way past barongs and soens.

so as i was perusing rafe totengco's page for some spring vacation clutch inspiration (those that know me know that the LAST type of purse i need is a clutch but i can't get enough - see post on obsession), i stumbled across his blog again.

sidenote: for those that don't know, rafe is an international accessories designer that happens to be from the philippines. his bags are well known over the world and are huge amongst celebrities. his shop is in manhattan.

as part of his philippine celebrity, he was asked to guest judge the project runway philippines season 1 finale.

my 1st thought: oooh! i love project runway!
my 2nd thought: there's a project runway philippines?!

i watched the finale episode start to finish and it's pretty impressive that they were able to make a pretty much exact replica of the US version of the show. and i was doubly impressed and pleasantly surprised at the talent of the designers there. not that i doubt that filipinos have haute couture style but my view of the philippines is limited to my mom's provincial town/island (not that i'm hating because it's my favorite place in the philippines!) or the herds of people walking through the SM in makati - lovely, but not exactly bryant park.

i loved certain parts of all three collections, however, the obvious winner (and crowd fav) for his risks and impeccable sewing skills was aries lagat.


to see some filipino orginality (like totally "ee-no-bay-tib"), check out minute 2:30 until about 3:15. (take that US project runway!). my other favorite part of this episode was 8:23-8:24 but for all the wrong reasons.

if you want to see the whole episode and even better - who won (and how he admittedly embarrassed himself by falling down and hurting his knee - albeit in a endearing i-just-realized-my-dream kinda way), check out sweet project's you tube channel. pictures of all three collections (and other philippine fashion events) can be seen at kael06's flickr.