I always see myself in all the stories I try to tell through clothing; and for this collection, I related myself- and so many people who are for betterment- to Fiyero, a privileged child of royalty in the universe of the Wicked Musical, who became selfless and an activist after knowing and fighting for the truth and in the end was turned into a scarecrow to survive the pain conflicted on him by the tyrant-protecting system or government body. I love how these “fairytales” can be used to describe the world we live in now albeit filled with fictitious magic and characters to add colour.
From the statement I made, I concur that you know what I am already talking about- the recent Philippine Elections, which awakened millions of “Fiyeros” among us to forget our constant longing of self-actualisation and purpose, and immerse ourselves to campaign for what is right and combat historical revisionism and false news; therefore exposing ourselves to blatant baseless attacks.
In the Wicked Musical, Fiyero found out through Elphaba that the Wizard of Oz is actually a vindictive “creature” rights violator with no magic credentials who is hiding behind his title as the leader of Oz. As expected, Elphaba, the green witch, was painted the Villain for discovering and exposing the truth and everyone who sides with her shall perish. Fiyero was tortured and was left for dead until Elphaba casted a spell on him- a spell that will prevent him from dying- turning him into something that can never bleed and can never be broken: a scarecrow.
We truly use narrations like these to speak our minds when it comes to serious issues: like in my first collection; we talked about how we often forget our childhood dreams and aspirations growing up due to the economic hindrances and quality of living through “Wanderings of Child Prince.” And how I portrayed the Red Riding Hood’s Wolf as a transgender woman in “Howling: a wolf’s Longing” and how I give the enlightenment back to the normal and ideal relationship of two men from Ancient Greece through “Eromenos: Loving the Beloved” to fight for the SOGIE bill in the country.
Aside from the political connotations, our “For Fiyero” collection tackles more of a person’s ability to change and to transform for betterment. As our muses walk the runway we open with who he was, an overly confident privileged student achieved by deconstructed dark formal wear inspired by private school uniform pieces; continue with his adulthood as a prince and guard, achieved with piña wear cut as coats; his torture, achieved by distressed and patched knitwear, intimates and mended clothing; to his transformation into a scarecrow, achieved by white knits, straw hats, and embellished serpents to signify healing.
I also want to prove through this collection the wastefulness of the seasonal transition of fashion; for in addition to pieces we created through restyling, mending and upcycling personal clothing, we had restyled already existing pieces of the brand; elaborating more on the timelessness and versatility of a well-thought eco-conscious design.
models (in Sequence of appearance)
Ricardo Rivera of Perfetto Model Management, Algen aparis, JD Caparoso, Lance Formentera, Kiefer Adrei, Kevin Garcia, Joshua Cavada, Rian, Noel Yap and Kemal Alay of Perfetto Model Management.
Photos by Noel Benjamin Fernandez