It’s upscale but not uppity. The Rustan’s Department Store may be more known to carry luxury brands from abroad but in recent retail seasons, it has highlighted Filipino designers and Philippine-made merchandise.
In June the flagship at Makati City hosted “Celebrating the Finest of the Philippines,” an exhibit/sale of indigenous products from major regions. And homegrown labels, such as Natori, Criselda Lontok and Pia Gladys Perey, along
with Jojie Lloren’s labels Jill and Luna, are attracting customers as much as MontBlanc, Calvin Klein or Longchamp.
“Rustan’s has always geared every aspect of its operations to our shopper’s needs and expectations. This basic retailing philosophy permeates every phase of corporate decision-making and puts Rustan’s in a unique position to set trends, especially in fashion retailing,” Mike Tantoco Huang, quoting his grandmother and Rustan’s founder Gliceria Tantoco’s dictum, said in a previous interview.
For its latest retail coup, the swanky store gathered a dynamic crop of young designers for its first Rustan’s Circle. It’s a pop-up exhibit, running until September, of capsule collections that showcases each designer’s signature style while interpreting the elegant, classy flair of Rustan’s.
Mark Bumgarner, Rosanna Ocampo, Patty Ang, Happy Andranda and Mich Araullo are the fresh talents that Rustan’s will help propel into the level of its international womenswear RTW labels, such as Halston Heritage, Lilly Pulitzer, Marina Rinaldi, Eileen Fisher or Nicole Miller.
Araullo’s old-world sensibility and summers at the Italian Riviera inspired her to offer sundresses with tile prints, cinch-waist styles from the 1950s and button-down linen ensembles. Ocampo’s botanical pieces included silk cotton tops with appliques, consistent with her feminine mystique.
The avant-garde Andrada delivered edgy, detailed and textured dresses with digitally printed panoramas of Metro Manila. The adventurous Ang produced jumpsuits, halter necks and button skirts for the woman with an itinerant lifestyle.
“One of our many aspirations is to widen our reach and we believe that this partnership with Rustan’s will surely help us reach that objective. Together with Rustan’s, our brand will be able to create more happy and empowered women by sharing to them our pieces,” Patty Ang said in a statement.
Bumgarner, for his part, has a collection banking on nostalgia: his recent fascination with the 1960s-set TV show Mad Men and its stylish female leads Betty Draper (January Jones), Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). He also sells his handmade shoes with designs that are exclusive to Rustan’s.
Do you feel like you and your contemporaries are the future of Philippine fashion?
“Noooo!” He squealed when I asked him at his atelier a week before the Rustan’s Circle launch. Do you feel that responsibility?
“Not at all. I don’t like labeling, those type of things. My goal is to really be a brand that’s a hundred percent from the Philippines that can go abroad. That I don’t have to migrate. My clothes and all my items are made in Manila, and even Bollywood stars get to wear them. So it’s possible to be based here [while dressing up and taking orders from international clients]. You don’t have to move.”