FOR years, Shanon Pamaong lived and worked as a fashion designer in Toronto, Canada, until 1995 when he moved to Paris. He took a fashion course there and worked with couture houses, the last one being with Lecoanet Hemant.

“While I was teaching there, I was also conducting seminars for YDG [Young Designers Guild] members Dennis Lustico, Ivar Aseron, Ignacio Loyola, Tina Daniac, Tippi Ocampo, Dong Omaga-Diaz and Yvonne Quisumbing, as well as with other fashion design groups. Before one seminar ends, I will have a list already of the next group wanting to attend my workshops,” Pamaong recalls. “So I decided to formalize the training and opened the Fashion Institute of the Philippines in 2003 with eight students: Ronaldo Arnaldo, Jerome Salaya Ang, John Herrera, Dennis Martin, Francis Calaquian and other Fashion Designers Association of Philippines members.”

There was not much struggle in the early days of the FIP because the school quickly had interested students lining up to enlist at the most competent fashion school to ever open in the country. The challenge, Pamaong explains, was just to deliver the best training in order to sustain the continuity of the school. “I believe that FIP graduates will speak for itself,” he proudly declares.

“I feel very fulfilled to see successful students and graduates. Some have opened their own shops and gotten recognition from fashion magazines and editors. When I see their work in magazines and newspapers, I look at them as my work too. When they do the designer’s bow to the applause of the audience during fashion shows, feeling ko ako na rin ’yung nag-bow at pinalakpakan. This is on top on the message of thanks and gratitude they extend to me for helping them in their career. It is very fulfilling for me,” Pamaong says.

Pamaong’s philosophy as a mentor remains steadfast and unwavering: “That would be to share my technical know-how to as many people and, in the long run, help our fashion industry. In line with this, I am now preoccupied with the opening of the branches of the school in major cities to be able to reach as many fashion enthusiasts as possible. Also, this will provide continuity for the school when the time comes that I or my other associates will be unable to impart our know-how for one reason or another.”

Career

THE pocket design dynamo talks about his evolution as a designer in his own words:

“I started my fashion career in Toronto, Canada, where our family migrated. I designed for friends who were participating in local beauty contests, eventually winning awards for the best gown or the best in long gown. I have an inborn talent in designing which I got from my mother, who was our city’s [Tagbilaran, Bohol] most popular seamstress/dressmaker during her time.

“I did my first collection during the Binibining Pilipinas Canada show in Toronto and one of the judges was Alfred Sung, a very famous designer at the time whose creations were distributed all over Canada and the US. I ended up working for him. Then I formalized my natural knowledge in fashion by taking pattern courses in a fashion school in Toronto. Later on, I tied up with a manufacturing firm who did the distribution of my label all over Canada. Eventually, I opened my own shop and boutique there until the time I left for Paris.”

“I really do not work on inspirations. I’m self-taught, no mentor except of course the faculties of the fashion schools I went to. I observe and study fashion trends especially during my travels. I pick up a lot of ideas and techniques along the way, then I do my own interpretation of the techniques that can be applicable to particular clients, in particular locations and occasions.  “Nothing is a new invention in fashion. Almost everything has been discovered or done by the masters already. The best you can do is to think of new and innovative ways of recreating them. I admire the tailoring techniques of Armani, the feminine glamour of Valentino, the bias and draping techniques of Madame Vionnet, which I think the new generation of designers including those heading the different fashion house is also getting their inspiration from.

“Expanding your undertakings to other fields kills the very concept of specialization. By specializing, you will be able to dig the best in that field, as opposed to spreading your wings to a lot of other things. That’s why I limit myself to what I do best—clothes. I am not a beauty expert or a chemist, and I don’t find the rationale of attaching your name to a line of beauty products and accessories without knowing the ins and outs of these products.”

On striking on one’s own or working as an apprentice

“WE are always swarmed with requests from different fashion companies for prospective employees. Those who are good and excel in their field would rather do it on their own especially if they have the resources to establish their own business. They are independent, manage their own time, and have no boss behind their back.

“Financially, because they are good, what these companies are offering them for an eight-hour a day work, they believe they can earn with an average of three to four custom-made orders in a month working on their own time and being their own boss.

“However, for the sake of experience in how a business is run, learning the setup of a business and getting approval for their work as well as proving that there is a demand for their work and ideas, a lot of graduates are working with named brand manufacturers.”

Designers as publicity hounds

“I WISH designers, fashion magazines, writers and stylists will realize that fashion is also a business—which means giving importance to clothes that ordinary people can really wear to different occasions. It is sad to say that in their desire to gain recognition and attention, a lot of designers resort to doing weird things to catch the attention of magazines but the end product is is that all these clothes merely end up accumulating dust on their racks. Their only use was for photoshoots for magazine editorials, or they are borrowed by some celebrity for occasions or some TV shows and the designer never gets to recoup the considerable cost he or she incurred in producing those outfits.

“If to them being published or worn by celebrities is a mark of success, then they should reconsider their priorities. If they have to bring food to the table, if they need to provide themselves the necessities as well as the luxuries in life, then they have to be realistic by producing really wearable yet fashionable creations, definitely not the weird, unwearable ones that are only good for  publicity.

“I am not into celebrity clients. Some celebrities wearing the designers’ clothes are not really ‘clients’, they just borrow the clothes from the designers in exchange for publicity. The real clients are the paying matrons who may be celebrities or not; the girl-next-door debutant, and the ordinary and even low-profile brides and mothers.”

Press relations

“I WORK well with the press, I’m very generous in lending clothes for photoshoots, but sometimes the relationship can easily turn sour especially when the stylists do not care to return the clothes and you have to chase them with texts and calls before they finally return these with the usual apology of ‘sorry na-busy lang talaga’, though they are never too busy to pull out clothes for their needs.

“It is also sad to say that some in the press who cover fashion are seemingly more on looking for flaws and criticizing the works of some designers. The foreign press, in contract, who typically do not say anything at all if they have nothing good to say. They only review the works that to them are good. This way, we help encourage the designers to excel in their work instead of putting them down.”

Photographed by Louie Pariñas

Grooming by Mikee Andrei

Clothes by Shanon Pamaong

Modeled by Glenn Wolf, Juan Donald

Styling by Argie Salango

• The Fashion Institute of the Philippines main campus is in Ortigas, with branches in Quezon City, Makati, Cebu and Cagayan de Oro. www.fashioninstitutephil.com.