Magazine, stopping for photo ops with the likes of Mark Wahlberg, and being followed by TMZ. Clearly, the 'siyano hiphop look Manny sported in ’94 is now but a blurry memory tucked in the farthest nook of his walk-in closet. These days he is making the rounds of parties and press appearances either in a bold colored argyle sweater and a matching painter’s cap ala Pharell Williams. Or speaking to fans in England in a windowpane-patterned grey Giorgio Armani suit paired with spanking new leather shoes in tan. Observers say people began seeing a new and improved Manny when he moved the parting of his hair from the Palito-style middle to the more proper and gentlemanly left. Suddenly Manila’s fashionable gay men were asking each other: “Would you do Manny?” And the answer would be: “Yes.”

After all, while he obviously doesn’t look like a fashion model, one could already say he embodies the modern GQ archetype : a successful man in a well-made suit, an athletic body underneath, supple skin thanks to years of training and discipline, and for that bit of edge, a neatly-trimmed moustache and goatee perfectly framing a smile that is simultaneously pleasant, naughty and aware of his place is in the world order. He was recently named by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most influential people of 2009, and he joins the likes of Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant in this year’s Celebrity 100 List over at Forbes Magazine who reports that he earned $40 million from the second half of 2008 to the first half of 2009 alone, making him the sixth highest paid athlete in the world. Just recently, he appeared in the latest Nike TVC where he shares screen time with Bryant, Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova. You can’t get any bigger than that. On Philippine shores, his name these days is only associated with the top brands: McDonalds, San Miguel Beer, Ginebra and Smart. There is a string of other major endorsements that follow, of course, from flavored energy drinks to pain relief tablets.

He is our very own Million Dollar Man and he is playing it to the hilt. But the snazzy personal style didn’t happen overnight, or because a stylist was made to join his famously over-populated entourage. Eric and his wife Macy, who runs her own PR agency, began by giving Manny clothes as gifts, stuff he could wear to appearances and functions. “We tried to convince him that if you look at your contemporaries in his category, all of them wear suits. So dahan-dahan nasanay naman, simula sa jeans muna, then longsleeves, slowly the suit came into the picture.” The suit has another layer of attraction for Manny: he had recently seen The Godfather 2 and thought Al Pacino’s wardrobe was something he could adapt. Hence, the grey windowpane prints, the greys, the occassional vests over a crisp white shirt, finished off with a derby hat. He sometimes shops with his entourage or with family, going to stores like Banana Republic for casuals and relaxed suits, Salvatore Ferragamo and Armani for the more formal outfits. He likes going to the Metro Park Mall in LA and scouring the Ed Hardy stores there, also True Religion, Rock and Republic and Seven for All Mankind. For shoes, he prefers the ones with narrow square tips, from Ferragamo or Louis Vuitton.

People began seeing a new and improved Manny when he moved the parting of his hair from the Palito-style middle to the more proper, gentlemanly left. Suddenly Manila’s fashionable gay men were asking each other: “Would you do Manny?” And the answer would be: “Yes.”

But the Pacman’s accessory of the moment are clearly the hats. He recently bought $2000 worth of them in LA, from the Justin Timberlake fedoras to the painter’s cap to the raffia hats which reminds Manny of home. “Buri ‘yan,” he would say. “Gumagawa kami niyan sa Gensan.”

If there is anything left from what the Pinedas call Manny’s “hiphopper”days, it’s his fascination for bling. “As most Asians and Filipinos, you associate your success with the watch you wear, so when he won the Barrera fight, he bought his first Rolex watch, a Daytona with a mother of pearl face.” This was followed by another piece from the same brand after the last Morales match, a bezel diamond-studded piece. Recently, Pineda reports, Manny has taken to wearing a Patek Philippe for the more formal occasions. Manny also has an 18k gold necklace with a pendant shaped like two boxing gloves, also diamond-studded, a gift from a fight sponsor.

These days, when in the Philippines, Manny shuttles from his palatial home in General Santos to the the family residence in Brentville in Santa Rosa Laguna, a property the Pacquiaos acquired because of its proximity to the Brent International School where Manny’s two sons are enrolled. When work demands that he be mostly in Manila, for tapings of his show Pinoy Records, for example, and the Robin Padilla-headlined teleserye Totoy Bato, he mostly stays at the Renaissance Hotel where he and his entourage of ten to fifteen people (which includes his lawyer, bodyguards, personal masseur) occupy top money suites.

Team Pacquiao drives around the city in a couple of bullet-proof vehicles: a Hummer 2 and an Escalade. Pineda says his ward is really not a diehard car fan anyway. “For him its just a way to get from point A to point B.” Still, the right car is part of the star package. “When we started working, I asked him to buy a new car. ‘Manny Pacquiao ka eh.’ He bought a brand new Pajero which he uses when he’s in Manila. And then he bought a big trailer, a Porsche Cayenne na binili sa US tapos inuwi dito, a Mercedes SL 500 sportscar. He wanted to buy a Lamborghini but I advised him not to. ‘Di mo kelangan yan, baka maaksidente ka pa.’”

Clearly, he is more keen on acquiring real estate property. Apart from the Gensan and Brentville homes, the Pacquiaos, says the Pinedas, have several other properties: a townhouse near Medical City in Ortigas, a house in BF Homes Paranaque and another in Davao, all bought within the past four years. The house in LA is already in its finishing touches, with wife Jinkee being very hands on when it comes to the choice in furniture--in consultation with an American interior designer. The house, a 4,500-square meter property located in an upscale neighborhood dotted with celebrity homes, is reported to have cost $2.17 million and was bought March this year.

While the Pacquiaos are clearly learning the ropes of living large, Pineda insists his ward’s character hasn’t changed much. His idea of a party is still a big celebration with all of his friends where everything is happening all at once: drinking, darts, billiards, singing, dancing, card games. “He is still as grounded as when I first met him,” says Pineda.

And the guy knows how to give back. He has consistenty partnered with the PCSO and PAGCOR for charity projects. He is building a village called Pacquiao Heights in General Santos which will have factories that will give jobs and benefit the people of Saranggani.

Indeed, the poor boy from Gensan who dropped out of school at a very young age to help his mother sell bread has done very well for himself. He hangs out with Hollywood stars, shakes hand with state leaders and tycoons, shops in the best stores and dines in the best restaurants.

How does a Manny Pacquiao order in a place like, say, the upscale Nuvo at Manila’s Greenbelt restaurant row? “I would usually order for him,” says Pineda. “Alam ko naman ang gusto nya eh, basta may beef, chicken, fish. No pork.”

Pacquiao may not be the best person to peruse a fine dining menu, but the guy certainly knows how to reward excellent service. The last time Team Pacquiao checked out of the Renaissance in Makati, the staff bid their very important guest goodbye with bigger smiles than usual. The tip Manny left them: P100,000.

In style parlance, that’s what you call a flourish.


Appeared in the May 2009 Filipino Style Magazine.

TALK TO THE COOK ] Victor Magsaysay cooks inihaw na puso ng saging from Paris

An heirloom dish from Magsaysay's lola in Agusan. At right, the chef at La Cuisine.

I met Victor Magsaysay in the very late ‘90s. We were introduced by the fashion choreographer Ariel Lozada in Matina where I used to hang out (people used to say I was already part of the furniture). He was a bit inebriated. He was wearing a shirt of his own design, a simple tee with a cross stitched on a sleeve. He says now that it was 1997, he was 25, and the tee also had MANILA inscribed on it in blood red.

I’m not sure now but I think that his designs have a bit of a cult following then, which included Cecile Zamora and Michael Salientes. We exchanged only a few words but I thought there was something very sexy about him. A few days after that he was off to New York and would not be heard from since then.

While he has remained in touch with a couple of friends, I only got in touch with Victor again through facebook and found he has become a chef. He recently cooked a dinner inspired by authentic Filipino recipes at the la Cuisine in Paris. I asked him to share a recipe for Swank and he politely agreed.

When did you start being a chef? How?
I was always interested in food. I am still primarily a visual artist though my training is in design. I started missing Pinoy food here in Paris seven years ago.

You used to design clothes, right? What made you shift?
I started with a tailoring shop in Makati when I was 17 then went to school in FIT for menswear design. I was part of an art collective called ORFI (Organization for the Return of Fashion Interest) in New York with two partners, an architect and a stylist. We were nominated Best Menswear Designer in 2001 at the CFDA. Then, in 2002 I moved to Paris to design furniture for a friend. I think food is just another expression of creativity, you work with ingredients proportion and timing. It's very similar.

Clockwise from topmost left: the entrance of La Cuisine; sliced eggplant and cherry tomatoes for the pinakbet; preparing the dinner; an appetizer of what looks like the local okoy; and what looks like a sawsawan of vinegar; Magsaysay instructing a French staffer.

What's your favorite part about cooking?
Imagining the elements together.

What's your idea of a perfect breakfast?
Rice soup! And all it's variations...lugao, congee, jok, khao tom etc. etc.

The most memorable meal you've had.
Food for me brings back memories and emotions it's hard to say...

The most memorable meal you've cooked.
My first omellette

Most important lesson learned in the kitchen.
Find your groove and stay calm.


Inihaw na puso ng saging
(A recipe of my grandmother from Cabadbaran, Agusan)

Grill the banana heart in an open flame until the outer leaves are charred and burned and the banana heart is soft when squeezed.

Remove the burned outer skin ‘til you reach the tender heart.

Slice lengthwise to get eight or more separate spears.

Marinate for two hours in oil, salt and vinegar to avoid discoloration.

Discard excess vinegar and lay out the spears on a deep tray.

Simmer coconut milk and pour over the banana heart.

Add sliced red onions and sliced tomatos.

Squeeze native biasong lime or kombava rind on the salad.

Serve with grilled fish or tapa.


Photographs by Yusuke Kinaka. For Victor's entire menu (in French), click here.

NOW PUT ON A SCARF ] The inspirational book you don't have to read

The girl on the cover is Julie, one of Schuman's favorite subjects. "She is very chic but she is far from perfect, physically at least. Julie has one leg slightly shorter than the other, has very slim arms and walks with a very slight limp. However, she has never let her physical challenges...diminish her presence."

It’s not about fashion, but self-expression. People introducing themselves by way of clothing. By way of gestures, little nuances. As in a pocket square that, at closer inspection, reveals itself to be not just one square of fabric, but three layers—white and two shades of light blue—handstitched on top of the other, with three embroidered dots near the edge of a corner. It’s a woven friendship band on the ankle of a distinguished-looking man wearing a grey suit with abbreviated pants. A little flower pin on the peak of a suit jacket’s lapel. A fan. A hat. A glove. Or the utter simplicity of a white shirt and a navy skirt (put on a pair of pearls and you have the impeccable simplicity of Carolina Herrera). Forget the writing, it was never the author’s strength. He always sounded a little silly to me (this one obviously went through the eyes of an editor). The photographs are beautiful and inspiring. Nice to have during those days when there’s absolutely nothing to wear. It’s not about trends. It’s not Vogue. It’s more real and yet more uplifting. It’s about the man on the street being comfortable in his or her own fabulousness. Jerome Gomez

You can buy the book (a thousand bucks at National), or just click this.

TOO COOL ] The Brothers De Guia do decor and accessories

Or something like it. The photographer At Maculangan snapped these images during his recent visit to the De Guia home in Tuding, Benguet. Above, photocopied image on acetate of Kidlat's brood: Kidlat, Kabunyan and Kawayan. Below: the works at New York's Subversive by Justin Giunta (or this at the Spring 2010 show of Peter Som) do not have a chance against Kabunyan's earthy, beautifully abundant DIY neckpiece.

Cool runs in the blood.



Photographs by At Maculangan.

THE WISH LIST ] If we're rich next year, we're buying designer

From men.style.com's report on the best shoes from the spring 2009 runways, our favorites (clockwise from top left): Clarks Wallabees festooned with rusty staples (not to be tried in real life unless you will have shoes lined) for Patrik Ervell's show; woven leather mocs from First by Jeffrey Campbell for Loden Dager's collection that had a Latin American vibe; Steven Cox and Daniel Silver's collaboration with Florsheim for the Duckie show resulted in these suede bucks in neon-bright cerulean blue and citron yellow; Simon Spurr's Grenson suede oxford and espadrilles in an off-season appearance.

THE SHIRT TALE ] Rhett Eala on why yellow is the new black

Eala and (right) his biggest hit.

The simplest ideas are often the biggest hits. Put the country’s map on a shirt and get ready for the cash registers to ring non-stop. Whowouldathought? Well, Rhett Eala did. His collared cotton pique shirts with an embroidered Philippine map on the chest for Collezione C2 is turning out to be this year’s sartorial staple. No small thanks to the Aquino grandkids who made it almost a uniform during the length of the wake of their much beloved grandmother in August. And thanks to the elder Aquino, the Senator Noynoy, who wore one when he announced his presidential bid last week. A week before that, it was Mar Roxas, declaring he was stepping down from the presidential race to make way for Noy, in a blue number. From its fansite at Facebook, it looks like it’s not only the Aquinos who are sporting the shirt: it is increasingly becoming the uniform for people doing something good for the country. And now that Noy is leading in the presidential race survey, it looks like we’ll be seeing more of Rhett’s hit up to election season next year. Here, TheSwankStyle talks to the guy who put the shirt with the map, well, on the map.

How do you start your day?
I usually wake up around 6am. I go to the gym for about an hour then I'm in the office around 8:30

A moment/time/activity in the day you look forward to?
I really enjoy going to the stores and checking on whats moving and talking to clients and getting their feedback.

Describe your work station?
My desk is piled with swatches, color charts, pantone books and colored markers. I also have my laptop in front of me most of the day.

How do you work? Is there a certain time of day where you feel you are more inspired? Do you need music?
I work best alone if I'm working on some ideas. No particular time in designing. I always have a sketch pad when I travel. I usually have music on, mostly Coldplay sometimes Kanye West. I walk a lot when I'm abroad, in Manila I don't walk much.

What inspires you?
Anything can inspire me, a piece of art, music, a gesture, an old picture or something I've read.

Your favorite source of inspiration.
Books about fashion designers on how they work and develop their ideas. Right now I'm reading about Martin Margiela. Before that it was Cristobal Balenciaga.

Your favorite smell.
I love the smell of coffee in the morning

Like father, like son. Ninoy wearing Collezione (a screencap from docu The Last Journey of Ninoy) and Noynoy at the Club Filipino Wednesday last week. Noy photo by Patrick Uy.

What is your favorite yellow object/memory?
I saw a Coldplay concert earlier this year and when they sang "Yellow" they threw out about 50 giant yellow balloons to the audience and they were tossed around the concert hall until some of them burst then out came yellow confetti.

When you thought of putting the Philippine map on a shirt, what were the other thoughts that accompanied it?
I was thinking how I would feel wearing a the map on my chest.

Would you say the Pilipinas shirt is your biggest hit?
Yes I think so.

Has the orders/demand increased? Are there special orders coming from the Aquino camp?
We have been growing ever since we launched the map series last year. We have a hard time keeping the map shirts in stock but we manage. We do get orders from them.

Where are you taking the Philippine map stamp of Collezione? What’s in store in the coming months?
We are expanding the line to accessories and working on a bespoke line. We just opened two Makati stores in Greeenbelt 5 and Glorietta 3. We are opening a concept store in Rockwell on Oct. 8.

What are you doing this weekend?
Probably just watch the US open championship on TV.

THE 505 ] The editor reunites with an old pal

Whether it was Alexander McQueen’s revolutionary bum trousers that inspired it or what then was a new obsession among gym-going men to expose their pelvic bones, I don’t remember anymore. But when the first few years of the 2000s came in, I started to wear the low-waist. Didn’t matter that I had no bum whatsoever to flatter, nor that bone to expose. Most of the fashionable friends began wearing them. They’re all you see on TV, on billboards, on the racks. Suddenly, the waistline has moved from, well, the waist down to somewhere near the hip. Suddenly, just when my normal-waist formerly dark 505s have aged into a covetable fadedness, when they’ve just achieved that rock star cool, they needed to be pushed back in the closet to make way for the new and exciting low-rise.

Being a short man with slim hips, the new waist should logically be an unattractive choice for me since it needed a wider hip—not to mention a considerably plumper bum—to hold on to. But I wore them anyway. I was young and very easily swayed by the next fashionista. Never mind that the lower waist made my torso look just about as long as my short legs. Its cut sort of jived with the slim silhouette I’ve always insisted on since becoming aware of which clothes look good for my built. It made my legs look leaner. And since I usually have to get a pair from the women’s section because of my smaller proportions, and because of the low rise’s considerably abbreviated crotch, the pants also made me feel like a girl. Apparently, the worst have yet to come: the low-rise skinny pants.

'I bought it during that momentous jeans explosion of 1998, when Tom Ford declared it was cool again to wear jeans anywhere and be boheme.'

Throughout its eight-year respite at the far end of the closet, I would always catch a glimpse of my pair of Levi’s 505s, and always thought how cool it would be to be able to wear them again. Early this year, I thought of finally ending its reclusion. It was, after all, turning a decade old. I bought it during that momentous jeans explosion of 1998, when Tom Ford declared it was cool again to wear jeans anywhere and be boheme.

I brought the pair to one of those tailoring shops in Recto (beside the Isetann underpass) and had it adjusted to my now 32 waist. Like friends who never saw each other for years, we took a little time getting the hang of each other. More importantly, what seemed a little awkward at first was getting reintroduced to its high waist. Disconcerting more like. Did I really use to wear it this high? For the first few times I would casually pull it down to my hips but it would stubbornly inch its way back up, as if asserting its own person. Why do I suddenly want it to be who it isn’t? We were natural buddies from the moment I first wore it. We had such good times together, too many wine and caeperinha and Blue Ice, seen too many nights out in Insomnia and Giraffe and ABGs.

So I gave in. So yeah you can say we’re back together. It helps, of course, that I just recently noticed that most of my grown-up guy friends have always worn their waistlines where it should be. That the return of the wide-legged trousers last season had made the normal waist essential again matters little. I seem to have arrived at an age where I barely care about trends anymore when it comes to my wardrobe. Now at 34 (age, not waistline), and at the risk of sounding like Oprah, here’s what I know for sure: the higher waist makes my short legs look longer. While that alone is enough for me, they also allow for a wider, longer crotch, hence the boys have more room to move around. And yes, the considerably longer crotch actually makes it look like I have a more considerable bulge. I no longer feel like a girl. In fact, I think I’ve become a man.

Appeared originally in Metro hiM 2008.

THE STYLE ADVISORY ] J.Lee Cu-unjieng on the return of the plaid flannel

From left: The 'Heads in grunge; slacker dude now hard of hearing; and a look from Michael Bastian Fall 2009.

I always thought there was something wrong about Pinoy men wearing plaid flannels. It's like sporting emo hair with your pimply, oily face in the midst of humid Manila. It's emo alright, as in seeing you is me dying a little.

So when I saw a couple of supposed-to-be-hip brands (JT's eponymous label and Burkman Bros)showcasing the prints in their racks from last night's Fashion's Night Out in NYC , an effort of Mademoiselle Wintour to encourage people to shop and help the economy, it was quite alarming (in my still-in-bed-alarmed kind of way). Especially after I hopped on to men.style.com. There it is, one of their top three looks for fall: The Wanderer, a euphemism, really, for The Slacker. Even Marc by Marc Jacobs has little plaid patterns peeking out of from its knits. So bothered was I that I immediately asked the eminent stylist J.Cu-unjieng this morning what his take is on the return of grungy plaid.

"I'm not a big fan of these grunge/lumberjack plaids, especially if they're flannel...ugh! However, if the color combinations are interesting and new, I could probably be swayed--not to wear them, but to put them on a very manly man.

'That look is like 90's grunge, so without their knowing it, it's sort of retro and not terribly original.'

"I do understand that they're big in the skateboard culture, but that look is like 90's grunge, so without their knowing it, it's sort of retro and not terribly original. I don't particularly care for it in this country: it looks very heavy and dark, so it's not a look I would suggest."

Thank heavens.

"The only plaid I will wear," J continues, "is a gingham, but again, it should be in an interesting color, not the usual red or blue that looks like an Italian restaurant's tablecloth. I recently purchased a yellow one, which is nice and light."

I will never do grunge. Never have, never will. I have a blue Italian restaurant tablecloth, though. And I wear it as often as I can. JG

FRESHLY INKED ] Raya Martin is walking wounded

Why get a new tattoo?
tattoos are landmarks to my life. and i'm just overwhelmed right now.

What is the image? Why this?
it's from an amorsolo illustration of a boy who doesn't want to take a bath. i could relate to him, his look, his stance. charlie brown calls it "the depressed stance".

Who did it? Where?
award winning joe saliendra who also did my first one. he has a shop in bf homes pque. website http://www.tattooatjoe.com/

Describe your surroundings, the weather.
dark was the night

How long did it take?
probably just 30 minutes but it felt like forever because the neck area is extra sensitive.

You already have a tattoo on your arm. What is it and how old?
i got my first tattoo last year after cannes. it was my first time to show a film there. end of june just before my birthday. it's a woodcut design of the eye of god that i tore off the airline magazine. it's my personal agimat.

Are you marking an important moment with this new one?
alexis died. he was my bestfriend in cinema and more importantly in life.

What were your directions/specifications to the tattoo artist?i trust joe's taste so much i let him do this thing. i just wanted lines, nothing more nothing less.

Raya Martin is a filmmaker whose works include Maicling Pelicula Nang Ysang Indio Nacional, Autohystoria, Now Showing and, most recently Independencia.

GREY SKIES, HITCHCOCK BIRDS ] Cecile Van Straten on her new shirt line

Ino Caluza (inside dressing area) and Michael Salientes (right photo) both wear the white shirt with extended shoulders.

Why Heather Miss Grey?
I wanted to call it Heather Grey, but I googled and there’s a band apparently, so I added “Miss” so that if I google, I know they’re talking about the brand.

What inspired the initial designs?
The designs were inspired by the time I was trying to lose weight and camouflage my problem areas, and also when I’m too lazy to think of what to wear. I was thinking “comfy chic.”

Why the somber colors?
I love somber colors. By experience I knew that grey is a very hard to sell in Manila, but I love it. To me it’s like navy or black, a basic color, but very informal. I love heather grey, black, white.

Who helped you with the illustrations? And will there be menswear?
I gave Cristine Villamiel a direction and she came up wit the very Hitchcock prints.
Menswear yes. I have to develop more cause Michael (Salientes) gets mad kung walang choice!

Heather Miss Grey is available at Bleach Catastrophe, Greenbelt 5 and Trinoma. Left photo from here; right from Chuvaness.com.

RULES OF STYLE ] Damn smart advice from a barber

"Pag malinis ang porma mo, dapat medyo bastos ang buhok mo. Pag bastos ang porma mo, dapat malinis ang buhok mo." --Mang Artem

Mang Artem used to hold court in a small barbershop in the corner of Orosa Street and Pedro Gil. All the Malate designers used to go to him--Auggie, Pitoy, Joe. Accomodating and makuwento, Artem was a quintessential barbero. He died a few years back of heart failure.

THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE ] In which we carelessly judge a magazine by its cover

VOGUE

Charlize again? Federer again? Hugh Jackman? This is THE September Issue?

More like back issue.
BAZAAR

Makes you wonder if they still have money to put out the next one when they can't even afford a real photo shoot anymore. Remember July?



ESQUIRE

Big, bold, brash. But who the hell is Sam Worthington?
DETAILS

Tom Brady does Advocate. Oh, this is Details?



VANITY FAIR

Double cover. Similar fabulous poses. Some wicked fairy won the argument

at the editorial meeting.

BRING IT BACK ] Our pitch for the return of the knapsack

Because it's the bag of a hunter, and according to the eminent collector/antiquarian Mon Villegas its origins is in the Philippines. In the '70s, two enterprising Westerners went up to Mountain Province and found this.

Because it reminds you of the best times of your life: high school.

Because if your girlfriend has a knapsack, it wouldn't be so bad to carry her bag around while you're HHWW.

Because you wear it like a man: chest out and ready for battle.

Because you wear it, it doesn't wear you.

Because everything else feels like a purse.

BLACK RIBBON AFFAIR ] 3 more fabulous things at last Friday's National Artists protest

Let's take a little break from all the seriousness. At the Luksang Bayan para sa National Artists Award, the required accessory was a black ribbon, but the favorite accessory was the point-and-shoot, the better to spread the spirit on Facebook (graphic designer Ige Ramos calls the event the "Best Facebook EB Ever"). But among the sea of black-clad mourners that afternoon, here are three who caught our eye. 1) Who wore the black shirt best? Bencab. 2) While her contemporaries are into Botox, Celeste Legaspi proudly shows the years. That shock of fabulous white hair. Nakaka-tuliro. 3) He may be an old man but the pair of red-rimmed glasses says Arturo Luz is always, always modern.

Photographs from Ige Ramos's Facebook.

TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE ] How to get shot by The Sartorialist

From here by way of LDV. Click image to enlarge.

YELLOW WRISTBANDS, ORANGE CHUCKS ] Butch Garcia on creating the Bagets world

Collage by JR Agra

I have done other films with Maryo J. De los Reyes before Bagets. I was kind of part of his team. We worked on the concept of Bagets together with the writer Jake Tordesillas and the producer William Leary. We never knew of course that what we were working on was going to be phenomenal. All we wanted to do was to make a really good youth film.

The look of Bagets was not influenced by any local or foreign film before it, nor was it influenced by what was going on in the fashion scene here or abroad. I was inspired by a Beatles poster done by the famous graphic artist Peter Max. He was very popular in the ‘60s, and I wanted that type of coloring. I wanted lots and lots of colors, different color pants for a different color shirt layered on another colored shirt. The kids will love it, I thought.



Apart from the Beatles poster, I spent time walking around the university belt, downtown Manila, and watched the kids, what they were wearing, what they were doing with their clothes. I took note of the little nuances: the open shirts, the sneakers, the way they tied their scarves. I adapted all of these but rehashed them by splashing it with lots of color. It was the early ‘80s, and people seemed to have tired from the color explosion of the past decade. So when I was looking around the department stores, from SM and Plaza Fair, all they had were beige and brown. Beige and brown! And the rest was just drab maroon.

So together with my brothers who were part of my production team, we bought a lot of shirts and dyed them. We bought those roundneck Crispa shirts—they were the ones that were really nice--bought our own stencils and printed away. We put pockets where there were none. We spray-painted fabrics. We made our own trinkets and accessories, put safety pins together, etc. We had a budget of P150,000 for the production design and costume. That was a lot of money during that time but clearly not enough for what I wanted to do. I wanted almost every scene to be big. Maglilipat lang ng bahay si Liza Lorena, people had to be playing with fireworks in the background. Mag-eexcursion lang sa beach kailangan may jeep driving through the shore.

The money was certainly not enough to dress up five boys, their girlfriends, their classmates and their mothers. We couldn’t just have people wear their own clothes because the look we were going for, in the clothes and in the sets, were mostly non-existent during that time. We were creating our own world, and we were dressing up its characters the way no one else was dressing up in real life. We had to resort to rehashing old clothes, or going to the department stores. We wanted the look to be different but not alienating to the young audience. I told Maryo that the look has to be reachable and affordable so that the kids will accept it.

Our guinea pigs, of course, were the five boys. They all somehow had similar outfits but you could see that some were a little bit nerdier than the others. At the start of the filming, I had already warned them: ‘Boys, paglalaruan ko kayo, paglalaruan natin ang mga damit niyo.’ Can you imagine any other young gym buff then wearing what JC was wearing: all those colorful shorts and yellow wristbands made of terry cloth? Making Aga Muhlach wear orange shoes was a big fight. And then there was that bowtie in the dance sequence. After awhile, they had began to accept that idea that we were doing something new. They would volunteer their own clothes but we would still rehash them, make them wear a different color undershirt, and then roll the sleeves with the undershirt peeking. That was a signature Bagets look.

They were wearing all these colourful outfits in a very colourful world. Because that was how I thought the kids saw their world, parang ‘70s, like some wonderful acid trip.

Bagets is really my claim to fame. Nobody here can claim that they made a film that changed the way people dressed up. I was nominated in the award-giving bodies the following year, but I never won. I don't even remember anymore who won, or for which movie. But, apparently, everybody seems to remember Bagets.As told to Jerome Gomez

Butch Garcia is the production designer for Bagets. His last film was the underrated Star Cinema project First Day High which tried to recreate a colorful youth world in the mold of Bagets.
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